How Financial Planners Should Market Cost-of-Living Conversations (Reviewing Budgets, Not Just Investments)

03 September 2026·5 min read

Quick answer: Cost-of-living pressure gives financial planners a natural, non-salesy reason to reach out between annual reviews — 'let's revisit your budget and cash flow' instead of 'let's talk about your portfolio'. It keeps clients engaged, catches problems early, and reminds them why they pay an ongoing fee. A short proactive check-in email to the whole client base works better than waiting for the next scheduled review. 📈

Most financial planning practices only make contact at two moments: the annual review, and when markets move enough to justify a phone call. Everything in between goes quiet, which means the months when a client is actually lying awake worrying about grocery prices or their mortgage repayment go completely unacknowledged by the person they pay to help manage their financial life. That gap is a genuine service failure dressed up as normal practice, and it's also — quietly — a marketing opportunity 💖 that most firms are leaving on the table.

What most planners get wrong

The core mistake is conflating 'review' with 'investment performance conversation'. Clients pick up on this fast, and it trains them to only reach out when something's gone wrong with markets, never when something's gone wrong with their weekly budget.

Treating contact as synonymous with performance updates, so genuine cash flow stress goes unmentioned until it becomes a crisis at the next scheduled review.
Being reactive — waiting for the client to raise cost-of-living pressure themselves, when most people feel embarrassed to bring it up unprompted with their planner.
Sending generic 'cost of living tips' newsletters that read as content marketing filler rather than a genuine, personal check-in from someone who actually knows the client's numbers.

Check-in email template for the client base

Subject: A quick check-in — not about markets, about you

Hi [Name],

With everyday costs putting pressure on most households right now, I wanted to check in properly — not for the annual review, just to see how things are sitting for you day to day.

A few things worth a quick look together: whether your regular expenses have shifted noticeably in the last six months, whether any automatic contributions or insurance premiums are worth revisiting given that shift, and whether there's anything financially that's been quietly worrying you that we haven't had a chance to talk about.

This isn't a full review — just a fifteen-minute conversation if it's useful. Reply and let me know a good time, or let me know if everything feels fine and there's nothing to discuss right now — that's a good outcome too.

Speak soon,
[Adviser name]

Dual-income family with a mortgage: They haven't changed anything on paper, but grocery bills and childcare costs have crept up noticeably. A short check-in surfaces the pressure before it turns into missed extra repayments or a panicked call in six months.

Retiree on a fixed drawdown: Worried that rising costs are eroding their pension faster than planned but hasn't wanted to 'bother' the planner outside the scheduled review. The proactive email gives explicit permission to raise it.

Young professional client: Quietly paused extra super contributions a few months ago to cover rising rent, without mentioning it. The check-in surfaces this early enough for the planner to help find a middle ground, rather than discovering it a year later at review.

How to run this as a real campaign

Segment the client base rather than blasting everyone at once — a staggered send over two or three weeks is easier for the team to follow up on properly. Give whoever handles replies (adviser, associate, or EA) a simple follow-up script so responses get a fifteen-minute booking link quickly, while momentum is there.

Log outcomes in the CRM against each client, even a one-line note like 'no concerns raised' or 'wants to revisit insurance premiums' — this becomes useful context for the next scheduled review and shows the client their history is actually being tracked, not just filed. With permission and full anonymisation, aggregate insights from these conversations can become genuinely useful public content too — 'what we're hearing from clients about cost-of-living pressure right now' performs well because it's real, not generic.

💡 Frame this as a relationship touchpoint, not a sales campaign. The value here is retention and trust, not an immediate upsell. Some conversations will genuinely surface nothing actionable — and that's a fine outcome. The clients who feel looked after between reviews are the ones who stay, and refer their friends, for years.

Mistakes to avoid

Don't send this as a mass newsletter with no reply mechanism — it needs to feel like an actual invitation to talk, not a broadcast.
Don't turn every reply into an immediate product pitch — some clients just need to be heard, not sold something.
Don't skip clients you assume are 'fine' financially — cost-of-living pressure doesn't respect income bracket, and higher earners are often the most reluctant to raise it.
Don't let this replace the scheduled annual review — it's a supplement, not a substitute.

Please note: general information only, not personal financial or tax advice — check current official guidance (ASIC MoneySmart, ATO) or speak with a licensed adviser before acting.

Frequently asked questions

Will this campaign generate immediate new revenue?

Being honest here: usually not directly, and it shouldn't be measured that way. It's primarily a retention and trust exercise. That said, it does genuinely surface real advice opportunities — a lapsed insurance premium, a pause in contributions worth revisiting — so let those come up naturally rather than engineering the email to force a sale.

How often should this go out?

Once or twice a year is usually enough to feel proactive without becoming routine or losing its personal tone. Tying it to a genuine moment — a rate rise, budget night, a cost-of-living news cycle — makes it feel timely rather than scheduled.

Should this go to prospects as well as existing clients?

It's strongest as a client-retention tool first. For prospects, a similar general theme can work as public content (a blog post or social post on 'reviewing your budget, not just your portfolio'), but the personal, individually addressed email is best reserved for people you already have a relationship and full financial picture with.

What if a client reveals real financial hardship in their reply?

Take it seriously and slow down — this is a moment for a proper conversation, potentially involving referral to broader supports (financial counselling services, hardship provisions with lenders), not a quick email back-and-forth. The check-in's job is to surface the issue; a full conversation should follow.