At Yardstick, we’ve been excitedly following the rise of AI for years now, especially in recent months. Over the last two weeks, you’ve learned how consumers are using it to find your business. This week, I’m passing the baton to another AI-fanatic in our team. Our head of client engagement, Abi Robinson, has a few top tips to share, which will speed up your marketing without sacrificing its quality.

 Now over to Abi, I’ll be back next week!

As of 2024, 75% of UK-based financial services firms reported that they’re using AI within their business. Another 10% of firms will join them over the next few years.

However, when it comes to marketing, most advisers and planners are missing a trick.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: this isn’t about using AI to write your blogs, social posts, or website copy.

That’s not how we do things at Yardstick, and it’s not what we’re suggesting you do either. You’ll end up with mechanical, Americanised, and impersonal writing that does nothing to tell your story or connect with potential clients.

If you’ve been following our blogs over the last few weeks, you’ll know this already. At the start of the month, we released a deep dive into how consumers are using Large Language Models (LLMs) to find an adviser or planner. Last week, we launched our latest scorecard, which shows whether ChatGPT would recommend you to potential clients.

We’ll have to rename him “Phil Br-AI” at this rate, won’t we?!

So, to continue the theme, here are seven practical, quick-win ways you can use AI to free up your time and sharpen up your marketing without outsourcing your voice to a robot.

1. Turn FAQs into content plans

Prompt: “Provide a list of 12 monthly newsletter topic ideas based on questions people in the UK aged 55 to 70 ask about retirement planning. For each month, please provide six themes, with one or two per month as lifestyle topics relevant for this audience. These should be framed as statements that I can use as the blog titles as opposed to questions.”

This turns your everyday conversations – one of the best forms of marketing inspiration – into a ready-made content calendar. It’s relevant, authentic, and means you won’t waste time staring at a blank page.

Or, you could outsource your monthly newsletters to us, of course.

2. Build a swipe file of analogies and metaphors

Prompt: “Give me 10 analogies to explain risk profiling to a non-financial, consumer audience.”

The best marketing aims to be clear, not clever.

Our profession is awash with complicated jargon, and it’s easy to forget that this can be overwhelming and alienating for the general public. Analogies bring complex financial topics to life, helping potential clients understand them more easily.

Equally, these are a great source of inspiration for blogs, webinars, and social posts.

3. Create interview questions for client testimonial videos

Prompt: “Write six client-friendly interview questions that help uncover emotional, story-led testimonials about financial planning.”

Client testimonial videos are the gold standard of social proof. Nothing beats an existing client telling a potential client – in their own words – exactly how you’ve changed their life.

A list of thought-provoking, standardised questions will streamline the project and result in fantastic videos that massively uplift your marketing.

Alternatively, have a chat with us to see how our client video team can handle the whole process for you.

4. Apply general feedback to your own website

Prompt: “Based on this [blog or webinar transcript], what changes should I make to my financial planning website? [Paste key points or link to website].”

This turns passive learning into practical action. We’ve all read a blog, listened to a podcast, or watched a webinar and thought, “That’s great advice”, but proceeded to do nothing with it. By asking AI to apply the subject matter directly to your website, the guidance becomes more meaningful and actionable.

Try using the transcript from our latest webinar, where we reviewed three financial planning websites live on air, and see what advice you get.

5. Generate calls-to-action for different audiences

Prompt: “Suggest 10 clear calls-to-action based on the work of Donald Miller (author of StoryBrand) that a financial adviser could use to encourage a first meeting for an audience of busy business owners.”

We know CTAs can be tricky when it comes to getting compliance approval, but they can make a big difference in converting potential clients.

“Click here” and “Get in touch” do the job, but they’re overused and uninspiring. A fresh list of suggestions gives you new ideas to test in newsletters, articles, and lead magnets.

6. Test the clarity of your messaging

Prompt: “If I say, ‘We help people retire with confidence’, on my website, what might a 60-year-old professional actually think that means?”

You know what you mean, and probably think it sounds great. That may well be true, but AI can act as a sounding board for how your messaging will land with the people you want to work with. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter so much what you think. It matters what your ideal clients think.

7. Turn survey responses into themed improvements

Prompt: “Here are the answers to our most recent client survey. Group the responses into themes and tell me what they suggest about how clients feel about our service.”

Client surveys are a fantastic tool to improve the service you deliver, and our client delivery team are experts at running them if you need a hand. But, if you choose not to outsource, turning raw feedback into helpful insights is time-consuming.

This shortcut helps you identify trends, highlight where you’re doing well, and easily spot opportunities to improve that you might have missed.

A professional never blames their tools

Advisers/planners often think that content writing is the best job AI can take off your hands.

In our experience, this simply isn’t the case.

Like anything, it’s a tool, and it needs to be wielded in the right way to get the best out of it.

Used effectively, aids like ChatGPT and Gemini speed up the behind-the-scenes stuff so you can focus on what really matters: building relationships, creating value, and consistently showing up for clients.

It goes without saying that the responses won’t necessarily be perfect. A one-line prompt is never going to give you the deep insights you could get from a comprehensive, human-led marketing strategy project, delivered over several weeks, and resulting in a crystal-clear plan. That’s where we come in.

So, if you’d rather cut out the middle-robot, and you’d benefit from a conversation with the UK’s highest-rated marketing agency specialising in financial services, I’d love to have a chat.

Email abi@theyardstickagency.co.uk and we’ll find time to talk through what you need.

PS. If you’re curious how ChatGPT answers each of these prompts, email me and I’ll ping over the responses I got.