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Small Subject Line Changes, Big Email Impact
Why are great emails getting ignored—and how can one tiny change fix it?
This week’s tip is based on insights from Jay Schwedelson's presentation at Social Media Marketing World 2025.
Why are great emails getting ignored—and how can one tiny change fix it?
The Problem: Strong Content Gets Ignored Because of a Weak Subject Line
Your email open rates aren’t what you want them to be—and you’re not sure why. You’re sending relevant content, your list is solid, and yet … the results aren’t matching the effort. The culprit? Often, it’s your subject line.
Most advisors unknowingly sabotage their campaigns with generic or outdated email headers. Words like “Learn,” “Register,” or “Join” are tanking performance—and it’s not just theory. As he explained last week at Social Media Marketing World, Jay Schwedelson studied trends on subject lines and discovered surprising truths about what gets clicked.
The Solution: Use Subject Line Tactics That Drive Opens
Revamp your subject line strategy using data-backed micro-tactics. According to Schwedelson:
Start with a number → Open rates jumped by 17% in consumer emails.
Use [brackets] at the beginning → +21% in open rates.
Use first-person pre-header text → Adding language in the pre-header like “Welcome to your update,” “Resources curated for you,” or “Your quick guide is inside” increased open rates by 18%.
Avoid weak openers → Words like “Learn,” “Discover,” and “Register” actually lowered open rates by up to 14%.
These small tweaks don’t require more budget—just more intentionality.
The Outcome: More Opens, Better Engagement, and Deeper Trust
According to Schwedelson, when these small changes are implemented, email engagement improves almost instantly. This translates to better lead nurturing, higher attendance at events and webinars, and increased trust through consistent, high-quality touchpoints.
How We Help: Tactical Guidance That Elevates Your Everyday Marketing
At OnNiche® by Kaleido, you don’t have to test alone—we provide direct feedback to our members through our online forum, live chat, and office hours on things like their emails, so their marketing consistently reflects their expertise, builds credibility, and drives real engagement.
Want to learn more? Let’s schedule a call.
We Want Your Take! Have you tried any of these tactics? What worked—and what didn’t? Join the conversation and share your experience at the OnNiche® Public Square!
AI Is the Missed Marketing Advantage Most Advisors Are Overlooking
Most advisors will skip this. That’s exactly why it matters.
Most advisors are ignoring this. That’s exactly why you shouldn’t.
The Problem: Ignoring AI Today Could Cost You Tomorrow
Advisors are tuning out AI—and quickly. A recent 52 I shared on using one simple document to streamline AI content had one of the lowest open rates I’ve seen. That tells me the majority of advisors simply aren’t interested in hearing about AI right now. It feels like noise. But ignoring AI is a bad strategic decision.
In 2009, I saw the same pattern with social media. Advisors dismissed it. Today, they’re still trying to catch up—after the real opportunity passed.
The Solution: Explore AI While the Advantage is Still Yours
AI isn’t just about being more efficient. It’s about leveling up your marketing by:
Analyzing what’s working—and making it better
Creating more relevant, personalized content with less effort
Optimizing for AI-powered search engines
Studying what top marketers are doing—and applying it to your business
You don’t need to master every tool. You just need a clear plan for how AI fits into your marketing.
The Outcome: Small Steps Now, Big Edge Later
Advisors who start now will be the ones ahead later. While others hesitate, you can quietly build systems that increase your relevance, visibility, and reach.
How We Help: Practical AI Support for Better Advisor Marketing
At OnNiche® by Kaleido, we create custom GPTs and prompts to help the advisors in our programs elevate their marketing. By translating emerging tools—like AI—into practical, niche-specific frameworks, we make it easier for advisors to be more effective marketers.
If you're curious about how AI could work in your niche, let's talk. Schedule a call to learn more.
We Want Your Take! What’s one marketing task you’d love to offload or improve with AI? Whether it's writing content, analyzing performance, or finding new ideas—we’d love to hear where you see the biggest opportunity. Share your experience in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Reach More by Doing Less
The more platforms you use, the fewer clients you might reach.
The more social media platforms you use, the fewer clients you might reach.
The Problem: Too Many Platforms, Not Enough Focus
Many advisors think that using more social media platforms will help them reach more people. But the opposite often happens. When you spread yourself across too many channels, your message becomes weaker, and your time and energy are divided. Without a clear plan based on what your ideal clients actually use and value, it’s easy to end up doing more work with less return.
The Solution: Narrow Your Focus to One or Two Platforms
Start by talking to people in your niche. Ask them which platforms they use and how they prefer to engage with businesses like yours. Let their answers guide your choices.
When picking your platforms, think about:
Where your niche is most active and engaged
A platform you are comfortable using and allowed to use for marketing
A platform where your niche is easy to find (for example, LinkedIn for professionals)
Focusing on just one or two platforms will help you connect more deeply with your audience and simplify your marketing.
The Outcome: More Focus, More Engagement, More Opportunities
When you narrow your efforts, you create stronger relationships and more meaningful conversations. This leads to more opportunities to meet and engage the right prospects and COIs in your niche.
