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Optimizing your newsletter
Main reasons why Advisor newsletter work...
• Solidify current client relationships
• Continuous reminder for prospects
• Position yourself as a business partner, expert and source of information for your professional network
A newsletter is a commitment. Once you start you must deliver quality information consistently. Before you decide if a newsletter is right for your practice, start by assessing your current situation:
- Why do you want to write a newsletter? What are you trying to achieve?
- Who is your target market, what do you want them to do after reading your newsletter?
- Why should your target market care about your newsletter, what problems will it solve for them?
- What are your topics, every newsletter should answer two questions paramount to readers: What's in it for me? Why should I care?
- What frequency do you want to commit to?
- Do you have the time and financial resource to commit to a newsletter?
Convinced and ready to start a newsletter? Read on...
Cognitive fluency
Cognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, people prefer things that are easy to process mentally. Key points to ensure a successful newsletter;
Language
Use language that is client-centric, it's about your client, not about you or a product/service. Talk to your reader, not at your reader by using the word 'you'. Use active verbs as opposed to passive verbs for a faster read. Take a conversation tone in your writing; imagine your client is in front of you.
Use a language that is appropriate to your reader - not too complex for the average investor and a more sophisticated language for professionals. Refrain from using industry lingo, fancy or technical wording. When jargon is inevitable, use hyperlinks to Wikipedia or Investopedia to help your readers understand your content.
White space
People don't read they scan. Information presented must be simple, straight forward and presented clearly. Don't overload your newsletter with too much information. Use simple readable font, when you use a hard to read font, people automatically transfer that to a difficult topic. Write your newsletter to look fast, the faster it looks to handle, the better your chances of getting a quick response.
Don't use sentences that are too long, maximum of 15-20 words. Limit your paragraphs to 2 or 3 sentences, use short, to the point, mini-headlines, this will help you separate section and attract attention. When using bullet points, limit number of items to five or less
Repeat, and repeat again
Repeat your main point at least twice (1) at the beginning either in your title or the first two sentences and (2) at the end in your summary sentence.
Length
The more complex your topic or knowledgeable your reader is of the content, the longer your newsletter should be. You must answer your reader's questions, anticipate their objections and provide turnkey solution where their issue is addresses and resolved.
Presenting data
When presenting data use multiple formats to increase readers' comprehension: bar charts, pie charts and pictures.
Frequencies vs percentages; people have trouble converting percentages into real terms; it is easier to understand 1 out of 5 than 20% (obviously this does not apply to rate of return!).
Testimonials
People love testimonials, when possible include result-oriented testimonial (e.g. Client X saved $ in taxes) or a case study your reader can relate to.
Dynamic segmentation
If you want your newsletters to perform exceptionally well consider tailoring your content to each individual recipient group utilising dynamic content and segmentation techniques. Ideally all your clients fall into 2 or 3 profiles; these profiles should consider demographic criteria (age, size of portfolio, etc.) and psychographic criteria (according to attitude, aspirations, etc.).
When mapping out the topics of interest and timeline of your newsletter, see how you can take advantage of side bars, add links to various article or different language to customize your content to each client profile. For example, a general newsletter can be sent to all your clients and a modified version of your newsletter can be sent to the niche target market you want to expand.
Frequency
Marketing is all about frequency, you want your target market to see your name over and over again. Studies show;
• After 30 days people forget who they have met
• A monthly newsletter is the best frequency to stay to of mind
• It typically takes 6-7 touches to convert a prospect into a client
• Loyal clients are contacted at least 24 times annually, and they invest more than 16 times the asset of 'satisfied' clients
As previously stated not all clients will be interested in the topic of your newsletter at the moment you decide to send it. Consider sending a 'year in review' or 'articles worth repeating' early summer and before holidays. This allows you to save time and money by re-using articles and lets your target market read, or re-read, past issues of your newsletter when they have more time to allocate to the subject at hand.
A successful newsletter is a three part series
1. Attention grabber
Studies show the three main factors people read emails received are:
- Subject line
- content in preview window interesting
- know sender
Subject line
Your subject line is the biggest influencer in the mind of your readers. Take time to craft and re-word it in your reader's language and grab their attention immediately.
Preview window (aka reading pane)
The first 2-5 lines of your newsletter must tell your reader why they should continue reading, how can they benefit from the information provided.
2 Content
If you want to create a successful newsletter your readers will anticipate, read and act upon, you must include content that resonates with them logically, intellectually and most of all emotionally. Appealing to their aspiration is key to a successful newsletter.
Talk about issues that matter to them, not only market or products in the case of COI provide quality information that can help them in their practice.
3 Call to action
You must get your reader to respond and act after reading your newsletter.
