7 Financial Advisor Follow-Up Email Tips

Regular follow-ups are key to closing sales with prospects. They can also help you stay connected with your existing clients between meetings. Email can be an effective way to stay in touch consistently and build stronger relationships with both prospects and clients. Before hitting send, it’s helpful to know what goes into a winning financial advisor follow-up email.

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Why Should Advisors Follow Up?

You want to grow your business, but you can’t do that without clients. If you connect with prospects, but never follow up past that initial contact, you may have a much harder time building a thriving practice.

Prospects who don’t hear from you regularly may eventually move on or choose another advisor. If you’re not keeping yourself on a prospective client’s radar with follow-up calls or emails, they could easily forget about you. And when they’re ready to sit down with an advisor, someone other than you will be on the other side of the table.

Follow-ups are also essential for nurturing relationships with your current clients. A friendly check-in call or email every few months lets your clients know that you’re there for them should they need or want to chat. More importantly, a follow-up could spark a conversation about new products or services you could offer if they’ve experienced a significant life change since your last meeting.

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7 Financial Advisor Follow-Up Email Tips

While advisors should be ready to follow up, there’s a right way and a wrong way to approach it. These tips can help ensure that your follow-up efforts don’t fall flat.

1. Be Original

Your clients are different, and the follow-up emails you send should reflect that. There’s nothing wrong with using email templates for follow-ups or other marketing activities, but you can run into trouble if your template follows a cookie cutter approach, or worse, is one that many other advisors use.

Developing a template that reflects your firm’s branding and is customizable can help your messages feel more genuine. It may take a little time to craft original templates, but the effort is worth it if you’re sharing your unique voice with prospects and clients alike.

2. Be Authentic

Authenticity is key to building trust with prospective clients. A prospect may be turned off by an advisor who seems fake or pretends to be interested in what they have to say.

As you draft follow-up emails, remember to be yourself and speak naturally, as if you’re talking to a friend. Your message should feel like a conversation, rather than a hard sales pitch or lecture.

3. Be Positive

A common tactic in advisor email marketing is relying on the fear factor. If you don’t do this, then XYZ terrible thing will happen. While fear can trigger a response, it’s not always the one you want.

Keeping the tone positive and encouraging may elicit more responses than making prospects or clients feel even more worried than they might already be. Instead, frame your messaging to position yourself as a helpful guide who can help them navigate what may feel like tough times.

4. Be Timely

Follow-up emails often produce the best results when the timing is right. Wait too long to follow up and a prospect may decide to work with another advisor instead. With existing clients, follow-ups may be most effective when they’ve experienced a life change or hit a milestone, like changing jobs or getting married.

How long should you wait to send a financial advisor follow-up email? If the message you need to send is urgent or time-sensitive, then 24 to 48 hours may be an appropriate window. If you’re following up with a prospect after an initial meeting, consider waiting 3-5 days to send your first message.

5. Stay on Topic

Follow-up emails should be concise and focused on a single objective. Keep your follow-up emails limited to one focus area and tie in a call to action (CTA) that reflects that focus. For example, if you’re using a follow-up email to promote a seminar on retirement planning you’re offering, your CTA should direct them to the seminar’s sign-up page.

6. Be Responsive

If you send a follow-up email to a prospect or client and they send a message back, don’t leave them hanging. Respond to their message promptly, answer their questions and suggest a time to meet for a more in-depth discussion.

Timely responses can make a good impression and set the tone for better client communication going forward. You demonstrate to prospects and clients that you value their time and business, which can help foster loyalty and trust.

7. Be Patient

It may be tempting to send multiple follow-up messages right away, but that can be a good way to alienate a prospective client. Someone who’s still in the early stages of deciding whether they even need or want to work with an advisor may feel uncomfortable receiving so many messages at once.

Space out follow-up emails so that you’re not overloading a prospect or client’s inbox with unwanted messages. Otherwise, you could end up on the block list.

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Financial Advisor Follow-Up Email Templates

An advisor reviews follow up email tips.

How do you follow up with prospects or clients? What should your email say?

Those are good questions to ask. And to help answer them, we’ve created some simple email templates to use in different scenarios.

Follow-Up Email #1: Initial Contact

Hi [client’s name],

I saw that you [filled out our contact form/joined our email list] and wanted to say a quick hello! Reaching out to an advisor is a major step and I’m excited to learn more about your goals.

So I’d like to know: What’s one BIG thing you want to do with your money right now?

We all want to feel good about the decisions we make with our financial plans, and that’s what I help clients like you with. I’d love to have a chance to chat with you a little more about where you are now financially, where you’d like to go and how I can help you get there.

What’s the best way to reach you and when would be a suitable time to connect?

Looking forward to hearing from you,

[Your name]

Purpose: This template assumes that a prospect has reached out and expressed interest in your services. It works because you’re leading with excitement, instead of the typical “what are you worried about?” line that many advisors use to start the conversation.

Follow-Up Email #2: After the First Meeting

Hi [client’s name],

I thoroughly enjoyed our chat today and I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to meet. I feel good about the ground we covered, and I hope you walked away with more clarity on your goals.

When we were chatting, you mentioned that you were a little concerned about when you’d be able to retire based on what you’re currently saving. I think it would be beneficial to run some scenarios through a portfolio visualizer tool so you can see what retirement pathways you might have. Sometimes seeing a thing can be more helpful than just talking about it.

If you agree, let’s get a meeting on the calendar. I’m excited to walk you through some planning scenarios with you.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

[Your name]

Purpose: This email template continues the conversation, addresses the prospect’s concerns and demonstrates a little of the value that you have to offer. It also brings the client back into your sphere by encouraging them to schedule a follow-up meeting.

Follow-Up Email #3: Current Clients

Hi [client’s name],

How have you been? I’m dropping a little note because I saw on LinkedIn that you started a new role. Congrats!

Last time we met, you mentioned that you were contemplating a job change. Since that’s come to fruition, I’d love to sit down with you and discuss what it might mean for your retirement plan and answer any questions you might have about what to do with your 401(k) at your previous employer.

Let’s get a meeting on the calendar when it’s convenient for you. And in the meantime, I’m always just a phone call or email away if you want to chat.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

[Your name]

Purpose: This template strikes a personal note and offers encouragement. It also prompts the client to think about how a job change could affect their financial plan and what next steps they need to take.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Can Advisors Get a Response to Follow-Up Emails?

Prospects and clients aren’t required to engage with your follow-up emails but you can encourage them to do so by including a clear CTA. That could be as simple as asking them a question and directing them to reply to your message to share their response. An attention-grabbing subject line can also prompt higher open rates, though you’ll need to word them carefully to avoid compliance violations.

Which Compliance Rules Apply to Advisor Email Marketing?

Advisors are subject to SEC compliance rules for email marketing, as well as FINRA rules and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations. Generally, any marketing emails you send must be fair, balanced and not misleading in any way; they must also contain proper disclosures if you’re sharing reviews or testimonials in your emails. Proper recordkeeping of all email communications is required, and you must give those who receive your marketing emails the opportunity to opt out.

How Can Advisors Keep Track of Follow-Up Emails?

Your customer relationship management (CRM) platform may offer built-in tools to help you track follow-up communications, including who you send messages to, the frequency of those messages and the level of engagement they receive. Tracking emails this way can help you identify leads that may be ripe for another contact and those that have gone cold and are likely to stay that way.

Bottom Line

A financial advisor writing a follow-up email.

Consistent, thoughtful follow-up emails can help advisors stay top of mind with both prospects and existing clients. Clear communication, strong timing and a personal tone can make those messages more effective and help strengthen long-term relationships.

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