How to attract and retain next-gen wealth inheritors in 2026
64%
Trust in financial services globally — near the bottom of all sectors measured1
1 in 3 consumers don't trust the industry managing their money1
This environment doesn’t have to define your practice.
Our guide is designed to help you build credibility in a trust recession and earn the confidence of the next generation of wealth inheritors.
JUMP TO:
- Why the Old Playbook No Longer Works
- Ready & Waiting for Financial Education
- What is a Financial Educator?
- 2 Ways Financial Education Grows Your Practice
- Education-Based Marketing: Your Most Powerful Acquisition Strategy
- What Some Financial Content Creators Get Right
- How Credentialed Professionals Get Noticed Online
- Why Most Content Fails in the First Sentence
- Where to Post Financial Education Content
- Using Embedded Education to Keep Clients
- Expand Your Reach Without Burning Out
Why the Old Playbook No Longer Works
The trust signals that won over Baby Boomers —
credentials, tenure, firm affiliation —
are no longer enough on their own.
For younger generations, leading with titles and designations can backfire.
It can read as distance or hierarchy: “I’m above you.”
They don’t want to be impressed — they want to be understood.
They prefer a guide who walks alongside them.
For Next Gen, credentials are proof — not your opening line.
3 Trust Signals Next Gen Looks For
Visibility
54%
of investors ages 35–44 with at least $500,000 in investable assets say they waited until a major life event to seek financial advice.2 When that moment arrives, visibility matters.
Relatability
38%
of investors in that same age group say they would use social media to find a financial professional.2 Being on social media, meeting them where they’re at to stay top of mind and speaking to key milestones helps ensure you’re who they think of first.
Relevancy
81%
of consumers ignore irrelevant marketing messages and aren’t just indifferent to generic marketing—they actively disengage if messages aren’t relevant.3
Ready and Waiting for Financial Education
The clients coming your way — women and younger generations at the center of the greatest wealth transfer in history, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, are actively seeking financial guidance, and more than 70% of women say they want financial education specifically.⁴
For these clients, financial wellness isn’t separate from overall wellness — it’s part of it. Guidance that helps them make better financial decisions doesn’t just build wealth. It reduces anxiety and supports the life they’re working toward.
The stakes extend beyond the individual, too. The “third generation curse” suggests that 90% of family wealth is lost by the third generation — not because of poor markets, but because heirs weren’t prepared to receive it.
The data backs this up:
95%
of adult children believe they can responsibly handle an inheritance,
while 1 in 4 parents aren't so sure.⁵
What Is a Financial Educator?
Next Gen clients want to feel empowered — and education that empowers is one of the strongest trust builders. It helps people feel capable, confident, and clear enough to make decisions they can stand behind.
But here’s where things often get muddled.
If you ask financial professionals whether they provide financial education, most will say yes.
Ask what that looks like, and you’ll hear examples like:
- a blog on retirement basics
- a Roth vs. traditional IRA one‑pager
- a Social Security seminar
There’s a place for that kind of content — especially when we talk about the difference between education‑based marketing (for client acquisition) and embedded education (for retention).
But on its own, generic content rarely resonates with Next Gen.
If it isn’t tied to a real problem they’re facing, it won’t attract attention — and it won’t earn trust.
Before you can show up as an educator in a way that lands, it helps to clarify three terms that are often used interchangeably:
Financial Literacy, Financial Education, and Financial Wellness —
What’s the difference?
Literacy = knowledge
Definitions and mechanics
Someone can know what a Roth IRA is for years and never open one. Knowledge alone rarely changes behavior.
Education = understanding + action
Contextual and human
The process of helping someone understand money in a way that actually changes how they think and act.
Wellness = behavior + outcomes
Lived financial confidence
The result of effective education. Education is what bridges literacy and wellness.
Almost all generations are consuming financial content constantly — social media, YouTube, podcasts, newsletters, AI tools.
They aren’t lacking information. They’re drowning in it.
They don’t need more facts.
They need clarity.
