A good thank-you note from a financial advisor is about the client, never the portfolio: their first name, the moment you are thanking them for, one detail from your last conversation, and your first name. Leave out returns, markets and advice. Send one when a client joins, on each anniversary, after a referral and at life events. Below are 24 notes you can copy, and a word on compliance.
What should a financial advisor's thank-you note say?
Their name, what they trusted you with, one personal detail, and your first name. That is enough. The client already gets statements, reviews and reports full of numbers. The card is the one thing you send that is only about them, so keep numbers out of it entirely.
- Their first name. "Dear Ruth," not "Dear Client,".
- What they trusted you with. "your first review with us", "bringing Tom's pension over", "introducing your sister".
- One detail from the conversation. The grandchild's name, the trip to Lisbon, the new puppy.
- Your first name. Your firm's name is on the envelope. The card is from you.
Do handwritten client notes need compliance review?
Often, yes. Client communications can fall under your firm's review and record-keeping rules, even a short card. In the US, FINRA Rule 2210 treats written communication to 25 or fewer retail investors in any 30-day period as correspondence, which must be supervised, and more than 25 as retail communication, which needs principal approval before use (FINRA).
Registered investment advisers work under the SEC's marketing rule, which replaced the old advertising and cash solicitation rules and came with changes to the books and records rule (SEC). The practical answer is simple. Show your templates to your compliance team once, keep a copy of what was sent, and keep the notes free of anything that reads as a performance claim, a forecast or a recommendation. The examples below are written that way.
Why do thank-you notes matter to an advisory practice?
Because most advisors grow through referrals, and referrals come from clients who feel remembered. In the first Kitces Research survey on advisor marketing, 93 per cent of advisors said they had gained new clients through referrals in the previous year (Kitces).
Referrals are also cheap. Kitces Research's study of nearly 1,000 advisors put the client acquisition cost of client referrals at about $338 per client, among the lowest of any tactic, and top firms earned almost 19 times the cost back in new revenue (Kitces). A card does not ask for a referral. It keeps you in mind for when a friend asks.
And a card is noticed. Brookings, working from Postal Service data, puts mail per household at about 620 pieces a year by 2025, down from roughly 1,480 in 2005 (Brookings).
Thank-you notes for a new client
Dear Ruth, thank you for trusting us after our first meeting on Tuesday. I enjoyed hearing about the garden and the plans for Portugal. My door is always open. Daniel
Hi Marcus and Leah, welcome. Thank you for giving us a long afternoon and a lot of paperwork. Your questions were good ones. Say hello to Pepper. Anjali
Dear Mr Osei, thank you for choosing our firm. Moving a relationship after fifteen years takes thought, and I do not take it lightly. Claire
Hi Priya, thank you for coming in on your lunch break. I know those hours are hard to find with twins. We are glad to have you with us. Tom
Dear Frank, thank you for the introduction to your family on Friday. It was good to put faces to the names. Welcome to the practice. Daniel
Notes for a client anniversary
Dear Ruth, one year since our first meeting. Thank you for a good year of conversations. I hope Portugal was everything you wanted. Daniel
Hi Marcus and Leah, three years with us this month. Thank you. Pepper has aged more gracefully than any of us. Anjali
Dear Mr and Mrs Chen, ten years as clients. Thank you for your trust and your patience with my handwriting in the early days. Claire
Hi Sam, five years since you first walked in with a shoebox of statements. Thank you for sticking with us. Tom
Notes to thank a client for a referral
Dear Ruth, your friend Margaret came to see us on Thursday and mentioned your name. Thank you for the introduction. It means a great deal. Daniel
Hi Priya, thank you for telling your colleague about us. I enjoyed meeting Ravi, and I will look after him. Tom
Dear Mr Osei, thank you for introducing me to your brother. Family introductions are the highest compliment we get. Claire
Hi Leah, thank you for mentioning us to your book club. We have met two of them now, and they speak very highly of you. Anjali
Dear Frank, thank you for passing my card to your neighbour Joan. She said you had kept it in your wallet for a year. I was touched. Daniel
Notes for life events
Dear Frank, congratulations on your retirement. Forty-one years at the hospital is a remarkable career. Thank you for letting me share the day. Daniel
Hi Priya, congratulations on the new house. I hope the twins have claimed their rooms already. Thank you for telling us. Tom
Dear Ruth, congratulations on becoming a grandmother. Thank you for the photo. Rosie has your smile. Daniel
Hi Marcus, congratulations on selling the shop. Twenty years behind that counter deserves a long holiday. Anjali
Dear Mr and Mrs Chen, happy fiftieth anniversary. Thank you for inviting us to the party. The speeches were wonderful. Claire
Notes of sympathy
Keep these short and personal. No business, no follow-up meeting in the card.
Dear Helen, I was so sorry to hear about George. He was always kind to me. Thinking of you and the family. Claire
Dear Sam, I am sorry about your mother. I remember how she lit up talking about you. With sympathy. Tom
Seasonal client appreciation notes
Dear Ruth, thank you for another year with us. I hope the winter is gentle and the garden sleeps well. Happy holidays. Daniel
Hi Marcus and Leah, happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for being clients and friends of the practice. Anjali
Dear Mr Osei, happy new year from all of us. Thank you for the calendar from Accra. It is on my wall. Claire
How do you send client thank-you cards at scale?
Write each note once with the client's name and the moment as fields, get it approved, then send it when the moment happens. That is what MailMyCard for business does. A real pen writes every card, and it is posted from Bangalore the day it is ordered.
- Price. One card is $14.99 with delivery included. Business volumes start at $8.99 a card for a pilot of 50 and go down to $3.49 a card at 5,000 or more.
- Connections. One-click connections for HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Attio, monday.com, Keap and Close, plus Shopify, WooCommerce and Stripe.
- Anything else. Zapier, Make and n8n turn a spreadsheet row or form into a card. There is also an API and an MCP server.
- Schedules. A Schedule sends a card every year on a date, such as a client's birthday or the anniversary of their first meeting, and works out the posting day so it arrives in time.
For more wording ideas, see our small-business thank-you notes.
What should a financial advisor never write in a thank-you card?
Anything about money. The card should hold nothing your compliance team would need to think twice about.
- Returns or performance. "What a year for your portfolio" is a performance claim.
- Market views. "Rates are about to fall" is a forecast.
- Advice. "Now is a good time to top up" is a recommendation.
- A referral request. Thanks with a favour attached reads as a pitch.
- "Valued client." It tells them you did not check the name.
The simple version works. Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley's 2018 study in Psychological Science found that people writing thank-you letters underestimated how happy the recipients would be and overestimated how awkward they would feel (Association for Psychological Science).
Sources
- FINRA, Rule 2210, Communications with the Public: finra.org
- US Securities and Exchange Commission, Investment Adviser Marketing final rule: sec.gov
- Kitces Research on advisor marketing: kitces.com
- Kitces Research, client acquisition costs by marketing tactic: kitces.com
- Brookings, "Beyond the balance sheet: What American households still use the mail for": brookings.edu
- Kumar, A. and Epley, N. (2018), "Undervaluing Gratitude", Psychological Science, via the Association for Psychological Science
