Updated on: November 6, 2023

When it comes to your firm’s growth, retaining current clients and deepening wallet share is just as important as attracting new clients. Considering that landing and onboarding a new client can be a heavy lift, once you have someone, you should focus on keeping them.

Aside from your in-person or digital meetings, there are numerous opportunities to connect with your clients through communications and outreach. The secret to keeping your clients engaged through outreach is simple: Keep the focus on them.

Here’s how you can implement this simple principle in your client outreach and communications to maximize engagement.

1. Proactively Provide Value

Research by Fidelity found that 64 percent of advisors have made content marketing an essential element of their digital marketing strategy¹—and for good reason.

Conversations about building a digital marketing strategy around content often revolve around the ways content can attract prospects, solidify your brand identity, and increase your overall digital presence. But it can help deepen relationships with your current clients, too.

Incorporating content into your client outreach throughout the year is vital for staying top-of-mind. Not only is it helpful, but it also establishes trust and positions you as the client’s go-to source for reliable financial information.

2. Focus on Solutions

It’s not enough to provide useful content. Your content needs to be useful for the specific client you’re sending it to. The more you address your clients’ key concerns, the more engaged they will be.

It’s tempting to use your content and client communications to overtly promote yourself. But the most engaging way to reinforce your value is by shifting the focus away from yourself and on to the client. More specifically, your communications should help them face their financial (and sometimes personal) challenges.

You can easily tease out these key challenges when talking with them. To help, ask yourself these questions:

• Do certain questions or concerns continually pop up in your conversations?
• Are there any to-dos in their client portal that seem to be stuck?
• Do they have a big life event on the horizon?
• Which of your buyer personas do they fall into?

Answering these questions can help you select content and create communications that speak to your clients’ concerns and help them further engage with their plan.

3. Simplify Your Language

Pay attention to the language you use. Whether you’re writing a social media post or a blog post, use everyday language and avoid jargon. Communicating the way your client speaks shows the client that you’re speaking directly to them, rather than at them.

Dropping industry lingo won’t make you look unprofessional or less capable. Instead, it shows you’re putting your clients’ needs and understanding first. Personalizing communications in this way not only increases engagement but also strengthens that sense of connection and builds deeper relationships with clients.

4. Keep Content Digestible

When leveraging content for client outreach, create or curate content that’s short and easy to read. Your clients have many other priorities (and communications) competing for their attention. Keeping things short and sweet increases their likelihood of engaging with the piece.

Also, select content that’s broken up into subheadings with short paragraphs—especially if the content is more in-depth. According to a recent study that tracked eye movement in participants, most people skim through digital content and skip around to read the parts that interest them.² Structuring your content around this behavior makes them more likely to engage.

5. Keep Your Emails Digestible, Too

Sixty percent of financial professionals identify email as one of their top three most effective marketing tactics.¹

But just like content, you need to take your client’s time into consideration. The average person receives 121 emails per day.³ Your clients are more likely to engage with something short and simple rather than long and overwhelming.

For example, if you’re sending a piece of content to a client via email, you only need to cover the following points:

• A brief description of the content you’ve sent
• A one-sentence explanation of why that specific client should care about the content
• A soft Call to Action (CTA)

This simple formula can also apply to writing social posts that showcase a piece of content as well.

Continual Outreach Deepens Relationships

Keeping in touch with your clients and maximizing their engagement between meetings is crucial. According to the Fidelity study, advisors who followed digital marketing best practices like content marketing and email marketing had a higher median AUM than advisors that didn’t.¹ They were also significantly more likely to have grown their AUM in the past year.¹

When your outreach focuses on solving the client’s problems and offering value, you show that you’re capable of listening and understanding their needs. For your planning clients, it can increase their overall engagement with their financial plan and derive more value from your advice. For your investment clients, this continual demonstration of value and understanding of their greater goals may just be the push they need to venture into planning.

To learn more about how you can engage your clients through thoughtful communication, sign up for our free six-day email course Understanding the Customer’s Journey and Decision-making Process.

Sources:

1. The Case for Digital Marketing, Fidelity, October 2020.

2. Moran, Kate. “How People Read Online: New and Old Findings.” Nielson Norman Group, 2020. April 5. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-people-read-online/.

3. “How Many Emails Does The Average Person Receive Per Day?” Campaign Monitor. https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/knowledge-base/how-many-emails-does-the-average-person-receive-per-day/.

DISCLAIMER: The eMoney Advisor Blog is meant as an educational and informative resource for financial professionals and individuals alike. It is not meant to be, and should not be taken as financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Those seeking professional advice may do so by consulting with a professional advisor. eMoney Advisor will not be liable for any actions you may take based on the content of this blog.

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