They want a financial professional who can:
- curate what actually matters
- explain why it matters
- translate concepts into real decisions
- walk through trade‑offs
- personalize guidance to their goals
- reduce financial overwhelm
- build confidence through understanding
This is why the role of educator matters so much right now.
What Financial Education Looks Like in Practice
| Top social platforms out for financial advice | Gen Z | Millennials |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 71% | 67% |
| 50% | 43% | |
| TikTok | 49% | 42% |
| 31% | 61% | |
| X (formerly Twitter) | 36% | 31% |
| Snapchat | 30% | 21% |
| 25% | 31% | |
| Banking or financial institution blogs (i.e. Wells Fargo, Chase, American Express) | 21% | 32% |
| Podcasts (i.e. NPR Planet Money, The Ramsey Show, Joe Rogan) | 21% | 27% |
| News publications (i.e. Fox Business, CNBC, CBS) | 16% | 28% |
| Fintech companies (i.e. Credit Karma, NerdWallet, Bankrate)Fin | 15% | 24% |
| Treads | 11% | 12% |
Your prospective clients have unlimited access to information.
What they don’t have is someone who can help them interpret it, prioritize it, and apply it to their actual lives.
One of the most effective ways to do that?
Video.
75%
of consumers prefer learning through video, influencing 56% of financial decisions.6
But beyond the numbers, video does something no other format can: it lets prospective clients see that you’re a real person. Something very important in the age of AI.
Financial professionals who embrace the role of educator — and show up on video to do it — gain a competitive advantage.
2 Ways Financial Education Grows Your Practice
Financial education works on both ends of the client relationship — before and after a prospect becomes a client.
Client Acquisition
Before prospects ever reach out, they're researching. Your content is their first impression of how you think — and whether you're the right fit. Education-based marketing is your most powerful inbound tool for attracting next-gen clients who don't know you yet.
Client retention
Once someone is a client, education deepens the relationship. Clients who understand the why behind your recommendations:
- stay more loyal
- Feel more confident during market volatility
- and more likely to refer the people they care about
Education-Based Marketing: Your Most Powerful Acquisition Strategy
Education‑based marketing shares insights that help prospects understand financial decisions, see your expertise in context, and build trust — often before you ever speak with them.
But many financial professionals unintentionally miss this opportunity.
They create content that informs, not content that compels.
Explaining concepts.
Defining terms.
Breaking down market updates.
Useful — yes.
But usefulness alone doesn’t generate demand.
Compelling content does.
- speaks directly to a real problem they’re facing
- names something they’ve been quietly wondering about
- or introduces an idea they haven’t considered
Here's a real-life example of what that looks like
A financial professional sends an email to their target audience that opens with this:
“Your 401(k) won’t be enough to retire on.”
This is a statement that stops readers in their tracks. From there, they walk the reader through a perspective shift — pensions are gone, retirement savings is now an individual responsibility, and many younger investors aren’t just planning for retirement at 65. They want options. They want flexibility. And a 401(k) that penalizes withdrawals before age 59½ may not be built for the life they’re picturing.
The email doesn’t teach them everything. It shows them one piece of a much larger picture — and makes them realize there’s more they haven’t thought about.
This is what education-based marketing is designed to do: give prospects something genuinely valuable while helping them recognize that their financial world is more complex than they realized.
What Some Financial Content Creators Get Right
Finfluencers — finance content creators who’ve built large audiences on social platforms — have cracked the code to getting attention. When it’s not outlandish claims or ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes (this is not the way), it’s the idea that:
Your perspective builds more trust than your credentials.
Creators like Vivian Tu (“Your Rich BFF”), Humphrey Yang, or Katie Gatti Tassin (“Money with Katie”), for example, have tapped into a generational shift in how people learn about money and who they consider credible.
They earn attention by speaking directly to real experiences, anxieties, and aspirations — before introducing financial mechanics.
They’ve mastered three principles worth borrowing:
They lead with who it’s for.
“I help first‑gen professionals build wealth.”
“I teach high‑earning women how to invest.”
“I break down money without the Wall Street extra hassle.”
They make the audience feel seen immediately.
