Email Best Practices for Advisors

One of the most common missteps in financial services is slow or inconsistent follow-up after someone shows interest. Whether they signed up for a webinar, downloaded a resource, or submitted a contact form, that first window of engagement is when they are most likely to take action. Unfortunately, most firms do not have a process in place to capitalize on it.

Without a system, follow-up becomes a guessing game. Emails get delayed, leads go cold, and opportunities slip through the cracks. In fact, an overwhelming 73 percent of investors say email is their preferred method of communication. In this blog, we will explore how to build a consistent and timely communication cadence that keeps your firm top of mind, and how a well-structured workflow can ensure it happens reliably, every single time.

What Works Well for Your Clients

Clients want their advisors to be in contact with them. One of the most common reasons clients switch advisors is if their advisor lacks communication skills and doesn’t communicate frequently. However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. If you over-communicate with clients, you risk them being overwhelmed by email and ignoring your requests. Nearly 70 percent of people feel overwhelmed by their inboxes. Sending too many emails or including too much information can overwhelm clients and cause them not to respond or even open the email.

The first hour after someone interacts with your brand — whether by signing up, downloading, or asking a question — is when they’re warmest. You need to have a process in place that starts the conversation immediately. Drip on them that hour, then the next day, then the next week. Show up just enough to stay relevant without becoming a nuisance.

The goal is to keep your name front and center before they’re ready to act, so that when the moment comes, they already know where to go and who to trust. A good rule of thumb is to strike the right balance: too many emails, and they’ll unsubscribe. Too few, and they’ll forget who you are. At a minimum, consider sending an email every month or every quarter based on your audience’s preferences. Tie your content to relevant moments — like tax season, market events, or year-end planning — and supplement with personal touches when it makes sense.

Cater Messages to Client Needs

Email is crucial to strong communication and relationships. But it can’t be the same mass message sent to every client. Clients can see through a mass email and will know that it isn't personalized.

Effective email marketing is targeted and relevant to each client. A client getting ready to send their child to college will likely need different messages than a client months away from retirement. Personalize emails so that clients get information that's relevant to them.

That doesn't mean you have to write a custom email to every client. Group clients in similar life stages or with similar demographics, and then send personalized emails to each group. What sort of personalized emails can you send?

• Industry updates
• Product highlights
• Links to webinars, articles, and classes
• Recommendations for various life stages

Streamline with Automation

It may seem counterintuitive if you want to send personalized messages, but automation can be a powerful tool for email communication.

To keep your clients engaged, deliver the right content at the right time. Personalizing emails with your clients’ names is a simple step, but if you want to provide custom-made content for your clients, automation is essential. And automation saves you time!  Automation allows you to set behavior rules that will trigger emails based on clients’ behavior. For example, you could set a rule that automatically sends a series of welcome emails when a client subscribes to your email list.

Segmenting your client lists can help you personalize your content to your clients even further. You can create groups within your contacts based on your clients’ ages, interests, careers, income, or any other categories you prefer. Then you can target certain groups and create drip campaigns with content uniquely suited to their needs.

Make It Visually Interesting

With all the email templates on the market, there’s no excuse for bad graphic design. Your email layout should be easy to follow, consistently branded, and structured to highlight your most important content.

The presentation of your text is also vital to visual interest. To facilitate online reading, include headings to break up long blocks of text, put essential information at the beginning, and use bullet points rather than long paragraphs.

To increase the odds of your emails getting opened, carefully consider subject lines. A/B tests of different subject lines can help you determine which subject lines are most effective.

Keep Copies of Emails

Like most things advisors do, client emails have regulations they must follow. Email communication falls under record-keeping rules, meaning advisors have to archive email correspondence correctly.

According to the SEC Books and Records rule, emails and other records must be kept for at least five years, with the most recent two years' worth of content easily accessible at all times.

If you're ready to stop guessing and start following up with confidence, Hubly can help you build a communication cadence that actually sticks. With pre-built workflows designed for everything from prospect follow-up to annual client touchpoints, you can put a system in place that keeps your pipeline moving and your relationships strong. Whether you're creating a series for new inquiries or building out a general outreach schedule, Hubly helps make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Add a little automation and it becomes the cherry on top. You will have more time to focus on the conversations that truly matter.

Start your free trial of Hubly today and keep your follow-up consistent, clear, and client-ready