The success of your career as a wealth manager, financial planner or any other form of financial advisor is dependent on generating leads. Knowing that is one thing, generating a sufficient quantity of those leads is quite another.
Generating effective leads for financial advisors is challenging to say the least, especially as the marketing landscape – and lead generation IS a form of marketing – changes so often.
Build a Harder Working Website
The first step in generating more leads for financial advisors – and better targeted leads at that – is to build, maintain and nurture a website that is attractive to search engines and engaging for potential visitors.
It’s uncommon for most financial advisors to gain clients through their website. And if they do, it’s most likely because the visitor was already directed to them and just happened to look at their website.
In today’s era of digital marketing, however, an increasing number of advisors are using their websites to build a trusted relationship with strangers who eventually become genuine prospects and clients.
And, whether it’s digital marketing or traditional networking, the tools and strategies for doing so are strikingly similar – from cultivating a long-term relationship that fosters trust to drip marketing individuals who aren’t ready to do business yet.
However, the sad truth is that most financial advisor websites aren’t designed to attract new business and are frequently missing key information, such as photos to help visitors form a personal connection, a clear description of services and pricing, and a “lead magnet” that can be traded for email addresses to ensure site visitors return in the future.
Most financial advisor websites also fail to pay attention to the importance of SEO – search engine optimization – to help ensure that it is placed high in search results, meaning that those who are Googling for just the services they offer find it first.
Fortunately, these are all issues that can be resolved. It certainly takes time, effort and resources in terms of content creation (more on that in a moment) but making the effort to transform your financial advisor website from an Internet placeholder to a reliable lead generation source is well worth it.
Lead Magnets for Effective Lead Generation for Financial Advisors
Even if you answer all of a website visitor’s queries and provide them with appropriate tools and information to showcase your value and expertise, the reality is that the majority of visitors who come to your website will not be ready to conduct business with you right away.
Maybe your site made a good first impression, but they need more time to determine if you have earned their trust. Maybe they’re just not ready to reach you about doing business yet.
However, the fact that they are there likely means that they are thinking about it, which makes them a lead. A lead that needs to be captured quickly before they surf away to the next financial advisor’s website on the list their Google search produced.
You’ll need to engage with them in some way of ensuring that they come back to your website when they are. Otherwise, your website and company may have been forgotten by the time a need arises.
In a real-world encounter, this was historically achieved by collecting a prospect’s business card and adding him or her to a mailing list to get your most recent monthly or quarterly newsletter. The same method is applicable in the modern digital age with an email list.
Of course, most individuals, especially business people, protect their email addresses and do not wish to be added to every website’s (e-)mailing list. As a result, obtaining an email address calls for providing something useful in return.
Using A Relevant Lead Magnet to Generate Leads for Financial Advisors
Having anything to offer a website visitor in exchange for their email address is referred to as a “lead magnet” in the realm of “inbound” digital marketing. The concept is that whatever you’re offering is so appealing that it attracts potential customer leads “like a magnet,” with website users happily exchanging their email addresses in exchange for the offer.
However, in our experience, on most financial advisor’s websites, it’s unusual to come across a “Call To Action” that provides a lead magnet in exchange for an email address.
For most financial advisors, a prospective client’s only options while visiting their website are all-or-nothing: either contact the advisor to transact business, or leave (and never come back again).
A call-to-action with a lead magnet is a critical mid-point, allowing individuals who are interested – and maybe even intrigued – by what you have to offer to stay connected (and essentially grant you permission to market to them) without having to book a call or a meeting they may not be ready for.
Of course, the catch to creating a lead magnet for a financial advisor website is that it must be magnetic – that is, something so compelling that a visitor to your site would willingly give up their email address in return for it.
Social Media for Effective Lead Generation for Financial Advisors
You have no doubt heard that you should have a social media presence. And you may have also heard that it can be an effective way to generate financial advisor leads, even without paying for advertisements.
However, social media for financial advisors can be tricky. As we are sure you do know, Facebook is the largest social networking platform of all – although its influence is finally slipping – but it can be a tricky place for those offering what will be confidential advice, often to higher worth individuals.
Even if they have a Facebook account they use regularly, people usually don’t head there looking for a financial advisor. Where they do go more frequently is LinkedIn.
LinkedIn lead generation, when done right, can be a very powerful way to generate financial advisor leads. While CEOs and C-Suite folks might not spend much time on Facebook or Instagram, research consistently shows they do spend time – and engage with others – on LinkedIn.
As LinkedIn lead generation experts at Pearl Lemon Leads, we can certainly attest to this (and show you the case studies and testimonials to prove how well we do it)
Not only does LinkedIn offer access to potentially very lucrative clients, but if you make use of it on a consistent basis and offer useful, helpful content while engaging in group discussions it’s a great way to prove your expertise in your field and build both your brand and your prospect’s trust in what you will be able to do for them.
Creating Social Communities For Effective Financial Advisor Lead Generation
There is one thing that some financial advisors can make good use of the ‘lighter’ social networks like Facebook for that can be an effective lead generation strategy: community building.
It’s easier to form a group around shared interests thanks to social media. Create a Facebook group, a discussion forum on your website, a YouTube channel, or even a podcast to provide instructional financial resources in your field of expertise, and you can generate leads and build your brand at the same time.
PPC Search Advertising for Financial Advisor Lead Generation
Google Ads and Microsoft’s search engine marketing programs automatically place your financial services firm on page one of a search engine results page.
Essentially, these systems work like auctions, with bids determining where things go. However, because clicks can be costly, it’s critical to use extremely targeted terms and make wise targeting judgments. Start experimenting with search advertising for any amount of money, but if you plan to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars each month, consider hiring a PPC professional to help you convert better and get a bigger return – in the form of targeted leads – on your investment.
Cold Email for Financial Advisor Lead Generation
Cold email has a poor reputation, and you might be one of the many people that thinks it’s past its prime as a lead generation technique. That, however, is just not the case. However, most people are hesitant to send cold emails because they believe it is spam, and they don’t want to develop a bad reputation. But a well-crafted cold email isn’t spam, and it may be just what you need to raise your revenue.
COLD EMAIL ACTUALLY WORKS WHEN DONE PROPERLY.
A cold email financial advisor lead generation campaign, when correctly implemented, can create more leads than any other lead generation method.
To be successful, however, this is a secondary method. Buying lists of names and email addresses to cold email does not work. You’ll need to obtain these emails yourself – LinkedIn is a great place to do this – not only to ensure that you don’t accidentally become a spammer but to reach people who are actually interested in what you offer.
Get Expert Financial Advisor Lead Generation Help
All the potentially effective lead generation strategies we’ve covered here – and there are more – do call for additional resources. They call for time, effort, expertise and a willingness to stay current with lead generation best practices (which change all the time.)
It’s not at all unusual for financial advisors and other finance professionals to directly buy leads. This can be expensive, and often does not offer great ROI, especially as those leads have often been sold to your peers and competitors as well.
Working with a lead generation company like Pearl Lemon Leads is a better investment. With us especially actually, as in addition to lead generation experts we can offer you access to content creation specialists, SEO whiz kids, PPC specialists and more.
There’s another major reason why some of the world’s most successful financial advisors prefer to engage with a lead generation firm. Their time is valuable to them. They have current clients to attend to, and any time spent generating leads on their own would be better spent consulting with the new, paying clients that leads generated by others can bring in.
Sounds like you? Contact us today and let’s talk about effective lead generation for financial advisors and how we can help you.