They lead with problems, not products.
Think:
“7 Money Traps Keeping You Broke”
“Money Advice No One Ever Told Us”
These grab attention because they speak to a lived pain point.
Compare that to “Understanding tax‑advantaged vehicles” — accurate, but not motivating.
They give their audience something to rally against.
“Wall Street doesn’t want you to know this.”
“Banks profit off your confusion.”
“The retirement industry makes this too complicated.”
They name the "villain” — and position themselves as the guide.
Financial professionals have something most finfluencers don’t:
credentials, oversight, and the ability to implement real solutions.
That’s a major advantage — but only if you show up in ways that earn attention first:
- conversational language
- real stories
- no jargon
- a clear, human point of view
Do that consistently, and your expertise becomes far more compelling.
How Credentialed Professionals Get Noticed Online
Financial services isn’t the only industry where experts had to learn how to compete for attention in a content‑saturated world. Across fields, credentialed professionals watched creators dominate online — then adapted by showing their expertise in ways people actually see.
Read more
Medicine
Fitness
Tax and Accounting
Law
Across industries, the professionals who gained traction were the ones who made their expertise understandable — and became the voices people listened to.
Generational Differences to Keep in Mind
Before you can create financial education that resonates, you need to know who you’re trying to reach.
Different generations look for different things in a financial professional — and those preferences shape how they consume educational content, what they trust, and what they ignore.
Financial education isn’t one‑size‑fits‑all. A 58‑year‑old Gen Xer and a 34‑year‑old Millennial don’t respond to the same tone, examples, or trust signals.
Here’s a quick overview:
Gen Z
Identity‑driven and values‑aligned.
They look for authenticity, inclusivity, and social proof — and they trust what feels community‑validated.
Millennials
Motivated by purpose and meaning.
They expect professionals to take a clear point of view. Content that connects to their life experience, not just their financial picture, earns their attention.
Gen X
Prioritizes competence and straight talk.
They value clarity, reliability, and demonstrated expertise. Authenticity matters — but it must be backed by substance.
Why Most Content Fails in the First Sentence
In a feed crowded with competing messages, your opening line has one job: create enough curiosity for someone to continue reading or watching.
These hook formats work especially well for education‑based content:
The Contrarian Take
“Most retirement advice focuses on returns. The real risk often shows up somewhere else.”
The Hard Truth
“Many investors don’t realize this about retirement income until it’s too late.”
The Pattern Break
“Everyone talks about saving for retirement. Fewer talk about how to turn savings into income.”
The Trade-Off
“The strategy that protects retirement savings can also introduce this trade-off.”
The Scenario
“If you’re within 10 years of retirement, this decision may matter more than you think.”
The Myth-Buster
“Here’s what many people misunderstand about required minimum distributions.”
Share Your Thinking, Not Just Your Knowledge
People can get financial information anywhere.
What they want — and can’t find anywhere else — is your interpretation.
Your judgment, your perspective, and the pattern recognition you’ve built from helping real clients navigate real decisions.
Knowledge‑based content tells someone what is true.
Thinking‑based content shows them how you would approach a situation they’re actually in.
And that’s what resonates with younger generations.
They don’t engage with what you sell as much as who you are: your worldview, your values, and whether you seem to understand their reality.
The shift from sharing knowledge to sharing perspective is often just a slight reframe:
- Instead of: “Why You Need to Build an Emergency Fund” → “The Reason I Tell Clients to Stop Investing Until They Do This First”
- Instead of: “How to Set a Budget” → “Feel Like You’re Wasting Money on Rent? Here’s How to Be Ready to Buy in Less Than 2 Years”
- Instead of : “Everything You Need to Know About Estate Planning” → “What to Expect When You’re Expecting an Inheritance”
- Instead of: “Investing Basics” → “What I Wish I Knew Before I Put Money in the Market for the First Time”
Notice the pattern: each reframed version is specific, scenario-based, and written in the first person. It signals that this person has actually seen this situation. They have a point of view. They’re willing to take a stance. That’s what earns a click, a follow, and eventually a call.
