Three Critical Layers Of Communication For Financial Advisors In 2024

The financial world has shifted drastically over recent years, continually evolving more rapidly than in decades prior.

Financial tech, or “fintech,” led the way for many financial institutions to start advising and working in the digital age. Still, as technology has advanced, the need for new subsections within the financial services realm has risen. 

No longer confined to the generic “fintech” label, the evolution towards a more appropriate “wealthtech” showcases the industry’s focus on using applications and technology to elevate the advisor’s practice.

Financial Media Exchange (FMeX) is a one-stop location with content for financial advisors, specifically in the wealth space. It provides resources advisors can share with their current clients and prospects. 

“We label ourselves as a ‘Content as a Service.’ We built the digital asset management platform with sales enablement on the backend and content on the front end,” FMeX CEO and Founder Ric McConkey says.

FMeX recently partnered with UpContent to help provide curated content for their financial advisors to help with one of the three layers of content they encourage their clients to use when talking to their audience.

This ”formula” of content mix has proven to help with engagement, building trust and credibility, and maintaining consistent personal communication with prospects and customers.

We spoke with Ric about the importance of tailoring the content you share to your audience, the three layers of content they recommend for financial advisors, and how FMeX uses UpContent to find “one-to-many” articles for their customers. 

The Importance Of Tailoring Content To The Communication Type

FMeX strives to help financial professionals personalize their communications to improve client engagement. 

They say prospecting for financial advisors comes down to answering these four questions:

1. How do I create client engagement?
2. When do I engage? 
3. How often should I engage my customers or my clients when I’m not selling them?
4. Where do I engage with my clients?

Personalizing each communication is essential, but it isn’t just including someone’s first name in the greeting or subject line.

Everyone knows you can pull that from a spreadsheet, and simply knowing their name doesn’t convey knowledge of who they are, where they are in their financial journey, and what they need.

Personalization is important in any industry, especially financial services. You are helping people with a private part of their lives; some rarely talk about finances, even with their spouses!

“You want to keep that relationship and communication going. You don’t want to be always reaching out to your clients when you’re going to sell them something,” Ric says.

This is why treating each client and prospect as the individuals they are is key - if they feel like you know them and are providing information just for them, they will trust you more.

Ric says they encourage the advisors using their platform to think of engaging their audience in an upstream funnel, communicating one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many.

One-to-One

One-to-one communication is just like it sounds - those messages you write specifically to someone, tailored to their unique situation. 

Depending on the person’s preferred communication method, this can look like emails, direct messages, or even phone calls.

For financial advisors, this is where “the sausage gets made.” 

You have the opportunity to send written content that can help educate a person or guide them through decision-making, offer tailored advice, or even just build your relationship with personal communication that references an article you recently read.

One-to-Few

One-to-few communication is all about segments. 

This allows you to tailor your communication but not feel like you are constantly emailing hundreds of people individually on a consistent basis.

This is a great way to send content or advice to a group of individuals in the same boat, such as business owners, high-net-worth clients, or women interested in investing (just as a few examples). You can have as many segments that seems right!

Creating these segments shouldn’t be too vague. You still want your communication to feel tailored to where someone is in their financial journey. 

Usually, this looks like an email newsletter that can contain original content or curated content tailored to that segment’s interests or needs.

One-to-Many

One-to-many communication is all about brand awareness. This is shooting a lot of valuable content out to your audience and beyond, seeing what sticks, and then segmenting by what resonates with people. 

“It’s a shotgun approach to amplify your brand in many ways,” Ric says. “The challenge is not just about being digitally present but ensuring that online presence resonates with authenticity, expertise, and trustworthiness.”

No one, even FMeX, has the capacity to create the amount of content needed to stay active and relevant on social media. 

However, using curated content from credible sources allows you to maintain the presence you need without sacrificing the quality of your content.

Usually, this kind of communication is done on social media, and sharing a plethora of content on a variety of topics helps you build your authenticity, shows that you are relatable and likable and that you stay on top of news and trends in your industry. 

“So the one-to-one communication has to be spot-on. The one to the few is much more about the segmentation of your book,” Ric says. 

“But when you are just trying to amplify your brand and show your expertise and social media presence, you can stream larger portions of content that may not be the exact interest or need, but adjacent and relevant.”

Partnering for Success – FMeX and Upcontent 

FMeX has coaching and supplying content for one-to-one and one-to-few communications down, but providing the vast library needed to support their customers for one-to-many communications across social media and email was proving impossible.

“This is where we knew we had to up our game, and that’s why we partnered with UpContent. Because we’re creating all our own content, social media moves a lot faster, and there’s a lot more volume required to be successful. We needed someone that can help us provide all that,” Ric says.

But why UpContent? Beyond the technical ease, the UpContent team’s expertise and understanding of content strategy stood out for FMeX. 

The structured (i.e., FMeX-created) content, combined with UpContent’s vast reservoir of unstructured (i.e., external) content, created a holistic content strategy addressing every facet of client communication.

This partnership was not just a business collaboration but a strategic move to harness the power of curated content for financial advisors using FMeX. 

With UpContent’s API seamlessly integrating with FMeX, there is a fresh inflow of dynamic, relevant content for FMeX’s advisors that provides the “raw materials” necessary for effective one-to-few and one-to-many communications while being used to spark one-to-one outreach as well. 

How FMeX Is Using UpContent For One-To-Many Content

There are two ways that FMeX customers can access curated content through the platform: email newsletters and a content library.

Ric says they created three daily email newsletters that advisors can use to send to their one-to-many and one-to-few clients, with content continually refreshing, so each newsletter has the latest content, no matter what time of day someone sends it out.

“If I sent out that newsletter at 9 o’clock in the morning, it may have five articles associated with it talking about mergers and acquisitions. If someone else sends it at 4:00 in the afternoon, it might be five different titles because several things happen during the course of the day,” Ric says.

They also have a robust content library covering a range of topics, interests, and lifestyle articles for advisors to share on their social media accounts, emails, and other communication channels.

“It’s an aggregation of content that we think would be part of any conversation that an advisor may have with a client or prospect, and they can just look at it, select it, and use it for social communication,” Ric adds.

Because of FMeX’s partnership with UpContent, they aren’t sacrificing quality for quantity of content for their advisors, and there isn’t a shortage for that one-to-many communication pillar that FMeX recommends. 

Next Steps To Implementing These 3 Layers of Communication

The world of financial services is ever-evolving, with technology playing the catalyst. Understanding and harnessing the power of structured and unstructured content is pivotal for client engagement.

In an age where trust is paramount, ensuring consistent, relevant, and authentic communication can bridge the gap between advisors and their clients, fostering relationships that stand the test of time.

“You gotta communicate without cold calling. There has to be digital connectivity happening,” Ric comments.

Sending one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many communications can help you as a financial advisor build your likability, credibility, and authenticity on a number of levels, and it doesn’t have to be difficult to find things to talk about or share with your audience.

“Financial services is still a referral business. The best single opportunity for new clients is their existing clients, so by communicating with them consistently, having that client engagement, it is also upping your opportunity for new business,” Ric says.

If you want to learn more about how UpContent can help provide unstructured content for your client relationship strategy, watch a demo tailored to people who use UpContent in financial services.

You can also check out some of these other articles and success stories of financial advisors using curated content.

Summit Financial uses curated content to develop their financial advisors’ thought leadership on LinkedIn

More Curated Content = More Leads

How Financial Advisors Can Build Credibility In The Age of AI