Most financial professionals do not have an effective lead generation strategy.
Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge of advisors and consultants who struggle is finding qualified leads who become their clients.
However, that doesn’t need to be your reality; today, I am pulling back the curtain and showing you how to generate more leads.
Which Lead Generation Strategies Work for Advisors?
The first step is to create your financial advisor marketing strategy. The second is to create your plan to generate leads.
While there are many prospecting methods to generate leads for the financial services industry, some work better than others.
Cold strategies, including cold calling and direct mail, often work better if you sell a product.
Warm methods focus on connections. They include word of mouth, relationship marketing, and feeder workshops. A marketing strategy focused on a connector approach generally builds trust quicker, generates more high-quality leads, and produces a better conversion rate and return on investment.
Warm Introductions
Most experts agree that the best lead gen is warm introductions and referrals. One of the easiest ways to generate referrals is to become the go-to expert in a niche market.
Cold Calling
Most people would agree that receiving a cold call is as enjoyable as running your fingernails down a chalkboard. And while it can work if you are selling a product, it is not an ideal strategy to build an advisory business or get warm introductions.
Buying Leads
Purchasing financial advisor leads may seem like an ideal option initially. Meeting people who want help with their money is an ideal situation. The problem with buying leads include:
- The prospects are not qualified
- The amount of time it takes to reach them
- Receiving inaccurate contact information
- Not getting referrals from the leads
Digital Marketing
Online marketing can be a viable option for generating leads.
Facebook continues to move into the “Pay to Play” field, meaning you need to pay to reach people. If you choose to run ads, it is generally better to offer a free resource versus an initial meeting. Before spending a lot of money, test your offer on a smaller group to see what works.
Regardless of your methodology, begin by creating a sales funnel that works.
Click here to watch “Lead Generation for Financial Advisors and Consultants”:
How to Create a Sales Funnel to Generate Leads
Identify Your Ideal Client
The first sales funnel step is to determine who you want to serve. The next is to determine what your prospective clients need, so you can determine how to best attract them.
Conduct Research
Once you identify your ideal client, you need to talk with them to determine what they want.
The groups you will research include:
Interviewees
These are prospects in your niche that may never become your client. They provide valuable insight into what they want, where they go, how they feel, and their concerns.
Clients
Your clients should include new and existing, as each will generally provide a different perspective.
Referral Partners
Referral partners include reciprocal partners who give and want to receive warm introductions. And centers of influence generally only provide referrals and thus, do not have as much vested interest in the referral process. Reciprocal partners are valuable as they have a more vested interest in you succeeding.
Sample questions include:
- What do you love about your current advisor (if they have one)?
- Do you belong to any groups?
- Are you associated with or attend any church or synagogue?
- Where do you get your news?
- What do you do in your free time?
- Do you subscribe to any publications?
- What concerns or worries do you have?
Choose Your Lead Generation Strategies
When conducting research, ask how they would prefer to meet a new advisor. While the most common response is through a warm introduction, there are other excellent strategies.
Website
Creating an SEO website makes attracting your ideal client easier. During your research interviews, ask what topics they would like more information about.
Begin by researching keywords and creating cornerstone pages that your ideal client is searching for on the internet. For example, your offer may be, “The 5 Best Tax Planning Tips for Business Owners.” Then create content that will link to your cornerstone piece.
Offer valuable, free downloadable resources on each page and post what your ideal clients want and need. If they enter their information, then they get the resource.
Sample Offers
For example, offer “The 5 Best Tax Planning Tips for Entrepreneurs” to business owners who plan to retire in five years. Your free download might be “The Top 3 Exit Strategies of Millionaire Entrepreneurs.”
If you serve widowed clients, your article may be “The Widows Survival Guide.” The free resource offered could be “The Widows Financial Checklist.”
During your research interviews, ask enough questions to determine what information people want. This helps to ensure you are providing valuable information that your prospects want.
Here is another example:
If you want to access the Lead Generation Guide, click here to access it and learn how top producers generate a consistent flow of ideal, affluent clients.
Financial advisors and money coaches who want the inside scoop will click the link, provide their name and email, and get the Lead Generation Guide. It is that simple.
Content
In addition to the content on your website, determine what weekly content you will provide your current and prospective clients.
People need an advisor about 3-7% of the time during the year. By providing consistent content, you will be top of mind when your services are needed.
During your research interviews, ask them what format they prefer to get content. The primary options include:
- Newsletter
- Blog
- Podcast
- Video
Next, ask what topics they are interested in reading. While this seems obvious, you will get more ideas by diving deeper.
Plan your content out six to twelve weeks, so you can batch your content and save time.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The difference between cold and warm lead generation strategies, and specifically, which are more effective.
- The best marketing strategies that are working right now for advisors and consultants who want to work with wealthy clients, including women and couples.
- The top three lead generation strategies for financial advisors and consultants.
- The “chase and push” versus “attract and pull” lead generation strategies, including what works best with your niche market and marketing budget.
- How to use relationship marketing to connect, attract, and retain more ideal, affluent clients.
- How to use feeder workshops while growing your warm introductions and referrals (This is one of my favorite strategies.).
- The best market research techniques to dominate your niche market and get more referrals to your ideal prospects.
- What you should not do when it comes to prospecting (especially for wealthy clients).
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Enjoy the episode!
Annette
