Email Marketing For Financial Services – Creating A Winning Campaign

Last updated on August 13th, 2024 at 12:02 pm

Email marketing can be incredibly effective when done right. But how can you use it to grow your financial services business?

That’s exactly what we are going to discuss today!

Attention: Consult a Lawyer Before Doing any of This!

First things first:

The financial services industry is heavily regulated which means that you need to be extremely careful about the claims you make.

Please consult a lawyer before implementing the advice in this article to ensure that everything you are doing is legal. Better safe than sorry!

Build a Sales Funnel for Your Financial Services Business First!

Email marketing doesn’t exist in isolation – it should always be viewed in the context of your overall sales funnel. 

That’s why it makes sense to build your sales funnel first. But what should it look like?

We believe that the most effective way to sell anything online is the Value Ladder sales funnel.

It was created by our co-founder Russell Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!). 

This sales funnel has four stages:

• Bait – You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address. 
• Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product or service. 
• Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and valuable product or service. 
• Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product or service. 

Ideally, you also offer a continuity program of some sort, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue.

We also recommend adding downsells, upsells, and cross sells to these core offers in order to maximize your revenue. 

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with that person by offering free value.
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email. 
3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage.

Here’s how Russell explains it:

We recommend starting with the most basic variation of the Value Ladder sales funnel – a lead magnet and a frontend offer. 

Build it, start driving traffic to it, and figure out how to make it profitable. 

Once you are making money with it, you can build out the rest of your Value Ladder. 

Create a 6-Email “Indoctrination” Sequence

So what should you do when a potential customer gives you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet?

We don’t recommend hitting them with a sales pitch the moment you get their contact details.

Instead, you should send them a 6-email “indoctrination” sequence designed to build trust:

• Email #1: Who Are You? Introduce yourself to your new subscriber. 
• Email #2: Where Did You Come From? Share your origin story. How did you get into financial services?
• Email #3: What Do You Do? Explain what exactly it is that you do. 
• Email #4: How Did You Gain This Expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to do it. Mention your education, credentials, accomplishments, etc. 
• Email #5: Who Do You Do This For? Explain who your ideal customers are + share a case study on how you helped such a person to get the results they wanted. 
• Email #6: How Can You Do It For Me? Either pitch your Frontend offer or provide a rundown of your entire Value Ladder. 

The above describes how this indoctrination sequence should look if you have a personal brand.

However, you can use the exact same structure for a company brand as well – you just need to introduce your company instead of introducing yourself.

Launch a Weekly Email Newsletter

Okay, the new subscriber has gone through your indoctrination sequence, now what?

The best way to continue providing free value is to have a weekly email newsletter in which you share helpful information that relates to the area of finance you specialize in.

You can start with a simple link roundup newsletter where each week you share the most interesting links that might be relevant to your subscribers. 

Once you develop a system that allows you to publish this link roundup newsletter on time every week, you can start expanding its scope. How?

Consider hiring a freelance writer to produce original content for your newsletter.

You can find freelance writers on the ProBlogger job board, Best Writing job board, and Upwork. 

Something to keep in mind here is that you get what you pay for. If you are serious about your newsletter, you want to work with a professional writer that specializes in finance. 

Yes, it will cost more than hiring a college kid that will write about everything and anything for a few bucks, but don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

You can’t afford to send your email subscribers low-quality content because it will irreparably damage the trust that you have built so far. 

Finally, once you develop a system for publishing a newsletter with original content on time every week, you can start adding interviews.

As someone who runs a business in the financial services industry, you probably have various connections that you can use to get interviews with interesting people. 

Also, you should end each issue with a call to action encouraging your subscribers to check out a specific offer.

Your aim with your newsletter should be to turn it into a proper publication – similar to the ones you see on Substack, just completely free to your subscribers.

That will require a lot of time, energy, and money but it will likely pay off in the long run. Why?

Because a newsletter like that enables you to stay top of mind with your subscribers, continue building trust with them by providing free value, and pitch your services regularly without being obnoxious. 

Set up an Automated Email Sequence With Case Studies

Social proof is a psychological principle that says that when people are unsure of what to do, they look at what others do in order to determine the best course of action.

In the business context, it means that whenever potential customers are unsure of whether they should trust you, they will look for indications that other people trust you.

You want to use this to your advantage by providing the social proof that they need to make the purchase decision. 

When it comes to email marketing, the best way to do that is to invest in producing customer case studies, then create an automated email sequence where you send your subscribers one case study per month.

If you hired a freelance writer to create content for your newsletter, that person can probably handle the case studies as well.

You just need to find happy customers who are willing to be the subjects of these case studies and then put them in contact with your freelance writer. 

Ideally, you want these case studies to be not just promotional but also educational – even if a subscriber isn’t interested in your services at that point in time, they should still feel like they have learned something from reading a case study. 

Use Email Segmentation to Make Your Emails as Relevant as Possible

Email segmentation is an email marketing functionality that allows you to create subscriber segments based on demographic data, behavior, and purchase history.

That way, you can tailor your content so that every email would be as relevant as possible.

Email workflows with behavioral triggers can be especially helpful here because you can use them to automate this.

Say, if you send a promotional broadcast email announcing a time-sensitive offer, you can use behavioral triggers to make sure that the next email you send is relevant:

• Someone who didn’t open the email may not be interested in that offer at all.
• Someone who did open the email but didn’t buy might require more persuasion.
• Someone who did open the email and did buy doesn’t need to see that same offer again. 

This is a very basic example, though – you can create workflows that are much more complex than this.

Say, if someone clicks on a link in your newsletter that indicates that they might be interested in a particular service of yours, you can use that as a trigger to send them a promotional email sequence designed to sell that service. 

Once you master email segmentation, email workflows, and automated email sequences, you will realize that the possibilities are endless!

Use the “Hook, Story, Offer” Copywriting Framework in Your Emails

Copywriting can make or break email marketing.

After all, email marketing is not about merely presenting information, it’s about persuading your subscribers to take action. So what’s the best way to do it?

We recommend using the “Hook, Story, Offer” copywriting framework in all your emails:

• Hook – Get the subscriber’s attention with a compelling subject line.
• Story – Tell the subscriber a captivating story that is relevant to them.
• Offer – Transition from the story to a sales pitch and end your email with a call to action.

Here’s how Russell explains it:

Of course, you need to be careful and make sure that you always stay on-brand, especially in an industry like financial services.

Say, if you have a company brand with a serious, corporate brand image, using goofy click-bait subject lines would be a terrible idea even if it would get people to open your emails. 

The same goes for telling stories that might be interesting but aren’t compatible with your brand image.

Build a Sales Funnel for Your Financial Services Business With ClickFunnels!

ClickFunnels has everything you need to build a sales funnel for your financial services business:

• Sales funnel and landing page templates.
• Visual editor that you can use to customize those templates.
• Email marketing functionality that allows you to send broadcast emails, set up automated email sequences, and create email workflows with behavioral triggers. 

What’s best is that we have a free trial which means you can check out our software without any risk.

So why not start building your sales funnel today?

Start Your Free Trial