Generating leads – aka new clients – is the lifeblood of any financial services business. And yet, it’s one of the hardest things to do. Why? Because there are so many moving parts and elements to consider. You need to have a firm understanding of your target market, what their needs and wants are, where they ‘hang out’ online, and what will get their attention. And that’s just the beginning.
Finding them is one thing. Turning a lead into an actual paying customer is something entirely different. You can do this manually, sure, but it’s going to be time-consuming and it’s not going to be very efficient. This is where lead generation software comes in.
Before we go into what lead generation software is, let’s briefly touch on what lead generation is and how it works for financial service providers.
Key Takeaways:
- Lead generation has few essential steps to ensure success, which include identifying your market, attracting leads, and converting leads to sales.
- Automating lead generation will free up your time from doing repetitive stuff, giving you more time for strategy creation and operations management.
- Automating lead generation includes website and software integration. This ensures that all bases are covered, and nothing is left out.
Two of the best CRM/Lead Generation tools out there are Salesforce and Infusionsoft. Read about our review here.
What is lead generation?
In a nutshell, lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers into leads – people who have indicated an interest in the financial services that you offer. It’s a crucial part of the sales process. Lead generation has a few essential steps:
Identifying your target market:
Everyone needs financial advice and services at some point in their lives, but not everyone is your ideal target market. For example, if you’re a financial planner who specializes in retirement planning, your target market is going to be people who are nearing retirement age. Market research and knowing how to target relevant prospects is going to impact everything from the messaging you use to your branding, online marketing strategy, and the type of lead generation tool you choose.
Attracting attention:
Once you know who your prospective customers are, you need to get their attention. This is another essential part of lead generation for financial services. You can do this with a variety of marketing activities, such as content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media marketing. The key is to use the channels that your target market is using – if they’re hanging out on Facebook, that’s where you need to be.
Generating leads:
“Generating leads” is just a fancy way of saying “getting people to raise their hand and say they’re interested.” There are a number of ways to do this, but some of the most common are landing pages, lead magnets, and contact forms. The ultimate goal is to get potential customers to give you their contact information so that you can follow up with them.
If you’re new to the concept of lead generation, think of it as adding names to your potential client list. You need information like names, email addresses, and phone numbers so that you can reach out to people who might be interested in what you have to say.
Nurturing leads:
Even if you’re the best financial planner in the world, you’re not going to convert every single lead into a paying customer. That’s just not how it works. Some people will be interested in what you have to say but not ready to pull the trigger just yet. Others will reach out to you but then get cold feet. And still, others will be tire-kickers who are just curious about what you do and have no intention of ever doing business with you.
There are two types of leads: cold and warm leads. As a financial advisor, your cold leads are those who don’t know who you are and have no relationship with you. Your warm leads are those who know who you are and have some level of trust and rapport with you. They are genuinely interested and can be potential clients. The goal is to turn your cold leads into warm leads by providing them with helpful information that builds trust and rapport. That is what nurturing your leads is all about.
Converting leads into customers:
Finally, you need to convert your leads into paying customers. This is where the rubber meets the road and where you really start to see a return on your investment (ROI). There are a number of ways to do this, but it typically involves some combination of sales and marketing activities. The key is to have a system in place that allows you to track your leads from start to finish so that you can see what’s working and what’s not.
Lead generation is a process, and it can be a long one. It’s not something that you’re going to be able to do overnight. Following these steps will help you get started on the right foot and set you up for success.
However, growing a financial service business – whether you’re running an agency or doing it solo – is also a numbers game. And the more leads you have, the better your chances of converting them into customers. That’s why using lead generation tools are so helpful for anyone in the financial industry.
What is lead generation software?
By this point, you probably understand how tedious and time-consuming lead generation can be. The path to new clients is full of potential mistakes as well. You can forget to follow up, reach out to the wrong person, or even say the wrong thing.
Lead generation tools automate the entire process so that you can focus on your core business. For example, you can use it to build landing pages, create lead magnets, and set up email drip campaigns.
This type of software is also designed to collect leads from multiple channels, such as social media, your website, and even offline sources. Once the leads are collected, the software will automatically route them to your marketing and sales team, so they can follow up and convert them into paying customers.
There are different types of lead generation tools, each catering to different channels and needs. For example, there are all-in-one platforms that provide a complete solution for lead generation, including email marketing, automation, and CRM integrations.
Other software is designed specifically for building landing pages, while others focus on providing leads from social media platforms.
Related Read: Salesforce vs Infusionsoft: Which CRM is right for your business?
What are the benefits of using lead generation tools?
There are many benefits of using lead generation tools, but here are the most important ones for financial advisors:
You can generate more leads in less time: This is probably the most obvious benefit, but it’s worth mentioning. Software is simply more efficient than humans. It can help you generate and capture leads around the clock, even while you sleep. This type of software is designed to select, contact, and follow up with leads automatically.
You can nurture your leads on autopilot: In order to nurture your leads, you need to stay in regular contact with them. That means sending them helpful information on a regular basis. With a lead generation tool, you can automate this process by setting up strategies like email drip campaigns. These are pre-written email sequences that get sent out automatically on a schedule that you specify. Aside from that, you can also use the software to automate your social media outreach, blog posts, and even sales calls.
You’ll never miss a follow up with a lead: One of the hardest things about manually generating qualified leads is that it’s easy to miss opportunities. You might forget to follow up with a lead or get busy and put off making that call. With lead generation tools, you can set reminders and get alerts when it’s time to reach out to a lead. This way, you can be sure that you’re staying top of mind and moving your leads through the sales pipeline.
