Lead generation: the art of turning consumers into probable customers. Generating leads is crucial for financial advisors. Still, many struggle to do so, with 61% of companies identifying lead generation as their biggest marketing challenge.
Today we’re busting the myth that generating more leads has to blow your marketing budget. Your company can take initiative with any of these lead generation strategies immediately-and the best part? It’s only going to cost you extra effort and initiative, all of which will be worth it.
1. Send a Welcome Email
Don’t be distracted by the world of social media; email marketing is still super effective. 14% of consumers check social media first thing in the morning. 58% check email.
It’s one thing to have a landing page succeed in getting a prospect to join your email list, and it’s another thing to follow up with them and increase your chances of gaining a customer.
An automated welcome email doesn’t need to be anything over-the-top, but it goes a long way by making prospects feel seen and attended to. For best results, keep these tips in mind.
Stay Conversational
Use email marketing as another way to convey your firm’s personality. This welcome email is essentially an introduction to your company and subsequently leaves an impression on prospects. Don’t get too relaxed in tone, but remain conversational and make it clear that there’s a real person behind the screen-one who’s dedicated to the wellbeing of their clients.
Break Down the Perks
Almost half of Americans subscribe to email newsletters for benefits, such as savings or discounts. Offering additional perks exclusive to your email subscribers is great for retention.
Once you gain a new subscriber, be sure to lay down all the benefits they’ll get now that they’ve subscribed to your email list.
2. Use a Lead Magnet
Lead magnets, true to the name, are some of the best strategies to employ for lead generation. By definition, a lead magnet is anything that you can leverage to gain a prospect’s contact information. They come in many different forms, all varying in delivery, production time, and effectiveness.
The most important thing is that you be intentional when utilizing lead magnets. Before you do anything, remember who your target audience is and what kind of material they would find valuable enough to trade their contact information for it. For example, if you specialize in retirement planning, you don’t need to offer a checklist of “10 Things to Consider Before Buying Your First Home”. You could, however, offer a checklist of “10 Things to Consider Before Retirement”.
In addition, these lead magnets don’t have to be time-consuming. Most of the time, you can grab from other content you have in place to develop a lead magnet or even revive existing content as gated content.
3. Boost Social Media Posts
Sometimes companies fail to generate leads simply because they fail to get their content seen. This is especially true for social media, which 3.5 billion people use.
Social media boosting takes minutes, has flexible pricing, and is undeniably effective. For instance, boosting Facebook posts can be as cheap as $1. Social media feeds are now inundated with advertised content; on Facebook, organic reach has plummeted to single digits.
When boosting a Facebook post, you get the benefits of targeting your audience and controlling your boost campaign. Instagram also allows you to promote your posts for a set cost.
Of course, don’t pay to advertise every single thing you post. Doing so would be costly and unnecessary. However, if you happen to have a very well-performing post that you think represents your business well, consider using paid advertising. Social media algorithms present your content to people who are in your target audience, and sometimes that extra help is needed. By combining well-curated social media content and allocating some costs to advertising, you will reach a wider audience and gain more prospects.
4. Use Content Segmentation
Most businesses market to about three different segments. You should be segmenting your market. If you don’t, you’ll probably find that you’re putting in a lot of effort for lackluster results.
When you segment your market, you break it down into specific groups that have things in common. With these groups established, you’re then able to employ content segmentation: personalizing content to target different segments.
Statistics show that content segmentation is overwhelmingly effective. If your content is hyper-specific to the audience you’re trying to connect with, said content will reap better results and you will build trust with prospects.
Essentially, content segmentation is creating different versions of the same content to better connect with prospects; you can do this by simply tweaking your content, as above, for more specificity. Doing so makes the content you share more relevant to each segment, increasing your likelihood of generating leads.
5. Join Groups Online
One of the most underutilized strategies for reaching your target audience is also one of the smartest-simply seek out the online spaces where they already gather. This is the same premise as building a social media presence so you can be found by prospects, except much more targeted. Online networking groups, often on Facebook and LinkedIn, can connect you with thousands of new prospects.
The above Facebook group is a huge networking community for female physician entrepreneurs. If that fits into your advisory firm’s niche, you could join the group and start regularly sharing content from your landing pages or blog that they would find helpful and pertinent to their specific situations. This group has about 6,000 members-those are all potential new clients that will start to see you as a thought leader. You never know what connections you can make by putting your content out there.
Important to Note for This Strategy
Be wary as you scope out groups. Some, most likely on Facebook, don’t allow any form of advertising or “outsider” influence. Most of the time, however, people will be open to your input and advice.
6. Don’t Give Up
Getting leads overnight isn’t realistic, but these tips will surely help you generate more leads over time. Nonetheless, if you don’t preface your efforts with a strong landing page and funnel built to handle these leads, your results will fall flat. Optimizing your landing pages and having a system in place to further reel in leads are both vital to gain clients.
Companies with 30+ landing pages generate 7 times more leads than companies with fewer than 10.
With Lead Pilot, financial advisors can easily create landing pages that are designed for lead generation. Our all-in-one marketing platform also makes following up with those leads quick and effective, with customizable email campaigns and content.
Not to mention, there’s also a built-in analytic tool that tracks your leads and where they come from.
Altogether, don’t be disappointed if your efforts don’t boost your lead generation right away. Build a strong foundation, start small, and continue to build your brand and network. Once you take care of these aspects and then build upon them with strategies such as these, you will see results.
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About The Author
Katrina Herrera
A part of Twenty Over Ten’s digital marketing team, Katrina is passionate about creating content for others to enjoy. You can typically find her with an Americano in hand as she makes (yet another) bucket list, writes songs or watches wedding videos.