What Samuel Johnson Knew About Financial Advisor E-mail Marketing

Eighteenth-century English author, literary critic, and lexicographer Samuel Johnson once famously said, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” Financial advisors, accountants, estate planners, and portfolio managers would be wise to incorporate this advice into their content marketing strategies.

One of the most effective uses of content marketing in the financial services industry is to send clients e-mail reminders of upcoming deadlines.

Why Deadline Reminders are an Effective Use of E-Mail Marketing and Newsletters

Many accountants, investment managers, and other financial advisors once a year will send their clients a calendar of deadlines for things like making IRA contributions or using flexible spending account dollars, and then assume that the client will remember those dates. But as Dr. Johnson tells us, it is more important to remind clients of those approaching deadlines than it is to educate them about the deadlines in the first place.

We always recommend to our clients in the accounting, wealth management, estate planning, and financial planning fields that they use their monthly or quarterly e-newsletters as a vehicle for delivering reminders about upcoming deadlines. For example, if your clientele includes a lot of small business owners or self-employed individuals, it makes sense to remind them about the upcoming deadlines for making estimated quarterly tax payments or payroll tax payments. It’s a small thing, but it goes a long way in helping their clients avoid needless late fees and penalties. Learn more about how financial services firms are using newsletters to improve client service. 

Companies also make the mistake of thinking that once they have published an article about a topic, they don’t need to touch on that topic again with their clients. For example, a financial planner might write an article in March encouraging clients to look into using the annual gift-tax exclusion for transferring wealth tax-free to younger generations. The planner might then say to herself, “Well, I gave the clients the information. I’m sure they will remember to act on it before the end of the year.” A better, more proactive way to handle this would be to include a sidebar in the November issue of the newsletter with a quick note along the lines of “Reminder: You have until Dec. 31 to take advantage of the $14,000 annual gift tax exclusion. Click here to learn more.”

Give Your Clients Healthy Reminders

As an accountant, estate planner, financial planner, portfolio manager, or financial advisor, you are not in the business of teaching clients about ways to strengthen their finances; you are in the business of helping them take advantage of those opportunities. There is no better way to do this than by following Dr. Johnson’s sage advice.

About the Author Scott Wentworth is the CEO at Wentworth Financial Communications. He collaborates with a team of writers and editors at Wentworth to help professionals across the financial services industry build their brands by creating investment-grade white papers, bylined articles, newsletters, blogs, social media posts, and other forms of content marketing.