How many times have you opened an email, just to realize it had absolutely no relevance to your life? Immediate Move to Trash.
After a while, you don’t even have to open the email – it’s automatic spam.
We’ve all been there – but as a financial advisor looking to grow your firm, it’s a tough spot to be in. You want to deliver relevant, timely content to your clients and prospects – emails that might actually be read.
The key to success here, especially for firms scaling quickly, is to offer personalization in your marketing and services. Personalization is the key to retaining clients, growing new business, and innovating the advisor experience for the modern era.
But what technology is at the core of that personalization, and how can your firm take practical steps toward personalized content while also scaling growth?
Marketing Best Practices
Did you know that over 60% of investors believe most financial advisors make what are essentially the same promises?
When choosing a firm to work with, many prospects struggle to differentiate between the hundreds of thousands of advisors available in the United States. That’s why marketing is so important for your firm – it’s your chance to stand out and send a clear message about what makes you different.
But in their journey for differentiation, many firms focus inwardly – speaking about their services, investment philosophy, etc. And while that can be helpful, the best marketing strategy actually takes the opposite approach: focusing on your target audience through personalization.
The Benefits of Segmentation
Your marketing and communication strategy should set the stage for all client touch points. To do that successfully, you need to have a clear idea of who you’re speaking to. That’s where personalized marketing comes into play.
Related: An Essential Guide to the New SEC Marketing Rules
Personalized marketing is a concerted effort to meet your clients where they are and provide content that speaks directly to their wants, needs and problems. It’s about so much more than name tags in those mass emails, too.
Truly personalized marketing focuses on segmentation, or the process of sorting your clients and prospects into groups based on their demographics. Then, your firm can serve relevant content to them at the right time. That recently widowed client doesn’t want to read your blog on retirement planning for couples – but they may be interested in your ebook on the intricacies of survivor’s benefits.
Marketing communications are likely the first interactions a prospect will have with your brand. If you take the time to segment your lists now (and create a process for the future), you’ll more easily connect with your target audience at scale as your firm grows.
Client Engagement
The other key area where you need to personalize is in client engagement.
Personalized investing solutions are growing increasingly common, especially for younger generation investors who may want to invest based on their values. According to an article published by Barron’s, the number of millennials interested in sustainable investing continue to trend upward in recent years.
Millennials own about $9 trillion of the nation’s total wealth as of March 2022, a number that’s expected to grow as we dive further into the Great Wealth Transfer.
This is all to say that personalized services, such as sustainable investing, are no longer optional for firms who wish to thrive and scale their practice.
Ask yourself: Are you taking the time to engage with clients on their personal preferences? What solutions can you build based on those values?
Technology’s Role in Personalization
The tech your firm uses creates a foundation of these personalization strategies. The right automation system can make large-scale communication (and segmentation within those communications) much simpler.
Related: The Digital Transformation of Financial Services
Your team doesn’t have time to manually sort through each email in your list, or to write a custom email to each client with a birthday in the month of June. Luckily, with the right tech, you don’t have to!
Custom technology solutions allow your advisors to streamline the onboarding process while collecting information critical to the personalized experience. Want to send a happy anniversary note to the Jones’ this year? Easy. Need to know which clients are interested in values-based investing? Now you can send those clients your latest blog on investing with a green thumb.
With tech like SkienceONE, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, your advisors have access to 360-degree clients views, auto-fill forms, easy contact points and secure data, enabling them to provide stellar customer service, with automation and accuracy.
CRMs house your client data and feature reminders, tasks, emails, dashboards and workflows that enable easier engagements. Moreover with a centralized access they can spend more time on delivering stellar service and strengthening their client loyalty.
Personalization at scale might seem like a big undertaking for your firm – but with segmented marketing, client-focused services and the right tech, your firm is set to deliver hyper-personalized experiences amid a growing client base.
Get Personal with Skience
The results are in: Personalization is the key to growth for advisors in 2023 and beyond. Partner with Skience to put your firm ahead in the race for better client experiences at scale.
Click here to connect with a member of our team and get started today.