Newsletters have emerged as a cost effective way to engage with clients. Through newsletters, IFAs can provide valuable insights on key trends and development affecting client portfolios.
You can send newsletters either physically or through email. While physical newsletter may be an expensive affair for IFAs as it involves printing and logistic costs, switching to an e-newsletter is cost effective. In addition, in e-newsletters, you can encourage your existing clients to share it with other prospective clients.
We spoke to a few advisers who sends newsletters to their clients to understand how advisers can create appealing newsletters to grow business. Based on their inputs, here are four tips:
Content matters
Make sure that the content published is relevant to the audience. You can either produce the content yourself or obtain it from a trusted source It should be concise and to the point. The content should be unbiased i.e. promoting a particular company or scheme should be strictly prohibited. Also, try to make the newsletter visually more appealing.
Lively subject-line
Ideally, a subject line should arouse the reader’s curiosity and compel him to read more.
IFAs to whom we spoke to use provocative questions related to personal finance to ensure healthy open rates such ‘are you prepared for retirement’ and ‘do you want to buy a home without EMI.’
Frequency of editions
It is advisable to stay in touch through newsletters with your clients as often as possible. However, experts recommend sending newsletters on monthly basis. Sending daily or weekly newsletter requires a lot of time and efforts, say experts.
In addition, experts suggest sending newsletters on a specific event, which affect the industry such as budget and Brexit. You can either share expert’s comments or share your own views on these topics.
Ideal time to send newsletters
Mutual fund investors and distributors are most likely to open emails between 10 am to 12 pm, says a survey on email marketing outlook for the Indian mutual fund industry published by netCORE. It says that users were most active on emails during 10 am – 12 pm, with open rates peaking to 13.5%. The next best optimal sending time is between 8 pm and 10 pm.
Hemant Rustagi of Wiseinvest Advisors believes that a newsletter has to be different and easily understandable to the audience. “Finance per se is a dry subject. A newsletter delivering information on the market and personal finance should be framed in a manner that is relevant for the audience and able to muster their interest. IFAs should utilise newsletters to share their views which can help investors make investment decisions wisely while educating them at the same time.”
Finally, Vinod Jain, Jain Investment advises IFAs to ensure complying with regulatory norms while sending the newsletters, “The focus of a newsletter is to make the audience familiar with the relevant concept. A newsletter should most importantly be compliant with the AMFI code of conduct guidelines. Also the information provided should not be misleading and the IFA should provide an impartial view.”
