Effective communication with each client is the key aspect of your career as Investment advisor / MFD. It’s important at all stages of working together with clients. From the time of prospecting, to planning, to asset allocation, and to review the portfolios.

Effective communication can increase your popularity in the investor circle, improve how trustworthiness, and can make them behave in a that is beneficial for your and their relationship. Fidelity (USA) recently published a white paper on effective communication guidelines for their set of advisors. Here are the excerpts:

SIX Key Considerations for Communicating with Investors are as follows:

1. Understand your audience, starting with demographics. Consider age, gender, education, income, ethnicity, health status, immigration, experience in investing, and more. Paying attention to segment nuances can indicate how well messages may resonate. The more you understand your audience, the more specific your messaging can become. You will likely want to segment your audience to dial in to the factor most likely to have an impact on them.
2. Remember that you will need to create multiple messages, each targeted for a specific audience segment.
3. Be extremely clear and specific about the behavior you want to motivate or the behavior you hope to dissuade. Avoid generalities and open-ended communication that do not direct behavior • Instead of “staying calm through market volatility isn’t easy,” try “in times of market volatility it may be tempting to abandon your financial plan.”
4. If you have time, test different versions of your messages with your audiences before launching. You can compare results to see whether the audience that received results had a noticeable change in the target behavior compared to others.
5. Continuously check whether or not your messaging strategy is making the impact you desire. People change; reactions and behaviors may shift over time, and so may the factors required to motivate them. Review regularly and adjust as needed.
6. Once testing has revealed the most effective messaging, be sure to coordinate across communication channels including email campaigns, social media posts, website content, and phone conversations to focus on the target behavior. Remember that the more your audience is exposed to messages targeting the right factors, the more likely they will engage in the target behavior.