Where to Post Financial Education Content
To make your financial education content effective, you have to meet your audience where they already are — and where they’re already searching for answers.
For many financial professionals, the default is LinkedIn.
But LinkedIn is a professional identity platform, not a place people go to ask money questions or admit confusion.
It doesn’t even appear among the top platforms where people seek financial advice.
*Amoung respondents who actively seek financial advice online/from social media
Chart source: Gen Z feels burned after taking financial advice from social media – Intuit Credit Karma
Next Gen is unlikely to:
- comment publicly on financial worries
- reveal what they don’t know
- engage openly with money‑related problems
Why?
Because LinkedIn is where they signal competence, not vulnerability.
This doesn’t mean you should abandon LinkedIn — it means you should adjust expectations.
People may watch your videos, swipe your carousels, or read your posts without ever liking or commenting.
Private consumption is still consumption.
That’s why video and carousels tend to perform well on LinkedIn. They let people learn quietly, without broadcasting it to their network.
Where to prioritize for deeper engagement:
For reaching a Gen X audience specifically, YouTube and email are worth prioritizing. On YouTube, lead with the kinds of questions your audience is already typing into search:
- What should you do with a 401(k) from an old job
- Tax traps to avoid when receiving an inheritance
- 3 ways Gen X can catch up on retirement savings
A call-to-action moves interested viewers onto your email list, where you can get more personalized.
Next up: embedded education — the ongoing, personalized guidance you deliver once someone becomes a client, and how it compounds your value over time.
Using Embedded Education to Keep Clients
Client acquisition is only half the equation.
Once someone becomes a client, the way you deliver financial education changes. It shifts from attracting attention to deepening understanding at the moments it matters most.
That’s embedded education — guidance woven into the client experience, delivered naturally and precisely when a client needs it, not as a separate curriculum or program.
Cerulli research shows that when clients become dissatisfied, the complaints aren’t about performance. They’re about trustworthiness, honesty, and dependability.⁷
Embedded education reinforces all three.
Why Timing Changes Everything
CGAP’s Impact Pathfinder found that people absorb financial guidance most effectively during personally meaningful moments — teachable moments.⁸
These include:
- Starting a new job
- Navigating a home purchase
- Going through a major life change
- Preparing for retirement
- Taking on new financial responsibilities
- Facing a significant decision for the first time
When guidance arrives exactly when they need it, comprehension increases — and follow‑through improves.
What Makes Embedded Education Effective
The education that influences behavior tends to be:
- Contextual — tied to the client’s real situation
- Timely — delivered exactly when the decision is being made
- Bite-sized — focused on only what they need to know now
- Connected — anchored to an action they’re about to take
Fintech apps deliver this through push notifications and in‑app microlearning.
Financial professionals deliver it through conversation, context, and recognizing a learning opportunity in real time.
Embedded education happens across every touchpoint in the client relationship. Here’s how you could apply it in your practice:
In annual reviews
walk clients through your reasoning. “Here’s what we did. Here’s why. Here’s what I’m watching next.” This gives clients a clear lens into how you think.
During market shifts
Don’t share market commentary — clients want interpretation. “Here’s what this means for your plan.”
At life event moments
Share info that can help clients make a decision.
During onboarding
Set the foundation for how the relationship will work.
In client meetings
bring partners or adult children into key conversations. Educating multiple generations will benefit both you and your clients.
For example…
A client asks whether they should move more of their portfolio into stocks to try to capture higher returns.
Instead of immediately discussing specific investments, the financial professional uses the moment to introduce a simple concept about allocation.
"You may have heard the old rule of thumb that says you should subtract your age from 100 to estimate how much of your portfolio might be in stocks. So someone who’s 60 might have about 40% in equities and the rest in more conservative investments. It’s not a perfect formula, but it highlights an important idea: as you get closer to retirement, the role of your portfolio starts to shift. It becomes less about maximizing growth and more about balancing growth with stability and income."
In a few sentences, the client learns something new about how portfolio allocation works. The conversation shifts from chasing returns to understanding the purpose of different parts of the portfolio.