Summarize your content and benefit to your reader in one sentence then end your newsletter with one call to action you'd like your reader to take;
* ask them to think about something
* ask them to contact you for more information
* ask them to call/email you to book a meeting
Make it simple for them to take action, use hyperlinks that automatically open their email program and send you preformatted email containing the title of your newsletter or action you want them to take. This will increase your response rate and allow you to respond quickly and appropriately.
Leverage your touch point
Network
Take this opportunity to network by inviting your readers to forward your newsletter to friends, family or network. For non-web based newsletter you can simply add one sentence at the end of your newsletter; Please feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend by clicking 'forward' from your toolbar.
Subscribe
Once your newsletter developed, forward your latest piece to everyone you meet along with a note stating that you added them on your distribution list, what they can expect in terms of content and frequency of publication.
You can also increase your readership by inviting third party recipients to subscribe to your newsletter: Was this email forwarded to you? If so, subscribe today to start receiving your own copy
Remember to always send new readers your privacy statement along with your mission statement (if you have the latter).
Unsubscribe
In this era where we are all inundated with email and out of respect to your reader, an unsubscribe option should always be available;
This message was sent from 'ENTER NAME' with FIRM. If you do not wish to receive future emails, please forward this message to: 'ENTER EMAIL ADDRESS' and type in "unsubscribe" in the subject line.
The power of P.S.
A postscript is a great opportunity to re-state the benefits of the content of your newsletter and your call to action to your readers. This should never be longer than on sentence.
Technical considerations
Print vs online newsletter
Online newsletters are usually more appropriate for younger generations; if your readers are senior consider mailing your newsletter or using a larger font size.
HTML vs text version
Studies show that ±5% of distribution lists cannot read HTML messages and cannot download images - these are Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail addresses. To ensure your clients can read your newsletter, don't insert any important information such as graphs or charts into an image format.
Managing your distribution list
It is imperative that you keep an up-to-date distribution list of your subscribers. Remove any hard bounce email address, a hard bounce is a permanent error sent by receiving server (eg. User unknown). On the other hand, a soft bounce is a temporary issue (eg. content rejected as potential spam, mailbox full) should be monitored and reader should be contacted - perhaps they would prefer a physical copy.
Alternative to CRM software
If you do not use a Customer relationship management (CRM) you can alternatively use Microsoft Excel along with Outlook in order to create a mail merge and personalize the 'send to' field of your email with your client's name as opposed to simply using bcc field.
Measuring your marketing effort
A read receipt is the easiest way to measure the response of your newsletter; this allows you to analyze which reader opened your newsletter and when. Open rate data is misleading due to numerous users simply reading your newsletter via the preview pane. Statistics show that the amount of people whom actually read an email is 2-3 times higher than the reported rate this figure must be taken lightly.
Best time to send your newsletter
For professionals such as accountants, lawyers and other COI the best time to send your newsletters is early Monday mornings, since your newsletter relates to their practice. On the other hand, for clients you can use a two prong approach (1) early evening when sending to their home email address or (2) when sending to their office address, Friday early afternoon works best. This will allow them to read and/or print your newsletter in anticipation to the week-end.
In Summary
The success of your newsletter will depend on understanding and applying these principles, the more you apply the greater the impact of your newsletter.
The majority of Advisor newsletters contain economic information and market updates but often forget to answer questions paramount to the reader: 'What's in it for me?' 'Why should I care?'
If you want your newsletter to perform exceptionally well:
• Use a client-centric language
• Information must be simple and straightforward. Leave a lot of white space!
• Get their attention by crafting a strong subject line and headlines
• Tailor the content of your newsletter to resonate with your target market logically, intellectually and emotionally
• Get them to act upon your newsletter
Starting today, collect email addresses from every person you come in contact with, add them to your distribution list and make sure you stay top of mind all the time!
Sara Gilbert, FCSI, Chartered Professional Strategic Wealth
Business Development | saragilbert386@gmail.com
Business development dedicated to Investment Advisors and financial services professionals.
Financial services firms and advisors are facing demanding times. Investments products have become a commodity, a supplement to the advice and it has become more and more challenging for Advisors, and their firms, to differentiate themselves in the market place. Clients, especially affluent clients, demand great experience at every touch point.
Providing a concierge-style attention to support Advisory businesses and help achieve IA goals in building a great practice while also servicing existing clients well.
A graduate of Concordia University with a Bachelor of Commerce, Sara has been active in the financial services industry since 1999 assuming different positions and brings in-depth knowledge of the industry. Sara also holds The Fellow of CSI (FCSI) designation and was amongst the first in Canada to obtain the Chartered Professional (Ch.P.) Strategic Wealth designation two of the most respected and demanding accreditations in the financial services industry.
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