Whether it’s a newsletter, social media post or webinar, measurement is the key to understanding what your clients want and how to best serve them. In the not-so-distant past, this could be an overwhelming process that required specialized skills and resources.

Thankfully, the modern advisor has access to powerful tools that make this painless and without requiring a PHD in data science.

In this guide, we’ll go over four questions specifically designed to help you improve the ROI of your client communication and marketing efforts.

Q1) What do I want to accomplish with my marketing & client engagement?

Advisors commonly tell their clients to set clear goals and hone in on those over the long-term, building your business should be no different.

Before diving in further, consider defining what goals you seek to accomplish with your communications.

These could include:

• Providing reassurance to clients on their current investments
• Finding new prospects and starting a meaningful conversation
• Strengthening your relationship with existing clients
• Growing your share of wallet/investments with clients

By setting the goals of your marketing and client engagement efforts, you will learn more about your clients and what works and doesn’t work for your advisory practice.

Q2) How often should I review measurement and performance reports?

Just like checking your voicemail and email, try to schedule a weekly time in your calendar to review any reporting you have available to you. Reporting dashboards are helpful to get a quick overview of how your efforts are performing and whether it requires any immediate attention.

As you review real-time data, you’ll identify ways to open conversations and uncover new opportunities with both clients and prospects while you are top of mind.

Q3) What trends am I seeing this week/month/year?

Imagine if you had a superpower that would allow you to read your client’s minds and gauge their interests, hopes and concerns.

It may sound like science fiction, but if you’re sharing content-rich newsletters or social media to clients and prospects, you likely already have access to these insights. As clients click on stories you share, they are indirectly alerting you to what they find interesting, what keeps them up at night and what’s on their mind that day/week/month.

When looking at your weekly stats, look for certain topics that are trending and resonating with your network.

This might include:

• Have open rates gone down?
• Are people clicking on a certain content more than others?
• Am I getting more positive feedback than most weeks?
• Are clients suddenly more interested in a certain topic

Arm yourself with key trend information in order to take actionable steps forward:

• You can use trends as cues to open conversations with clients you are speaking with this week. For example, did a client open your newsletter and click on several articles related to retirement? Use that topic as a point of interest in your next meeting.
• Tailor your client communications - such as a weekly newsletter- to address topics that are important to your audience.
• Host a webinar or create a blog or podcast to dive deeper into topics of interest to your network.

Q4) What should I do with new prospects?

If one of your goals is to generate new clients, all of your marketing and communication efforts should include a way to capture potential prospects. Once you start capturing leads, you might be wondering what - if anything - should you be doing with these prospects.

Strike while the iron is hot by sending new prospects a welcome email introducing yourself. It’s important to engage with the prospect right away, but we also encourage advisors to wait until the prospect has engaged multiple times before attempting to schedule a meeting.

For example, if you send a weekly newsletter, you may want to wait and see if the prospect has clicked-through and read your content three times before reaching out to schedule a consultative meeting. The goal is to first foster a relationship with the prospect and monitor their progress to identify the right opportunity to fully capture their business.

These are just a few preliminary questions that will help you to drive measurable ROI to your advisory practice by using data, rather than gut feeling.