That’s a teachable moment — where a financial professional turns a simple question into a deeper understanding of the strategy behind the plan.
The Real Value of Embedded Education
Every moment where a client walks away with more clarity is a deposit into the trust account.
Over time, clients who consistently receive contextual education:
- make better decisions
- feel more confident during volatility
- follow through on their plan
- and refer with conviction — because they understand the value of the advice they’re receiving
These benefits show up in:
retention, referrals, deeper relationships, and multigenerational continuity.
Expand Your Reach Without Burning Out
Being the face of your own financial education — especially on video — is one of the fastest ways to build trust with prospective clients. But producing content consistently while running a practice isn’t always realistic.
What is non‑negotiable:
Your clients and prospects need the financial education they’re looking for.
And ideally, it should still feel like it’s coming from you — even if you’re not creating every piece from scratch.
The good news?
You don’t have to do it all yourself.
Let Third‑Party Content Do Some of the Heavy Lifting
Many financial professionals underestimate the value of their carrier relationships — especially when it comes to delivering financial education at scale.
Insurance carriers like United Life have the resources, subject matter expertise, and compliance infrastructure to produce consumer‑friendly educational content you can use directly with prospects and clients.
This may include:
Short explainer videos
Guides, worksheets, and checklists
Educational one‑pagers
Infographics and visuals
Articles you can personalize with your own perspective
Leveraging this kind of ready‑made content accomplishes two things:
- It keeps you in the role of educator
—even when you don’t have time to create everything yourself. - It helps prospects recognize when they need deeper expertise
—the kind only a financial professional can provide.
As prospects learn the basics, they naturally uncover questions, gaps, and decisions that require guidance.
That’s when they turn to you.
If your goal is to strengthen your financial education presence — and your obstacle is bandwidth — your carrier relationship is an underutilized asset worth revisiting.
The Advantage That Can't Be Automated
Today, anyone can access financial information.
A quick search — or a chatbot — can surface retirement basics, tax strategies, or even an explanation of annuities.
Information is no longer your differentiator.
And financial professionals who lead with facts alone are competing on the wrong terms.
What separates a trusted financial educator from a search engine isn’t what they know — it’s how they interpret it, and how they make it meaningful for a specific person, in a specific moment, with a specific set of circumstances.
That’s the part that can’t be automated.
In a trust recession, financial professionals who show up as visible, relatable, and relevant aren’t just executing a marketing strategy.
They’re building a competitive advantage that compounds quietly over time — one that’s nearly impossible to compete with.
Ready to put this into practice?
Explore United Life’s Next Gen resources and tools — and start building the kind of trust that brings the next generation of wealth inheritors to you.
1 https://www.edelmansmithfield.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer/report-financial-sector
4 https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/financial-literacy-gender-gap/
5 Families harness generational wealth but still avoid key conversations – InvestmentNews
6 https://www.visora.co/blogs/10-video-marketing-trends-for-financial-services-2025
7 Solving the Trust Problem | CFP Board
8 https://www.cgap.org/blog/when-does-financial-education-work-best-evidence-based-insights
The content contained in this guide is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is directed to licensed financial professionals. It does not constitute legal, compliance, or investment advice.
Financial professionals are responsible for ensuring that all marketing and client-facing materials comply with applicable federal and state regulatory requirements, including but not limited to standards set forth by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), state insurance departments, and any other governing bodies with jurisdiction over their practice.
All content should be reviewed and approved through your firm’s internal compliance process prior to use or distribution. This includes digital content, social media, email communications, client presentations, and any other marketing materials derived from or inspired by this guide.
Regulatory requirements vary by state, product type, and distribution channel. What is permissible in one context may not be in another. Financial professionals are encouraged to consult with their firm’s compliance department or qualified legal counsel to determine the appropriateness of any marketing approach for their specific situation.
This guide does not guarantee specific business outcomes. Results will vary based on individual effort, market conditions, client demographics, and other factors outside the control of the content herein. Nothing in this guide should be construed as a promise or projection of future results.
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