How We Help: Build a Marketing Plan That Connects
At OnNiche® by Kaleido, we help advisors go beyond guesswork. We work with you to gather real insights from your niche and use that information to select the right platforms. The result is a marketing plan that feels manageable and helps you connect with the people you most want to serve.
Ready to simplify your marketing and focus on what works? Schedule a call to learn more.
We Want Your Take! How many social media platforms is your team using right now? Have you found it easier—or harder—to create strong engagement when spreading across multiple channels? We’d love to hear how you’ve approached platform selection and what’s worked best for your niche. Share your experience in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Why Your Advisors Need One Unified Marketing Framework
What happens when every advisor in your team uses a different playbook for marketing?
What happens when every advisor in your team uses a different marketing playbook?
The Problem: Each Advisor Is Using their Own Playbook (or No Playbook) for Marketing
Your advisors are tasked with bringing in business, but many are unsure how to market effectively. Some try their own approach, while others avoid marketing altogether.
The result? A patchwork of inconsistent strategies and missed opportunities. What your team needs is a system—one that gives every advisor clear direction while allowing flexibility to play to their individual strengths and the clients they want to serve.
The Solution: A Framework for Every Advisor to Craft a Marketing Strategy
The answer lies in adopting a repeatable process that every advisor can follow while tailoring it to their personal style. Whether you implement an internal framework or leverage an external system, aligning your team under one strategic approach is key.
This framework should provide:
A step-by-step process to help advisors build their own marketing strategies within firm guidelines.
Clear brand messaging and visual standards to maintain consistency.
Flexibility to customize based on each advisor’s strengths and target audience.
With a structure in place, the firm can better support implementation, track progress, and raise the overall effectiveness of marketing efforts.
The Outcome: More Effective Marketing
When your team operates from the same marketing foundation:
Advisors speak the same language and follow a shared process, driving accountability.
No more guesswork—advisors know exactly what to do to move the needle.
Less time wasted on ad hoc efforts, more time spent on high-value activities.
Team members collaborate more easily and efficiently.
The end result? Your entire company will experience stronger growth, spearheaded by your individual advisors.
How We Help: Inserting a Framework into Your Company
At OnNiche® by Kaleido, we help firms insert a proven framework into their marketing operations. Each advisor is guided through a system designed to unify their efforts under a cohesive strategy. You can plug into one of our ready-made programs or license the system to use firmwide.
Schedule a call to learn how we can help you streamline your advisors’ marketing strategy.
We Want Your Take! Is your team using one marketing playbook or many? What challenges have you faced trying to unify your advisors under a single marketing strategy? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!
The One Document That Can Streamline All Your AI Content
What if you could create all your AI-powered content from one master document?
The Problem: AI Content Feels Generic and Disconnected
AI makes content creation faster, but without the right guidance, it can sound generic or off-brand.
When you create content piece by piece—whether it’s a blog, video script, social post, or web page—keeping your message consistent is a challenge. You constantly tweak AI drafts, re-explain your key points, and correct mistakes.
The result? AI either produces bland content or requires so much fixing that it takes more time than it saves.
The Solution: A Master Document for Your Content
Imagine having one document—a marketing blueprint—that AI pulls from to create all your content.
This document would include:
Key Messages: What you want to communicate
Your Ideal Client: Who you’re speaking to
Main Content Themes: The topics you focus on
Formatting & Style: How you want it to look and sound
With this in place, AI can generate blogs, emails, social media posts, and video scripts—all staying true to your niche, voice, and message.
The Outcome: Easier, More Effective Content Creation
A marketing blueprint helps you:
Stay on Message: Your content stays clear and aligned.
Sound Like You: Your tone and style stay consistent.
Save Time: AI generates content that needs less editing.
Instead of starting from scratch each time, you get professional, on-message content with less effort.
How We Help: A Blueprint to Make AI Work for You
Through Kaleido’s OnNiche® process, we create an OnNiche® Blueprint—a master marketing document that guides AI. This ensures every blog, email, and social post stays aligned with your message and is easy to create, whether by you, your staff, or your marketing team.
Schedule a call to learn how we can help you create a marketing blueprint.
We Want Your Take! Have you used AI for content creation? What challenges have you faced? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Marketing Chaos? These 2 Answers Will Instantly Bring Focus
If your marketing feels scattered, it’s not because you’re doing too little—it’s because you’re missing these two key answers.
Our theme for Q1 2025 is how to implement a multi-niche approach. We’d love for you to join the conversation in our Public Square.
The Problem: Your Marketing Feels Scattered
You’re putting in the effort—posting on social media, attending networking events, running ads—but your marketing still feels unfocused. It’s not that you’re doing too little; it’s that you’re missing two foundational answers that bring clarity and direction. Without these, your efforts can feel like throwing darts in the dark, hoping something will stick.
The Solution: Answering Two Key Questions
To create a marketing strategy that actually works, you need to define two things:
Who: Who am I trying to reach?
How: How am I going to reach them? How will I engage them? And ultimately, how will I guide them to schedule an appointment?
