A financial advisor is a firm that owns its brand and website and has a marketing budget that is used to produce qualified leads for the firm. The leads may be processed by principals at the firms or provided to professionals who work for the firms.
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We believe firms versus professionals is an important distinction due to the necessity for a website to make some marketing strategies work.
This does not mean some of the strategies in this article cannot be used by professionals who may or may not have access to a website. For example, a lot of professionals buy leads from third parties.
Who Initiates Contact?
The first strategic issue is the initiation of contact. Do you initiate contact with investors, do the investors initiate contact with you, or do you use both strategies?
Top 5 Strategies for Producing Leads
The five strategies that are used most frequently by financial advisors include:
- Outbound Marketing
- Inbound Marketing
- Buying Leads
- Referrals
- Advertising
1. Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is the process you can use to initiate contact with investors. The two most common forms of Outbound Marketing are cold calling and direct mail/email.
The biggest Outbound challenge is reaching out to people who do not want to be contacted. For example, you make 100 telephone calls and do not produce one good quality prospect. Or, you pay a substantial amount of money to send out 5,000 pieces of direct mail that produces little or no return.
Very few high-quality financial advisors are using Outbound Marketing tactics. Some financial professionals, whose main skill is sales, may be the only ones still using Outbound Marketing tactics.
2. Inbound Marketing
As the name implies, Inbound Marketing is the opposite of Outbound Marketing. This marketing strategy is based on investors initiating contact with financial advisors.
The Internet makes Inbound Marketing possible for investors who:
- Enter keywords in the search engines to find advisors
- Visit advisor websites to learn more about them
- Google search advisor names
- Visit regulatory agency websites
- Seek online reviews of advisors
- Initiate contact with the best advisors
Inbound Marketing starts with Internet visibility. Investors have to be able to find you to initiate their screening processes. What they see on the Internet has to compel them to visit your website. The website has a one-time opportunity to convert a visitor into a qualified lead.
The websites must provide the information that investors are seeking in an intuitive manner. Why intuitive? Surveys show investors will exit sites before they will search for information.
3. Buying Leads
One simple solution for firms and professionals is to buy leads from lead generation companies that use Inbound Marketing tactics to produce leads for financial advisors.
Inbound Marketing is critical, so you are buying warm leads. After all the leads initiated the process. Very few lead generation companies use Outbound Marketing because the ROI is not there.
Most of the lead generation services will validate investor information before they match them to financial advisors in their communities. And, the companies will match investors to a maximum of three financial advisors.
The key metrics for buying leads are how many did you actually talk to and how many resulted in presentations for your services.
4. Referrals
There is no doubt that referrals from satisfied clients, friends, or family are your best source of leads. The referral acts like an endorsement that creates a positive pre-disposition for your services.
Most advisors, who provide high-quality advice and services, receive some referrals each year, but, they do not convert 100% of them into clients. And less than 10% of advisors claim they receive enough referrals each month to meet their goals for adding new clients. In fact, in a lot of cases, referrals do not even offset the various forms of attrition.
Referrals are great if advisors can figure out ways to get more of them.
5. Advertising Campaigns
Running advertising campaigns is a version of Inbound Marketing because investors initiate contact when they respond to advertisements.
Ads may route investors to your website or to a landing page where you capture their contact information.
Your ads may target investors who are actively seeking financial advisors. These are ideal leads because they have an immediate need. Their goal should be to schedule a call for a mutual exchange of information.
Advertising for investors who are seeking information is a much bigger market. For example, your ad offers a free eBook that solves a financial problem that is experienced by a high percentage of investors.
Advertising on the major search engines will require fairly deep pockets. Facebook advertising requires less money and may produce better results.
