How Financial Advisors can turn more leads into appointments using existing content
If you’ve watched the movie The Wolf of the Wall Street, you were probably sold on the life of Jordan Belfort and how he took his entry-level brokerage firm to the highest level. It’s no surprise that most financial advisors have taken a leaf off his cold calling methods to generate leads and prospecting for clients.
While Belfort’s cold calling system worked back then, in the modern world, all has changed. One out of 15 people responds to a cold call from a stranger, and just a tiny percentage of people let you state your purpose once they discover you’re trying to pitch them over the phone.
This is why Financial advisors have to think like internet marketers. This means luring prospective customers with free information and providing them enough value that you eventually earn their trust and money as well.
In terms of a sales funnel, that journey begins with what we call a lead magnet.
What’s a lead magnet?
The most popular question people ask when it comes to choosing a financial advisor is, ” how am I sure my financial advisor is good?’ Unfortunately, there’s little chance to flex your expertise over the phone. You get limited time to brag about your achievement, qualification as well as licensing. Fortunately, a lead magnet can help you bridge that gap.
According to Investopedia, ” a lead magnet is a marketing term for a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contacts.” A lead magnet comes in different formats: videos, case studies, free guides, white papers, newsletters, or free consultations.
A lead magnet offers free value, but it’s a chance to show your expertise and prove to your readers that you know your stuff and have all it takes to make their financial goals possible.
If you can get your readers saying to themselves: ” Heck, that financial advisor is knowledgeable, I should listen to his advise” after going through your lead magnet, guess who they will come to when they need to hire a financial advisor?
YOU.
Why Don’t Most Financial Advisors Offer Lead Magnets?
Many financial advisors operate like doctors – they believe nothing should come free, including financial advice. Hence, every knowledge is what every cent they can milk from it.
First, you should know that offering a lead magnet doesn’t mean offering proprietary information that would make your services redundant. Secondly, lead magnets don’t mean having people walking in and out of your office for free consultations. Rather, lead magnets utilise a “one to many” approach. They only need to be created once and distributed to thousands of people within your niche.
Also, to get good results from your lead magnet, you need to stay away from what everyone is offering on Google. Steer clear of cliché and only provide your audience something new and refreshing. This means no free guides on topics such as:
“How to gain financial freedom.”
Or
“How to build a secure financial future.”
Or
“Getting good with money.”
Your lead magnet should dive deeply into the subject matter rather than scratching the surface.
If everyone is writing on your chosen topics, it’s a red flag and a hint that it won’t convert. Financial advisors must narrow down on a specific area of interest in selecting a niche.
Your lead magnet can touch on key pain points in any of the following categories – Retirement planning, budgeting, money management, Investing, or credit rating.
It’s best to be known as an authority in one of these fields rather than an “all-rounder.”
Reasons Why You Should Offer a Lead Magnet
It helps you build trust.
Put yourself in the shoe of your prospective client: if you were to leave your financial future in the hands of an advisor, who would you choose?
Someone you just knew out of the blue?
Or
An advisor you’ve gone through his website content or youtube videos even though you’ve never met?
Most people opt for the second option because they’ve developed a certain level of trust and already perceive the individual as an expert. Prospects who go through your lead magnet no longer see you as a random adviser; instead, they now know the type of work you do as well as how you can help them.
Wouldn’t it be easier if your prospects were already pre-sold before coming to you? This way, you waste no time convincing them because your lead magnet has already done the talking for you.
Breakthrough the wall of objection
Most contacts have tons of reasons for not hiring a financial advisor.
You will often hear excuses such as:
” Most of them don’t know what they’re talking about.”
” I have more knowledge on the topic than him.”
” They’re Salesmen in disguise.”
Or
” I can’t blindly trust a stranger’s opinion on my finances.”
On average, most clients interview 3 -5 financial advisors before settling for one. This is because the level of skepticism about the profession is currently high, and you will have to prove your worth to get a pass.
A good lead magnet offers more than just value; it shows your expertise. Especially testimonials from past and current clients. Because according to Ivan Illán, author of “How to Hire (or Fire) Your Financial Advisor, 60% of financial advisers get their Gigs through referrals from clients. It goes a long way to highlight the importance of “word of mouth” in this field.
Financial Advisors who have proven their worth through free value don’t go through hours of intensive interviews like those who are total strangers to their prospective clients. This is because they’re perceived as experts, and most clients believe they’re lucky to be working with them.
Get them to raise their hands.
Offering a lead magnet also makes your job easier. It’s a way of weeding out the bad eggs and only keeping those you can help around.
Because someone downloaded your lead magnet doesn’t mean they’re likely to be prospective clients. Instead, it’s the action they take after that matters. Hence, a lead magnet serves as a funnel for sieving out prospective clients from freebie seekers.
How to Create Lead Magnet Quickly Using Existing Content
The modern day financial advisor dishes lots of quality advice via posts published on their website. And if you don’t have one already, how did your current client’s find you?
Having a website allows you to be discovered through searches and you create awareness beyond your geographical location.
Even better, rather than creating a lead magnet from scratch, you can convert your best performing content into free guides for converting first-time visitors into leads and leads to appointments.
How do you do this? With the help of OpenRead.io
OpenRead.io is a lead magnet creation software that can help you create lead magnets from scratch or convert existing posts into guides that will turn leads into endless streams of appointments.
Follow our 5-step guide to converting existing blog posts to lead magnet with OpenRead.io
Step-by-step Guide To Creating Lead Magnets Using Existing Content
For this exercise, we will be citing an example with one of our existing blog posts titled: “ How to Follow-up Leads that have read your Free Guide.”
Step 1: Log into Your OpenRead Dashboard and click on “create lead magnet”
Note: Click here to sign-up for the 7-days free trials if you haven’t done so already
Step 2: Copy Content title from your blog post
Step 3: Design your cover page by clicking ‘settings’ to edit its appearance
Step 4: Copy and Paste Content from your website to OpenRead.io Pages
Step 5: Add Images and videos to your content to enhance engagement
Note; Only Vimeo and YouTube videos can be embedded into your content.
Press Save, and you’ve successfully converted your existing blog content to a free guide your audience can download, just as seen in the image below.
Want to watch this process live in action?
We’ve recorded a demo video to walk through how to use OpenRead to create your lead magnet step-by-step.
What else does OpenRead.io Offer?
You will be glad to know that aside from Lead magnet creation, OpenRead also helps you track conversion. Because as a Financial Advisor, it does a whole lot of good to know who’s reading your lead magnet and who are finding your information valuable.
This conversion metrics includes knowing who’s reading your lead magnet and who is not, the number of pages each lead has completed and where they’re dropping off. This helps you to know if your effort is paying off or not.
What’s Next?
Jump on OpenRead’s 7 Days free trial to start creating your Lead Magnets Now!
No Credit Card Required.
Waiting for you on the other side.
