Over the last decade, email has been a useful marketing tool finance advisers use to widen their reach. In spite of social media’s rise, email remains to be a primary marketing channel. In fact, 66 out of 100 consumers made a purchase as a result of an email marketing message, topping channels such as direct mail, text messaging, and even social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
This only proves that email can be a high-return marketing channel. But as more and more businesses gravitate towards email marketing ( in the form of mailing list, newsletters, or advertising), making yours stand out can be difficult. Thus, you have to work harder and smarter to up your email marketing game.
Here are 6 email marketing tips for finance professionals like you.
Tip #1 – Run an opt-in newsletter.
Email lists are the traditional marketing’s ally. Opt-in email forms, on the contrary, is one of modern inbound marketing’s most powerful weapons.
An opt-in newsletter is a simple communication tool that offers several advantages to professionals that take advantage of using it. According to SRS Coaching and Consulting, an effective newsletter can improve a financial adviser’s word of mouth marketing, boost reputation building, and increase the chance of traffic conversion.
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Opt-in forms also enable you to gather important data about your prospects that you could later on use when writing your newsletter.
To amplify your reach even more and grow your email list while limiting unwanted subscribers, a blog from WPNewsman suggests using the double opt-in method. “To protect yourself from invalid and unwanted subscriptions, ask users to confirm their subscription,” the article states.
Tip #2 – Keep track of your metrics and test, test, test!
The sheer volume of data available today can be really daunting even for the savviest of email marketers. As a financial adviser, you need to understand that paying attention to your newsletter metrics can make a huge difference in your email marketing initiatives.
Image Source: writtent.com
Kyle O’Riley of Writtent has enumerated a number of metric tools that can be used to track the success of the newsletters you send out. One metric marketers use is the Spam Complaint Rate, which allows you to see how many of your newsletters were marked as spam.
Being able to keep track of your newsletters will help you determine what messages are resonating to your readers and what does not. From there, you can improve your copy, focus on topics that your readers prefer, and test which ones resonate best.
Tip #3 – Maintain your lists.
Each year, you could lose a third of your subscribers from bounces, address changes, and unsubscribes. If you are not keeping an eye on your list and replacing passive addresses with active ones, you could lose all your subscribers anytime soon.
Carly Stec of Impact Branding & Design says making use of segmentation will help you build, maintain, and grow a strong email subscriber list. “The key to successful email communication is careful, and strategic list segmentation, as it eliminates your company’s chance of coming off as spam-y,” she reveals.
Instead of blasting a generic newsletter out to your commercial and residential subscribers, Stec suggests that you segment a list for your residential email subscribers and a separate list for your commercial email subscribers. This way, you’ll get a better picture of your buyer persona, allowing you to send emails out the right people.
According to the Lyris Annual Email Optimizer Report, 28 percent of marketers who utilised this approach experienced lower unsubscribe rates, and 24 percent reportedly had greater revenue and better deliverability.
Tip #4 – Use email to leverage other parts of your inbound marketing.
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Organic search is a great source for conversions. But, you can’t depend upon it solely. In a study, email marketing has been found to have the highest conversation rates among other areas of inbound marketing, particularly search and social. By using email to leverage your other marketing initiatives, you increase your chance for better visibility, brand awareness, and lead conversions.
Tip #5 – Use personalisation.
Since newsletters are typically shared with dozens or even hundreds of people, many financial advisers take a detached tone when writing them. In reality, though, no one really wants to read messages composed this way.
When composing newsletters, use a personal approach. Personalised emails were found to produce 500 percent more conversions than generic emails, according to an Experian Marketing Services study. Despite this, however, 70 in 100 businesses fail to maximise this approach.
Don’t join the majority. Instead, make your messages sound conversational and use layman’s terms for a more personal tone. If there’s anything that could drive your prospects away, it’s financial jargon and complex terminology.
A newsletter that uses second pronouns | Image Source: e-cbd.com
Also, addressing your subscribers by their name and using first and second pronouns may make your readers feel genuinely connected with you. Use their first names as a starter, but do not mention it too often in the body. Just use it as if you are directly conversing to your subscribers, so that you don’t come across as a used automobile salesman.
If you don’t have your reader’s profile, adjust your opt-in newsletter forms, so that you can collect vital information from your potential clients. But be sure to go easy on the required fields. The longer it takes for them to fill up the subscribe form, the more likely that they won’t. Keep it simple and easy.
Tip #6 – Be strategic.
Avoid the trap of sending self-promotional messages. Instead, focus your efforts on writing a newsletter with value, relevance, and humor. Pay close attention to the message you are trying to get across, determine your buyer persona, include a call to action, and practice segmenting readers into different subscriber baskets.
No matter how competitive your niche is, a well thought out email marketing can certainly be beneficial. With a strategic email marketing, you can drive traffic back to your website continuously and increase your chance for higher conversions.