Planning content tells clients what to do about their specific situation. This is the category that generates the most inbound and the most referrals — because a client who reads a Roth conversion window analysis and thinks “wait, is this me?” calls. That is a pipeline item no cold outreach can replicate. Compliance note: these topics work best when framed as general education. “Here is how Roth conversions work for someone in this situation” is educational. “You should convert your IRA this year” is personalized advice that belongs in a client meeting. Keep the newsletter in the educational lane; let the meeting handle the application.
This page is one of four category playbooks under the 20-idea content hub for advisor newsletters. The other three categories — market commentary, behavioral finance, and regulatory — each have their own depth and compliance considerations.
What makes planning content the highest-inbound category?
Short answer: Planning content names a specific situation. The reader self-identifies. The inbound is the call asking whether the situation applies to them. No other newsletter category reliably produces that call — and Kitces' 2024 referral research found that financial advisory firms generating $5 in revenue per $1 of marketing spend almost universally credit educational content as the primary driver.
Market commentary translates macro into household impact. Behavioral finance explains why clients feel what they feel. Regulatory content keeps clients informed of rule changes. Planning content does something different: it presents a specific situation — a 62-year-old with a gap year before Social Security, a client whose estate may exceed the post-sunset exemption — and the reader either is that person or knows someone who is. The self-identification is immediate and personal in a way that a bond-math explainer is not.
The referral dynamic follows directly. A client who reads your Roth conversion window analysis and calls with “is this me?” is also likely to forward the issue to a colleague or sibling in a similar situation. The Kitces data is consistent with what advisors report anecdotally: the planning-topic issues get forwarded more than any other category. Each forward is a warm introduction the advisor did not have to manufacture.
6. Roth conversion windows: the case for converting in low-income years
Pre-RMD, post-retirement gap years are one of the most underused planning windows available to retirees. A client who retired at 62 with a $1M traditional IRA and no earned income, Social Security not yet started, and no RMDs until 73 has a decade of low-marginal-rate years to convert. Walk through a simple illustration: tax cost of converting $50K per year for five years versus the tax cost of $100K in annual RMDs at 75. The numbers make the argument. This issue generates inbound calls.
Sample subject line: “Roth conversions: the five-year window most people miss”
7. Social Security claiming: 62 vs. 67 vs. 70, with break-even math
Every advisor has given this talk in a client meeting. Few have written it down in a format clients can share. The break-even math at different claiming ages, the spousal coordination strategies, the impact of continued earning on a pre-FRA benefit — presented in a clear table — is one of the most bookmarked newsletter issues in the planning space. Include a one-line note that your firm runs personalized analyses for clients approaching their claiming decision.
Sample subject line: “Social Security at 62, 67, or 70 — your break-even”
8. RMD mechanics under SECURE 2.0
The SECURE 2.0 Act moved the required beginning date for RMDs to age 73, with a further shift to 75 scheduled for 2033. The penalty for missed RMDs dropped from 50% to 25% (and 10% if corrected promptly). These are not small changes, and a large portion of your clients who are in their late 60s do not know them. An annual update on the current RMD rules — with a clean table of ages, penalties, and inherited IRA timelines — is a genuine client service disguised as an email.
Sample subject line: “RMDs at 73: the new math under SECURE 2.0”
9. Tax-loss harvesting beyond December
Most clients think of tax-loss harvesting as a December activity. Most advisors do it year-round. An issue that explains lot selection, the wash-sale rule, and why harvesting in March after a drawdown can be more valuable than waiting until year-end positions the firm as doing active work on the client's behalf all year, not just in Q4. This is a great issue to run in any quarter where there has been meaningful volatility.
Sample subject line: “Why we tax-loss harvested your account this month”
10. Estate planning before the federal exemption sunsets in 2026
The TCJA doubled the federal estate and gift tax exemption in 2017. That doubled exemption is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts, returning the per-person exclusion from roughly $13.6M to approximately $7M (indexed). For clients with estates above the post-sunset threshold, the gifting window between now and year-end is one of the most consequential planning opportunities in a generation. Run this in Q1 and again in Q3. Every issue that reaches a client at the right moment is worth a dozen cold calls.
Sample subject line: “The estate exemption is sunsetting. Now what?”
When in the year does planning content land hardest?
Short answer: Roth conversions land in Q1 (after clients see their prior-year tax return) and again in Q4 (before year-end). Social Security content hits whenever a client crosses an age milestone. RMD content runs in early Q4, before December deadlines close. Estate exemption content runs in Q1 and Q3 of any sunset year. Across a 26-issue biweekly calendar, 8 to 10 issues per year belong in this category.
