Financial Adviser Email Newsletter Distribution Guide
A step-by-step guide (with how-to videos) for using Convertkit to send regular communications to your clients and prospects.
Why email?
Email is still the primary place where we communicate. An email is unlikely to be missed, and when we read our emails we are more likely to spend 5 to 10 minutes focusing on it if we know it’s valuable.
This is why you will see most websites trying to get you to enter your email address to sign up for a newsletter or to access a downloadable resource.
Our preferred way of communicating with clients and prospects is through a monthly email newsletter. The process is repeatable and the content is arranged in a format that suits different learning styles, some written content, some videos, some images, it’s scrollable and looks great on mobile devices.
What You’ll Need
To get started with sending your email newsletter, you will need:
A list of people you’d like to communicate with - we suggest creating a spreadsheet with their first names in one column and their email address in another.
The content you’d like to send to them, essays, articles, video links etc.If you want to see what we offer to our members, check out HUM Premium
An email marketing/distribution system - sending email newsletters to a big list of people from your work email address is not recommended. Mail servers do not like the same mail being sent by you as this makes them think you are sending spam. This will affect your future ability to send direct emails to your clients. We recommend a dedicated email marketing service. Our current preferred system is Convertkit - a great balance between features and simplicity. Convertkit is currently free for sending mails to up to 1 000 people.
Step-by-step
Below is a step-by-step guide for sending a newsletter using Convertkit - other email systems are likely to use similar terms but may differ slightly. Google is your friend!
1. Save your contacts
The first step is to add the names and email addresses of your clients and prospects to a spreadsheet so that they can be imported into Convertkit.
The video below walks you through the important parts.
2. Create a Convertkit account & Import Contact List
Creating a Convertkit account is fairly simple. Follow the below video and then import your saved contact list.
3. Downgrade to free plan if appropriate
If your contact list is smaller than 1 000 contacts, you will be able to use Convertkit for free. It may only be possible to downgrade after the 14 day trial period (don’t forget to do this if you qualify)
4. Create & send your first email
Below is a walkthrough of how to send a simple text-based email to your contacts.
5. Creating a format Template
We explain how a template sets your preferred fonts, colours, etc.
6. Creating an email broadcast with HUM Premium content
The final step is to paste the HUM Premium content into a new email broadcast before it is sent to your contacts. We walk you through from the start to finish.
Subsequent months will be much quicker!
That’s it! Please let us know if you have any questions, we’d be happy to help. Email andy@humansundermanagement.com.