Four tech tools for communicating with clients

Technology affects the way we communicate and build relations with our clients. Interacting with clients regularly and gaining their trust and loyalty are important. I have a degree in computer engineering, but pursued a career in wealth management. I never thought I would get much use out of my degree, but I'm finding over time the opposite is true. Using my degree together with my passion for technology is allowing me to help communicate and interact with clients in a faster and more engaging way. Here are four technologies we are using with great success in our firm: Custom Newsletter & Mail Chimp Newsletters are a great way to inform clients of developments in the markets and your firm. Customizing the design and content allows you to keep the reader engaged and is the key to success. We use Mailchimp to manage our newsletter process. Start by designing a custom template that may have your company colors, logo or even a theme based on the season of the year. Keep it interesting. Look online for a reliable freelancer to help you design the Mailchimp template. Freelancing tools like Fiverr give you access to unbelievable freelancers who are both cost effective and produce top-notch quality designs. Once the template is ready, you need to come up with the right content. If you can't do it on your own, you can look for other resources online for inspiration. Since we are an evidence-based advisory firm, we looked for inspiration specifically around that topic. We found a firm that has allowed us to find a fantastic library of unique writing material that we were able to integrate in our newsletter and transform into our own style. Keep the content interesting and exciting. Add separate social sections talking about new favorite restaurants, team news, and other topics outside of finance. Social Media & Hootsuite We always try to make sure we connect with everyone we engage in a conversation about wealth management on all social media fronts. We have found the most important part of connecting with our clients is not so that they can read updates about us, but more so we can learn more about them. Allowing us to better understand our client's family and personal interests outside of the professional world results in deeper relationships. Take one hour a week and go back through your calendar, adding connections to the different people you spoke to in that period. Use a tool like Hootsuite to manage all of your social media from one place, saving you time and providing great analytical tracking Client Survey & Survey Monkey Understanding your client and what they need is important to the success of your practice. Knowing what they are saying about your business can help you take action and improve what needs to be improved, ultimately resulting in longer-term relationships. We conduct one survey a year and have found Survey Monkey to be the best tool to create and manage the process. Virtual Meeting & Join Me The use of virtual meeting technology is a must-have for your practice. It will allow you to engage with clients that may not be able to meet in person or open doors to new prospective clients that you may not have been able to engage in the past. We use join.me to conduct virtual meetings, as it is not only easy to use, but also cost effective. Design presentation material that can be easily read on a computer and will keep the client engaged. Role-playing the process and practicing are paramount to making the presentation smooth and successful. Once you have the process down, it will be no different than picking up the phone to make a call. More and more people today use technology such as emails, social media and direct messaging to communicate. As advisors, we also need to adapt to this change and take advantage of these tools. Hopefully some of the tools I mentioned will be helpful to your practice. Take the time to try out and test new technology. You will find that some tools are a great fit and others not so much. These tools will result in improved productivity, closer client relations, expanded networks, and ultimately, growth for your practice. Joe DiMauro is an investment advisor representative for AXA Advisors. "The views expressed in this article are not those of all of AXA Advisors LLC, AXA Network LLC or their affiliates"