You can set up an auto-responder: When someone comes to your website, they’re not always ready to buy. In fact, most people need to see your brand multiple times before they’re ready to make a purchase. That’s why it’s important to have an auto-responder set up. This is an email that gets sent automatically to someone when they fill out a form on your website. It’s a great way to stay in touch with your leads and continue providing them with valuable information. The best lead generation tools will have this feature built-in.
You’ll get real-time data analytics: Another huge benefit of using software is that you’ll be able to track your progress and get detailed insights into your lead generation campaign. This data is incredibly valuable, as it shows you where you’re excelling and which parts of your lead generation campaign could use some improvement. For example, you might see that your open rates are high but your click-through rates are low. This could indicate that your emails need to be more interesting or that you’re not sending them to the right people.
You can segment your leads: In order to properly nurture your leads, you need to segment them. That means dividing them up into groups based on factors like their interests, needs, or budget. Lead generation software makes it easy to segment your leads by allowing you to create custom fields. As an example, you could add a field for “Budget” and then segment your leads based on the budget they enter. You can also use this feature to segment your leads based on their location, job title, or company size.
You can score your leads: Scoring your leads is a great way to prioritize your sales efforts. Essentially, you’re assigning a “score” to each lead based on their likelihood of becoming a customer for your financial services. This way, you can focus your time and energy on the leads that are most likely to convert. Top-quality lead management software will have a lead scoring feature built-in.
Key Features to Look For in a Lead Generation Tool
Overall, the right lead generation software for financial services can boost your business and support your marketing team in ways that are just not possible with manual lead generation. But, not all lead generation software is created equal. Here are a few features to look for when you’re comparing different options:
User-friendliness
It doesn’t matter how advanced a lead generation system is – if it’s too difficult to use, it won’t do you any good. There’s naturally going to be a learning curve if it’s your first time using the software. But, it shouldn’t be so complicated that you or your sales and marketing teams can’t figure it out. The best lead generation software is designed with usability in mind.
Integrations
Another important thing to look for is whether or not the software integrates with the other sales and digital marketing tools you’re already using. Common financial advisor tools include e-mail marketing platforms, customer relationship management platforms (CRMs), and appointment scheduling software. If the lead generation software you’re considering doesn’t integrate with these tools, it’s not worth your time.
Landing Page Builder
If you’re planning on using landing pages to generate leads, make sure the software you choose has a landing page builder. This will make it easy to create high-converting landing pages without having to hire a designer.
CRM Integration
As mentioned, CRMs are essential for financial advisors. These tools help you keep track of your clients, prospects, and leads. Look for lead generation software that integrates with your CRM so you can automatically add new leads.
Email Marketing Integration
Email marketing is another important tool for financial advisors. The best lead generation software will allow you to seamlessly add new leads to your email marketing list. That way, you can start nurturing them right away.
Website Integration
If you have a website, you need to make sure the lead generation software you choose integrates with it. For instance, some lead generation software can help you create a pop-up form that appears on your website when someone visits it. Others can help you add a live chat widget to your website so you can chat with visitors in real-time.
Social Media Integration
Social media is a great place to generate leads. Look for lead generation software that allows you to post content directly to your social media accounts or that makes it easy to add a call-to-action to your social media posts.
Call Tracking
If you’re using paid advertising to generate leads, it’s important to track your calls. That way, you can see which ads are driving the most phone calls. The best lead generation software will have call tracking built-in.
A/B Testing
A/B testing means testing two different versions of something to see which one performs better. For instance, you might test two different headlines on a landing page to see which one gets more people to convert. Look for lead generation software with an A/B testing feature so you can easily test different aspects of your campaigns.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is a way to prioritize leads based on how likely they are to convert. For instance, you might give a lead a higher score if they’ve filled out a form on your website or keep returning to specific pages on your website. Only consider lead generation software with this feature. Manual lead scoring is both inefficient and inaccurate.
SEO
If you’re planning on generating leads through your website, you need to make sure the software you choose has SEO features. Look for software that lets you customize your title tags and meta descriptions and that provides you with keyword recommendations. Some lead generation software also offers automatic optimization features.
Real-Time Analytics and Reporting
Skip any lead generation software without this feature. You and your sales teams need to be able to see how your campaigns are performing in real-time so you can see what’s working and what you need to improve. It should show you critical data like conversion rate and cost-per-lead along with recommendations on how to improve your campaigns.
Pricing
There are both free and paid lead generation software options for financial service providers. As with most things, however, you get what you pay for. Most free lead generation software is extremely limited. For instance, you can only generate a certain number of leads per month. And, they usually don’t have features like real-time analytics or SEO optimization.
Paid lead generation software, on the other hand, offer features like these and more. They also don’t have any limits on the number of leads you can generate. When choosing paid lead generation software, make sure you compare the price with the features to make sure you’re getting a good deal. The best products also offer tiered pricing so you only pay for the features you need.
Integrate Technology Into Your Financial Service Business
Lead generation software is only one of the many ways you can use technology to improve your financial service business. Technology can help you automate repetitive tasks, better manage your client relationships, and improve the overall efficiency of your business.
Whether you’re looking for app development, custom-built technology solutions, or crafting a digital marketing strategy, Peregrine Consulting Group can help.
Contact us today for a FREE consultation.