How Can I Integrate Technology Into My Financial Planning Practice To Improve Efficiency?

Life is busy as a financial advisor. Marketing a practice while servicing your existing client base is challenging, and time seems to always be the one thing you don’t have enough of. Fortunately, in 2023, technology can help improve efficiencies in most areas of your financial planning practice. 

Consolidated Planning was founded in 1981 to shake up the status quo in the financial services industry, and we haven’t stopped innovating since. We specialize in helping experienced advisors grow bigger, better, and faster through a proven process and unique advisor support resources. Our average new financial advisor builds a practice that helps 125 families and businesses over 5 years and earns $250,000 annually by their fifth year. We work with established financial advisors to triple their practice value during the same time frame.

This article will share how financial advisors can leverage technology to improve efficiencies within their practice. You’ll walk away with actionable tips you can put into place today.

How Do Financial Advisors Use Technology?

Financial advisors can use technology to increase efficiency in most areas of their practice. Technology is useful because it creates automation and gives advisors more time to spend on revenue producing activities. 

Advisors use technology to streamline both client acquisition and client service efforts. Technology can be found all over the financial services world, from automated marketing campaigns to quarterly investment rebalancing. 

Financial Advisors Use Technology To Automate Marketing

One of the most common ways financial advisors use technology is to automate their marketing efforts. Let’s dive into some of the tools Consolidated Planning advisors use to automate their marketing efforts.

Marketing Suite by FMG

Marketing Suite is a social media and email tool that FMG, an industry leader in advisor marketing, powers. This tool allows you to schedule social media posts across multiple platforms and email campaigns pulling from a robust library of proprietary and third party content. 

Additionally, Marketing Suite allows you to create and schedule your own campaigns and even integrates with Canva to improve the visual aspect of your content. Conveniently, this tool also connects with your compliance department for seamless approvals.

My Name Flow

My Name Flow is an easy to use automated monthly newsletter that is sent directly from your email. One of the unique features of this tool is its ability to connect with your email and social media accounts to build email lists from your network connections rapidly. 

It takes about an hour to set up the tool the first time and audit your contact lists. Once the tool has been set up, your contacts will automatically receive a monthly newsletter containing four trending financial articles. 

You’ll also have access to see which contacts opened your newsletter and any articles they read so you can follow up.

Third Party Social Media Companies

Many of our successful advisors outsource their social media marketing to a third party company. These companies meet with you to understand your ideal client persona, and they work with you to create content, send connection requests, and DM prospects within your chosen niche. 

It’s important to note that you should have an established target market before you contract with a third party to manage your social media. A target market is essential for social media marketing because it allows you to tailor your message to speak to the problems facing your ideal prospect. Without this, your messaging will be lost in the newsfeed.

Financial Advisors Use Technology For Practice Management

Financial advisors use technology to manage their practice in a variety of ways. While not as sexy as marketing tools, practice management tools can often remove tasks from your to do list that you would otherwise dread.

The Living Balance Sheet

One of the most common ways is through the use of financial planning software. This software allows advisors to create and manage financial plans for their clients, including tracking investments, managing budgets, and creating retirement projections. 

Consolidated Planning advisors use the Living Balance Sheet software to help clients organize, protect, and focus their resources toward their goals. This proprietary software was built on the eMoney platform to deliver our planning process to our clients in a meaningful way.

Smart Office

Additionally, many advisors use customer relationship management (CRM) software to manage client interactions, including scheduling appointments and sending automated communications. 

Most of our advisors use Smart Office as their CRM at Consolidated Planning. This tool also integrates with our investment platform to document recommendations and advice.

Other Tools

Other tools that financial advisors use to manage their practice include portfolio management software, risk management software, and financial analysis tools. At Consolidated Planning, you’ll find electronic investment paperwork and insurance applications. Contributions and distributions can be automated along with rebalancing portfolios.

With the use of technology, you can improve their practice by automating repetitive tasks, increase efficiency, and provide better service to your clients.

How Can Technology Help My Financial Advising Practice?

Technology plays a crucial role in improving the efficiency of a financial advisor’s practice. Technology can be found all over the financial services industry, from automating marketing efforts to streamlining client acquisition and service.

By implementing these technology solutions, you can automate repetitive tasks, increase efficiencies, and provide better service to your clients.

Additionally, by tailoring your marketing to a target market, you can speak to the problems facing their ideal prospect, and make the most of your marketing efforts. 

To learn more about how to implement these tools in your practice, reach out to our team today.

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