Sample issues
What would actually be in a financial advisor newsletter, page by page.
Written for fee-only registered investment advisors. Four pages, no performance numbers, nothing that reads as advice, and a production schedule that respects your archiving.
Written for fee-only RIAs, and not for everyone
Start with who this is not for. If you are affiliated with a broker-dealer, your home office almost certainly restricts you to an approved vendor list for client communications, and a custom newsletter written outside that list is usually either not permitted or so slow through review that it stops being worth doing. That is not a judgment about your practice. It is a supervision structure, and we would rather say so here than three weeks into a conversation.
Fee-only RIAs are a different situation. You control your own communications review, your constraints are yours to interpret, and your economics reward a small number of long-tenured relationships — which is exactly what a monthly or quarterly piece is for.
Sample only. Every headline below is invented, no client is named, no result or return figure appears anywhere, and nothing here is investment advice.
Page one: the letter you would want to have already sent when the market drops
The front page is a signed letter from the advisor, 500 to 600 words, and it is the whole reason a firm does this. The moment clients most want to hear from you is the moment everybody is busy and nobody has time to write. A piece that already exists, that already sounds like you, and that already explains how you think — that is what a client rereads on a bad Tuesday.
A worked example: “Why we did almost nothing in your account last quarter”. It describes the policy, not the outcome: what would have to be true for the firm to change an allocation, what rebalancing bands are for, and why the answer to most news events is that the plan already contemplated something like it. It cites no performance, quotes no return, and recommends nothing to anybody. It is a letter about process, which is the only thing that is honestly generalisable across a client list.
Page two: the planning item with a date attached
Left side of the inside spread, around 400 words, and the rule is that it has a deadline in it. Planning content without a date is a blog post. Planning content with a date generates a phone call, which is the actual point.
A sample: “The four weeks in the year when a Roth conversion is easiest to model” — why the window exists, what has to be known before it closes, what to have ready. Other issues run the required minimum distribution deadline, the IRA contribution deadline, open enrollment week, the beneficiary designation review that nobody has done since a divorce. Each one is written in general terms and ends the same way: whether this applies to you depends on your situation, so call the office.
Page three: the page about the firm, not the markets
Right side of the spread, roughly 300 words plus photographs. Clients of a fee-only firm are usually buying a relationship with named people, and this is the page that keeps those people visible between review meetings.
A sample: “What actually happens in the six weeks before your annual review” — the work nobody sees, the documents pulled, the checks run, who does what. Alongside it: a new team member, a designation somebody is studying for, the office moving, the reading the advisor did that changed their mind about something small. It is the page that answers the unasked question of what the fee is buying.
Page four: the one page a client keeps
Back page is the keepsake, the contact block, any disclosure language your firm requires, and the mailing panel. The disclosure block is a fixed element with a fixed position — it gets designed in from issue one rather than squeezed in later.
Sample keepsakes: the annual review document checklist. A one-page list of what your family would need to find if you were unavailable for a month, and where it lives. The year’s contribution and deadline dates on a single card. These are the pages clients photograph and send to their adult children, which is quietly the best introduction your firm gets to the next generation.
What repeats every issue and what does not
The letter, the firm page, the disclosure block and the contact panel are fixed. What rotates is the planning topic and the keepsake. A client who has seen four issues knows the letter is on the front and the checklist is on the back, and that predictability is what turns it into something they look for.
- Changes each issue: the letter subject, the dated planning item, the firm story, the keepsake
- Fixed every issue: layout, the letter position, the disclosure block, the contact panel
- Never appears: performance figures, returns, holdings, forecasts, or anything phrased as a recommendation
A twelve-month calendar built on deadlines, not forecasts
Every month on this calendar is anchored to something real and dated. Nothing on it requires anyone to predict a market, which is both better content and a great deal easier to review.
- January — the year’s contribution limits and deadlines on one page
- February — tax documents: what arrives, when, and what to do if one is missing
- March — the beneficiary designation review, before anyone files
- April — what your return says about next year’s plan
- May — college funding conversations, timed to graduations
- June — the mid-year check: what actually changed in your life
- July — estate documents and where the family can find them
- August — a plain letter on how the firm handles volatility, written when it is calm
- September — the required minimum distribution timeline before the year-end rush
- October — open enrollment, and Medicare enrollment for clients at that stage
- November — charitable giving and year-end tax moves while there is still time
- December — deadlines closing, and what the January review will cover
Archiving and review are a production constraint, not a footnote
An advisory firm has to be able to produce its client communications later, which means every issue has to end up somewhere your archiving arrangement can see it. We treat that as part of delivery rather than something you clean up afterwards: every issue is handed over as a dated final file, the email version is sent through a system that retains what went out and to whom, and the flipbook edition keeps its own version history. Nothing is published anywhere until your reviewer has approved the final proof.
We are a marketing company, not your compliance consultant. What your rules require of a given piece is your firm’s determination, and we build the schedule around your review turnaround rather than assuming it away.
Monthly or quarterly, and your twenty minutes
Plenty of advisory firms are better served quarterly than monthly, and we will say so. A quarterly letter that is genuinely written by the advisor beats a monthly one that reads like it came off a shelf, and for a firm with a hundred households the postage maths says the same thing.
Either way your part is a call of about twenty minutes per issue, plus your reviewer signing the proof. We handle the writing, the design, the print and mail run, the flipbook and the email edition, and you deal with the same small team every time.
Questions
The things people ask before they hire us.
Usually not, and we would rather tell you at the start. Most broker-dealers restrict client communications to an approved vendor list, and a custom piece from outside it either is not permitted or takes so long through review that the timing stops working. Check with your home office first. If they clear it, we will talk.
No. No returns, no holdings, no forecasts and nothing phrased as a recommendation. The letter is about how the firm thinks and the planning page is about dated deadlines, which is both safer to review and closer to what clients actually want from you.
Every issue is delivered as a dated final file, the email goes through a system that retains what was sent and to whom, and the flipbook keeps version history. Your firm decides what its retention obligations are; we make sure nothing goes out that you cannot produce later.
One person per issue, rotating, with a photograph. A letter signed by a firm is not a letter. Rotating also spreads the twenty-minute call across the partners rather than landing it on whoever is worst at saying no.
Yes, and for a younger client base it is often the right start. Digital-only is a real option at a lower price — the same written issue as a flipbook and an email, with no print or postage. Firms with retired clients usually end up wanting the paper edition as well.
Keep reading
Related pages
Tell us how your firm is registered and who is on the list.
Fee-only, roughly how many households, and how often you want to send. We will come back with a twelve-month outline and a number, including whether quarterly is the better call.
No pitch deck, no discovery-call gauntlet. One conversation, one straight answer.