The Who is your target market or niche—the specific group of people you want to serve. A target market is broad, while a niche is a more refined subset with distinct needs. The clearer you are about who they are, the easier it is to craft messaging that resonates and develop a strategy that attracts.
The How is your strategy—the activities and channels you use to attract, engage, and nurture your audience. It’s not just about getting in front of people; it’s about guiding them through a journey that leads to meaningful action.
The Outcome: A Clearer, More Effective Marketing Plan
When you define your Who and How, marketing stops feeling random and starts feeling strategic. Instead of trying to be everywhere at once, you’ll focus on what actually works—showing up in the right places with the right message for the right people. That means more engagement, more meaningful connections, and ultimately, more appointments on your calendar.
If your marketing feels scattered, take a step back. Answer these two questions first, and watch how everything else falls into place.
How We Help: From Unfocused to Strategic
OnNiche® by Kaleido helps you identify your ideal client and develop a clear, strategic approach to reach them. Instead of second-guessing your marketing, you’ll have a focused plan that attracts the right clients and builds meaningful connections.
If your marketing feels scattered, let’s change that. Schedule an introductory call to see how OnNiche® can help you define your Who and How—so your marketing finally works for you.
We Want Your Take! What challenges have you faced in defining your Who and How in marketing, and how has that impacted your ability to attract and convert clients? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Centralize Marketing to Support Multiple Niches
Ensure consistency across individual marketing plans.
Our theme for Q1 2025 is how to implement a multi-niche approach. We’d love for you to join the conversation in our Public Square.
When implementing a multi-niche strategy, each niche should have its own marketing plan, led by a dedicated advisor. However, professional marketing support—whether internal or external—is essential for execution.
Marketing teams can assist with:
Graphic design
Copywriting
Social media management
Email marketing
Digital campaigns
Event coordination
And so much more!
This support enables advisors to focus on high-value activities such as relationship-building and developing their reputation. Centralized marketing ensures the marketing plan is consistently executed while keeping each niche’s activities aligned with the company’s overall brand and messaging.
We Want Your Take! What marketing support does your firm offer advisors, whether through internal staff or external resources? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Develop a Marketing Plan for Each Niche
Each niche needs its own action plan.
Our theme for Q1 2025 is how to implement a multi-niche approach. We’d love for you to join the conversation in our Public Square.
When implementing a multi-niche approach alongside a firmwide marketing plan, each niche needs its own targeted strategy. Advisors leading a niche must develop an action plan to attract, engage, and convert prospects into clients. A structured plan keeps advisors and the marketing support team focused and intentional, outlining key activities such as:
What content to create
What events to attend
Which COIs to network with
Which campaigns to run
A quarterly marketing plan helps advisors map out their tactics, building on previous efforts to refine and expand their approach. Small, consistent actions drive sustainable growth and long-term success.
At the end of each quarter, advisors should review their progress:
Did they follow through?
Did they hit their goals?
Do they need to adjust their activity level or refine their tactics?
A well-developed marketing plan provides clarity and builds confidence, allowing advisors to attract and convert niche clients more effectively.
We Want Your Take! Do you have a separate marketing plan for each niche, or do you take a one-size-fits-all approach? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Creating Unique Niche Messaging While Staying On-Brand
Create distinct niches that still fit your firm's core theme.
Our theme for Q1 2025 is how to implement a multi-niche approach. We’d love for you to join the conversation in our Public Square.
When implementing a multi-niche approach, it’s important to customize messaging so that it resonates with each niche while staying aligned with your firm’s overarching brand and core theme.
To create niche-specific messaging, you'll want to understand the niche's:
One Problem: Identify the most urgent and painful problem shared by everyone in the niche—the reason they seek a financial advisor.
One Solution: Define the process or services your firm offers to solve that problem.
One Outcome: Highlight the highest, realistic aspiration a client in this niche can achieve by working with you.
Once your messaging is drafted, ask:
Does it align with your firm’s core messaging themes?
Does it maintain a consistent brand voice and tone?
Balancing unique messaging with brand consistency ensures each niche has a distinct voice while reinforcing your firm’s overarching message.
We Want Your Take! What’s the biggest messaging challenge you’ve observed when a firm speaks to multiple niches? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!
Setting the Launch Pad for the Niche Marketing Plan
Three things every niche should have.
Our theme for Q1 2025 is how to implement a multi-niche approach. We’d love for you to join the conversation in our Public Square.
Choosing the right niches for your company is just the beginning—each niche needs a dedicated platform within the firm’s overall marketing ecosystem. To establish a strong foundation, every niche should have:
A dedicated landing page on the company website to serve as the central hub for marketing efforts.
A platform to publish niche-specific content (e.g., blogs, videos, podcasts) in one centralized location.
For advisors leading the niche, updated social media and directory profiles to ensure their messaging and imagery align with the niche.
These essential components create a launchpad for effective niche marketing, helping advisors build credibility, attract the right audience, and gain momentum. With a well-structured foundation in place, advisors can focus on executing their marketing plan and engaging their niche with professionalism.
We Want Your Take! Beyond what was mentioned here, what components are essential for building a successful niche launch pad? Share your thoughts in the OnNiche® Public Square!