There is no right or wrong Email Marketing tool out there for financial advisors.
They almost all provide some base functionality – like creating multiple lists (segmenting Prospects, Leads and Clients), tracking email opens and link clicks by recipient.
However, there are three main types of email marketing platforms to consider.
As a Financial Advisor, you simply want to understand your personal needs and requirements.
Figure out what you want to accomplish & get the best email marketing tool for financial advisors.
I. All-in-One
The first group of email marketing apps do more than just email.
They’re typically marketed as Sales and Marketing tools (we cover some of these in our CRM post as well).
Some of these include:
The general idea with these software suites is that you would add financial prospects to the Sales module (CRM) and use the Marketing module to send them emails.
All-in-one options like these are great if you want to keep everything in one place.
You can pull up a financial prospect record in the CRM and see the last time an email was sent to them (and if they opened it).
And after they’ve become a client — you can keep track of tasks for clients — like scheduling their annual review.
Being able to manage the entire lead in one tool, from their first contact to post-conversion, provides a holistic record for that prospect/client.
If you are going to use all the features, then the cost/monthly fee justifies the cost.
If not, keep looking.
II. “Simple” Email Focused Tools
The second group of tools focus more specifically on email.
These usually provide the ability for you to maintain multiple lists (like one for prospects and one for clients) and then send emails to those lists.
“Simple” here just means they are focused more specifically on email marketing without the additional Sales/CRM component.
Some examples of software solutions in this group would be:
Unlike the all-in-one options, there is no true CRM functionality and the verbiage you’ll see on their websites talks about “marketing” but not “sales”.
This type of email marketing software can work best for financial advisors that don’t need the CRM or Sales functionality.
For example, maybe you already have a CRM and don’t want to switch.
It might be possible to automate some email marketing data about each prospect from the email software into your CRM (or from your CRM into the email software).
It’s worth mentioning one other option in this group, GMass.
If you’re already using Google Workspace and Gmail for your email — then GMass is worth checking out.
III. Content Provided Platform
The most important element of follow-up is executing your system consistently.
The downside with both options above is that you have to create the content yourself.
In other words — every time you want to send an email — you have to sit down and actually write the email you want to send out.
And once you write it – it might need additional approvals from compliance before you can send.
For most financial advisors, that’s a lot of work (with everything else they have going on).
Which means you’ll likely skip sending the email more often than not if you have to write it yourself.
Some Brokerage/FMO’s will provide a monthly newsletter for their advisors to send out. If your does this, then the all-in-one or email focused options above will likely be enough.
If they aren’t providing you monthly content or you don’t want to write it yourself — the final options is having somebody write the content for you.
For most financial advisors that means Snappy Kraken.
The unique feature of Snappy Kraken is that every month they provide 4-6 brand new email campaigns — so you don’t have to write the email content yourself.
Most of their campaigns are FINRA-reviewed, which can be an added bonus.
With Snappy Kraken, you need to keep your email list(s) updated and pick content or campaigns to send each month.
However, if you don’t want to do all the heavy lifting of configuring or managing your Snappy Kraken account, maybe we can help.
Summary
As a Financial Advisor — the best email marketing tool for you will depend on your answers to the following questions.
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- Do you have a source of content each month (your Brokerage/FMO/IMO or yourself)?
- Do you want an all-in-one solution for managing your prospects/leads/clients (CRM + Marketing)?
- Do you prefer someone else doing the email marketing & management for you?
If you don’t have a source of content then a solution like Snappy Kraken will likely be the best option.
If you don’t need the content — then the choice comes down to whether you prefer an all-in-one sales and marketing solution versus software that is more specifically for sending emails without the CRM functionality
Having worked in this industry this long, trust me when I say — tech keeps improving & changing.
However, none of that matters if you do not know what you want it to do for you.
If you think you could use some help with your email follow-up, let’s chat!
