As a financial adviser, you probably find the science behind finance super interesting—and we agree with you. But we also have to acknowledge that most people find financial matters confusing, mind-numbing, and even scary at times. Sending your clients weekly emails on investment tips or retirement planning is useful, but it also gets repetitive—kind of like someone who won’t stop showing you pictures of their kids.
Educational emails are great for establishing expertise and providing value, but all of that value is dead in the water if your clients never open your emails—which you risk if you flood them with too much nothing-but-finance content.
Break the monotony and increase engagement by adding a financial spin to topics your clients already care about. It’s also an opportunity to add some personality and fun to your brand and your relationships. Talk about celebrities. Talk about travel. Talk about financial scandals or how personal finances might work in your favorite sci-fi universe. We love putting this into practice— one of our favorite (and top-performing) campaigns was about celebrity money mistakes.
Let’s break down why this works so well.
Financial-Adjacent Themes Create More Engagement
In our 2020 and 2021 State of Digital Reports, we gathered data from 52,906 campaigns and 16,214,916 emails that our members sent to their clients and found that more than half of the top-performing engagement campaigns contained financial-adjacent content.
Clients opened emails that they could relate to or were interested in. For example, we found that many clients see themselves as “News Readers,” meaning they are interested in current events. It only follows that one of our top-performing campaigns in 2020 was “25 of the Most Interesting Things That Happened in 2019.”
Additionally, in 2020, our top five email subject lines (based on open rates) didn’t even mention money or finances. In fact, one of our best-performing subject lines was “Practical advice (and Frodo’s lesson).”
Financial-Adjacent Content Helps You Build Relationships
According to Vanguard’s Adviser Investment Insight data, 53% of clients define the foundation of trust as emotional, 30% define it as ethical, and only 17% define it as functional. Financial-adjacent content builds trust and improves client relationships because it shows your clients that you care enough to know what they’re interested in.
For example, one of our top campaigns in 2020 was about the elections. We created it because we knew that clients were interested in current events and were worried about how politics could affect their economy and their finances.
The campaign performed so well because it showed clients that their advisers were looking out for them. When you send clients emails about financial-related events that could cause worry, you show them that you genuinely care about their well-being and that you’re a shoulder to lean on during tough times. You also show them that you understand their emotions, worries, and stressors.
As you continue to show care, you establish trust. When you establish a high level of trust with your clients by showing them that you care about their success, you gain more business. On the other hand, 22% of high net worth clients and 25% of ultra-high net worth clients switch advisers because their advisers neglected building relationships.
3 Tips on Finding Financial-Adjacent Themes to Creating Engaging Content
Creating engaging content is an art—which is why we’re here to help you out by showing you exactly how we do it and how you can do it, too:
1. Talk to Your Clients to Find What They’re Interested In
To craft engaging email content, you need to first find out what your clients are interested in. Some actions we suggest that you take are:
- Outright asking them what their affinities, interests, and hobbies are during your first call or initial meeting
- Sending them surveys on a regular basis
- Asking them how much they enjoy your content (if you’re already sending financial-adjacent content)
- Listen intently when your clients start talking about things outside of their financial goals
If you still don’t know where to start, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 affinities and interests of clients, using the information we got from Snappy Kraken members:
2. Use Your Financial Expertise to Create Engaging Campaigns
Remember, your perspective as a financial expert is part of the value of financial-adjacent content. Take the GameStop incident from early 2021, wherein Reddit users nearly upended the stock market with a flood of investments. It’s something your clients may have heard of, but your ability to break down what actually happened and explain the financial implications is a huge value-add to your clients.
Here are some examples of our other top campaigns to give you some content ideas:
- Do This if You Win the Lottery
- What Investors Need to Know About Marijuana
- Celebrity Money Mistakes
- How Safe Is Your Job From Automation?
- 2020 Lessons Learned
- Cost of Raising Children
- Undervalued Travel Destinations
3. Remember: Your Goal Is to Build Relationships, Not Upsell
With finance-adjacent content, your goal is to start a conversation or tell your clients that they don’t need to worry because they can trust in and rely on you. Keep those goals in mind; the overarching goal isn’t to upsell—it’s to build a relationship.
Liven up your content and make it more relatable by:
- Starting emails by sharing a relatable story about your personal life
- Telling your clients what you’re feeling about certain events and why
- Adding appropriate images to your emails
- Asking specific questions that prompt responses like, “How does X make you feel? What is confusing/worrying you about Y?”
Talk to your clients like friends, and they’ll treat you the same way.
Figure out what your clients are interested in and build content around those interests. If you want to learn more about crafting engaging emails, check out our HELP! Framework.
Find the Right Balance Between Educational and Financial-Adjacent Content to Increase Client Engagement
Don’t get us wrong—still send educational content that establishes you as an expert by straight-up teaching your clients about important financial matters. That’s a big part of your value proposition as a financial adviser. Just find the balance.
You don’t like it when your friends show you their baby pictures all day, every day, so don’t do the same thing to your clients. Send a healthy mix of educational content and financial-adjacent content. That way, you’re educating your clients and adding value while also sending them interesting and engaging content.
If you don’t think you have time to create that content, check out Snappy Kraken. We build the campaigns and content for you so that all you need to do is hit “launch” and see your marketing do wonders for your business.
Wondering if Snappy Kraken is right for you?
