By Rebecca Lake, CEPF®

Marketing events offer an opportunity to connect with prospects and initiate conversations around financial planning. And hosting a mix of online and offline events can help broaden your firm’s reach and increase your visibility in the eyes of your ideal clients. If you’re hoping to make inroads in your local community, a lunch and learn could be a fantastic way to do just that. These events are a chance to feed prospects’ desire for financial planning knowledge and potentially turn them into clients.

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20+ Lunch and Learn Ideas for Financial Advisors

A lunch and learn is an in-person event that brings you and prospects together for a meal and some financial education. Lunch and learn events can be used internally to educate employees about policy changes, new regulatory rules or industry trends, but they’re also incredibly useful as a marketing tool.

Lunch and learn events are meant to encourage learning in a casual, pressure-free atmosphere. They’re a chance for you to share some of your knowledge with prospective clients, demonstrate the value of your services and build trust. The most effective events cover a topic that speaks to the pain points or concerns of your ideal clients.

With that in mind, here are 20+ ideas you may choose to cover in your next lunch and learn event. We’ve grouped them into distinct categories, with an explanation of how you can use them to market your firm.

X Things to Know About ____________

Listicles are frequently used in content marketing to break up larger topics into smaller bites. This lunch and learn format is appealing because you can customize it to fit any topic, based on your target audience and area of expertise.

Sample ideas:

  • 7 Things to Know About Estate Planning
  • 3 Social Security Rules Every Pre-Retiree Should Know
  • 10 Things No One Tells You About Retirement Planning
  • 8 FAFSA Facts Parents Need to Know
  • 5 Upcoming Tax Law Changes to Be Aware Of

You can go as broad or narrow within the topic as you’d like, and adjust the number of items you discuss to fit time constraints.

Answering Your Questions About ____________

Financial planning covers a lot of ground, and your ideal clients are likely to have questions about various aspects of the planning process. This is another lunch and learn idea that you can customize to fit your audience, based on what they’re most curious about.

Sample ideas:

  • Answering Your Questions About Estate Planning
  • Life Insurance FAQs: What You Should Know
  • Can You Answer These 5 Questions About Retirement Planning?
  • Asset Allocation Q&A: Building a Tax-Efficient Portfolio
  • You Asked, We Answered: A Wealth Management Guide

Here’s a tip to generate ideas for your lunch and learn: Ask prospects what they want to know.

That’s easy to do if you’re actively building an email list and attracting prospects as new subscribers. You can send an email that includes a link to a brief survey, or simply ask them to hit reply and share their burning financial planning questions.

X _____________ Secrets Revealed/Misconceptions Explained

Advisors planning a lunch and learn event.

Another commonly used tactic in content marketing is the “secrets” blog post, newsletter or video. This type of content can help catch a prospect’s attention if they expect to learn something new or interesting.

“Misconceptions” content, meanwhile, is meant to debunk common misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions about a particular topic. Either one could be useful for drumming up interest in your lunch and learn event.

Sample ideas:

  • 6 Secrets for Building a Recession-Proof Portfolio
  • 5 Unconventional Planning Strategies That Could Help You Retire Early
  • 3 Common Annuity Myths Debunked
  • 4 Ideas Everyone Gets Wrong About Retirement
  • 2 Big Tax Loss Harvesting Mistakes to Avoid

If you plan to use this format for a lunch and learn, delivery is crucial. Aim to share insights that prospects haven’t heard 100 times before; leave them surprised and wanting to learn more from you.

How to _____________________

How-to guides are a simple but powerful way to share what you know. You can adapt the how-to format to lunch and learn events and choose a single topic to cover.

Sample ideas:

  • How to Update Your Life Insurance Beneficiary (and Why You Might Need To)
  • How to Choose 401(k) Investments
  • How to Invest in REITs, Step by Step
  • How to Plan Your First Year in Retirement Budget
  • How to Open a 529 Plan for Your Child

Think about how-to topics that you could walk someone though in an hour or less. And consider how you can incorporate visual tools, such as infographics or charts, to drive your points home.

What Is ____________?

This type of lunch and learn is a chance to educate your ideal clients on a topic that you know well. You can cover the topic in as much detail as time allows, then encourage attendees to schedule a chat for a deeper dive.

Sample ideas:

  • What Is an Annuity?
  • What Is Permanent Life Insurance? (And Who Needs It?)
  • What Is a Reverse Mortgage?
  • What Is a Trust?
  • What Is Probate?

These types of topics can also work well if you’re planning to host a longer online seminar or webinar.

Niche Topics

Choosing a niche can be fundamental to your firm’s growth. When you niche down, it becomes easier to tailor your marketing to a specific client segment. You also face less competition from other advisors who may be casting a broader net.

Niche topics speak to the exact needs of your ideal clients. For example:

  • Building a Thriving Practice While Building Wealth: A Primer for Physicians
  • Financial Planning Post-Divorce: What Women Need to Know
  • Sandwiched In: How to Plan Your Financial Future While Caring for Aging Parents
  • Understanding the Benefits of a Special Needs Trust
  • Using Donor-Advised Funds to Advance Your Philanthropic Goals

If you’re not sure what your ideal client wants to learn about, try working up a buyer persona. This is a hypothetical profile of who your ideal client is, from their age and where they live to their financial goals and dreams. Buyer personas can help you gain insight into how your ideal clients think and what’s on their minds when it comes to financial planning.

Bottom Line

Advisors holding a lunch and learn event.

Lunch and learn events may be unfamiliar territory, but they’re something to consider if you’d like to branch out some of your marketing efforts. Choosing the right topic is a good place to start. From there, you can work out the details, such as where you’ll hold the event, how many invitations you plan to issue and what you’ll serve to your guests.

Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business

  • A solid marketing plan can go a long way toward fueling your firm’s success, but putting it all together is often easier said than done. If you’re looking for a way to simplify promotions, you may consider partnering with an advisor marketing platform like SmartAsset AMP. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
  • Whether you’re considering a lunch and learn or another type of event, keep compliance firmly in sight. The SEC’s marketing rule dictates what advisors can and can’t do or say when advertising their businesses to prospective clients. Reviewing compliance rules can help ensure that your next marketing event is smooth sailing.

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