The calendar logic is worth mapping out explicitly. Eight planning issues per year on a biweekly schedule means roughly one planning issue every three weeks — frequent enough to establish the firm as a planning resource, infrequent enough that each issue still feels considered rather than routine. The Q1 Roth window issue, a Social Security claiming piece timed to the spring open-enrollment season, a mid-year RMD update, a Q3 estate exemption piece, and a Q4 year-end tax checklist fill out the core. The remaining three or four issues can respond to whatever legislative or market event makes a planning topic newly relevant.
For the weeks between planning deadlines — February, late May, August — the planning category is the wrong anchor. Use those weeks for content from the regulatory category for the seasonal pieces, or from the market commentary category for market context in volatile weeks. Planning content that arrives without a seasonal hook reads as generic; planning content that arrives exactly when the client is staring at a tax return or a year-end statement reads as essential.
What compliance lines should planning content respect?
Short answer: Keep every planning topic in the educational lane. “Here is how this works for someone in this situation” is education. “You should do this” is personalized advice. The line between them is not merely semantic — it determines whether the content is a marketing communication or an advisory communication under the SEC Marketing Rule 206(4)-1.
The SEC Marketing Rule 206(4)-1 (fully effective November 4, 2022) prohibits misleading statements, untrue facts, and cherry-picked performance, and requires specific disclosure treatment for any performance claim. Planning content does not usually involve performance claims, but it does involve a subtler risk: the content can drift from describing a planning concept to implicitly recommending a course of action. “A pre-RMD gap year is an opportunity for Roth conversions” is education. “If you retired in 2023 and have not yet started Social Security, you should be converting now” is advice. The first describes a concept; the second prescribes an action for a specific reader. Most compliance officers flag the second.
The “for someone in this situation” framing is a compliance-safe rhetorical pattern that experienced advisor-newsletter writers use throughout the planning category. It keeps the reader oriented as an observer of a hypothetical rather than a recipient of advice, while still allowing the reader to self-identify. “For a client who retired at 62 with a $1M traditional IRA, the pre-RMD gap years represent a meaningful conversion opportunity” is compliant. “You have a conversion opportunity right now” is not. Additionally, any planning piece that names a dollar threshold tied directly to the firm's service offering — for example, a minimum AUM figure used as a threshold example — typically requires CCO pre-clearance. Build that review step into the content calendar. Planning content sits in the yellow zone: higher risk than market commentary, lower risk than performance-adjacent content, and entirely manageable with careful framing.
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Newsletter for Financial AdvisorsCommon Questions
Frequently asked questions
Is planning content riskier than market commentary under the SEC Marketing Rule?
Yes, modestly. SEC Marketing Rule 206(4)-1 (effective November 4, 2022) targets misleading statements, untrue facts, and cherry-picked performance. Market commentary that stays descriptive sits in the green zone. Planning content sits in the yellow zone: a Roth conversion analysis or estate-planning piece can drift from general education into personalized advice, which transforms a newsletter item into an advisory communication with different recordkeeping and disclosure requirements. The mitigation is rhetorical: frame every planning topic as "here is how this works for someone in this situation" rather than "you should do this." That framing keeps the newsletter in the educational lane and leaves the personalized application for a client meeting, where suitability analysis belongs.
How long should a planning topic newsletter actually be?
Four hundred to seven hundred words — the longest of the four newsletter categories. Planning content requires worked examples that shorter formats cannot support. A Roth conversion analysis without a dollar illustration is unconvincing; a Social Security break-even piece without a table is unhelpful. Readers who open a planning topic have signaled they want depth. AWeber data on financial emails shows that readers who engage with planning content spend an average of 2.4 minutes on the page — longer than any other advisory content type. Use the length. Just make sure every sentence earns its word count: no hedged preamble, no recapping what you said in the subject line, no padding the conclusion.
Should planning topics name dollar thresholds?
Yes, when they are statutory or index-published — and no, when they imply personalized recommendations. The $25,000 IRMAA cliff, the 2025 IRA contribution limit of $7,000, the SECURE 2.0 RMD age of 73, and the current federal estate exemption of roughly $13.6M per person are all public, statutory figures. Naming them is the service; a client who does not know the IRMAA income threshold cannot act on the information. What you should not do is pair a statutory threshold with a directive: "if your income is above $103,000, you should do X" reads as personalized advice. Present the threshold; let the client decide whether it applies; invite the conversation.
How do you balance planning content with the other three categories in a biweekly schedule?
A biweekly newsletter produces 26 issues per year. A rough rotation that covers all four categories without burning out any single topic: 8 to 10 planning issues, 6 to 8 market commentary issues, 6 to 8 behavioral finance issues, and 6 to 8 regulatory and seasonal issues. Planning earns the largest share because it generates the most inbound and referrals. Market commentary earns its slot quarterly plus after major macro events. Behavioral finance fills the weeks when there is no macro catalyst and no planning deadline. Regulatory and seasonal content anchors the calendar around known dates: tax season, year-end gifting, open enrollment, RMD deadlines. The rotation is not rigid — a meaningful macro event justifies a market issue in any week — but the rough proportions hold across years.