Updated on: June 15, 2022

As a financial professional, when you hear the word “marketing,” you might immediately think about promoting your services to acquire new clients.

But your marketing efforts shouldn’t focus on prospects alone—they should take your current clients into account, too.

Client communications are an essential part of any firm’s marketing strategy because it sets the stage for an exceptional client experience and—in the long run—helps grow your business.

Planting Seeds and Helping Them Grow

After acquiring a new client, your work isn’t done from a marketing standpoint. You should always seek opportunities to deepen the relationship, justify your value, and introduce clients to other services they could benefit from.

You may have established a relationship with a client, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will grow into a fruitful one, or that your client will stick with you in the long run.

Much like planting a seed, your client relationships need to be cared for. This means keeping them engaged and providing continual value. Proactively communicating with your client on a regular basis is a great way to nurture that relationship.

The Impact of a Consistent Client Communication Strategy

Investing in your client communications is time and money well-spent—and the numbers back this up. Here are some ways it can benefit your business:

• Engage clients with high AUM. According to one study, 60 percent of clients with more than $500,000 AUM consider customer service and communication to be among their top three most important factors when selecting a financial advisor. It’s the second-most-important factor, with the most important being a deep understanding of the client and their goals.¹
• Build trust. One-quarter of households that have a financial advisor name reputation/trust as the reason for their satisfaction.² By continually highlighting your expertise and supporting your clients between meetings, you continue to reinforce your authority and build trust with them.
• Raise client retention. Keeping the lines of communication open keeps clients engaged and invested in their financial planning journey, which can ultimately deepen your relationship. Advisors who have deeper client relationships have the best retention rates on average—even compared with firms that have a larger pool of clients.³
• Maintain relationships in a post-COVID world. One Cerulli report predicts that once the financial advice industry adjusts to the “new normal,” many in-person meetings will resume.² However, they also believe time-saving virtual meetings will continue to be the standard with well-established clients that are in good standing.² While lack of travel saves firms time and money, it will present further challenges for keeping these clients engaged. Continually communicating can help with that.

Client Communications as an Acquisition Blueprint

If you want to bring in new clients, focusing on client communications first can be helpful. This is especially true if you’re just beginning your marketing journey or want to develop a more comprehensive acquisition strategy.

If your firm has limited time or resources, it’s just plain easier to experiment with different marketing methods and messages when addressing an audience that you already have. After all, your ideal prospect and your ideal client will have a lot in common.

Take the lessons learned from your client communications and apply them to your client acquisition efforts.

For example, if you send out an email to your clients that contains a piece of content about budgeting and it receives little engagement, then that topic may not resonate with your clients. That means it probably won’t resonate with your ideal prospects either.

However, if you send out a piece about estate planning that receives a lot of engagement, then you may want to apply this knowledge to your acquisition efforts and leverage similar content to engage prospects.

Take Your Client Communications to the Next Level

Creating high-quality client communications is easier than you might think. Here are a few actions you can take to get started:

• Educate: As a financial professional, your value lies in your expertise and ability to guide the client along their financial journey. Using client communications as an opportunity to deliver educational content that highlights your value—not just as a planner, but as a curator of trusted information—makes you invaluable. According to the eMoney Consumer Marketing study, 63 percent of consumers say informative, educational content makes an advisor’s marketing stand out.⁴
• Personalize: There are many ways to personalize your communications but you can get creative depending on the data that’s available to you. The more relevant your messages are to the recipient, the more likely it is to resonate with them and provide value. Eighty-four percent of consumers say that personalized content is very or extremely important when working with an advisor.⁴
• Align: It’s vital to align your communications with your firm’s unique client journey. Understanding what your client needs at each stage of their journey and tailoring your communications to help them complete any outstanding to-dos creates a stickier client journey overall.
• Automate: Marketing automation isn’t just useful for landing new business—it can be an essential tool for engaging current clients, too. While most automation tools streamline marketing workflows, investing in a solution that’s designed for financial professionals can help save you even more time and bring your communication efforts to scale.

Watch the Building a Strong Digital Brand webinar to hear experts at Fidelity Investments and eMoney Advisor help you define, create, and promote your firm’s unique brand.

Sources:

1. “How Can Advisors Better Communicate With Clients?” YCharts, 2019, December.

2. “U.S. Advisor Metrics: 2020 Dimensions of Diversity.” Cerulli Associates, 2020. December 18.

3. “U.S. Institutional Marketing and Sales Organizations 2021: Finding the New Normal in a Post-Pandemic Environment.” Cerulli Associates, 2021. August 11.

4. 2020 eMoney Consumer Marketing Survey, September 2020, n=2,000.

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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