If you’re looking for ideas on how to grow your email list and get more prospective clients into your advisor sales funnel, a solid lead magnet could be the missing piece of the puzzle. Lead magnets are an excellent way to encourage engagement and collect prospects’ contact information. And creating a financial advisor lead magnet from scratch is easier than you might think.
Ready to grow your client base? SmartAsset AMP could help simplify your marketing strategy.
What Is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is something you offer to prospective clients in exchange for their contact information. In marketing, lead magnets are most often used to attract interested customers’ attention and get them into a sales funnel.
Once a prospect is in your funnel, you have an opportunity to build a rapport and establish trust. For instance, if you’re using lead magnets to collect email addresses, you can communicate with prospects weekly or monthly via short but helpful newsletters.
Lead magnets can be a highly effective and efficient marketing tool for financial advisors for several reasons:
- A single lead magnet can generate a steady stream of leads, without requiring you to invest any additional time or money in creating it.
- High-value lead magnets can help build trust and underscore your credibility while piquing prospective clients’ interest.
- Financial advisor lead magnets can be tailored to target specific personas or ideal client profiles so that you’re only attracting right-fit leads.
Lead magnets can increase conversions, leading to higher revenues. The key is choosing the right format and content to offer to get prospects interested in what your firm has to offer.
How to Create a Financial Advisor Lead Magnet
It isn’t difficult to put together a lead magnet; it just requires understanding a few aspects of the process:
Step 1: Know Your Audience
Before you dig into lead magnet creation, ask yourself this question: Who are you creating this lead magnet for?
Lead magnet creation starts with understanding your ideal client, so you need to know:
- Who your clients are
- What they need help with the most
- How you’re uniquely qualified to help them
If you don’t have an ideal client persona yet, you may want to spend some time creating one before moving ahead with the next step.
Step 2: Select a Topic
Once you know who you’re creating a lead magnet for, you can focus on the what. In other words, what will your lead magnet cover?
The most effective financial advisor lead magnets:
- Focus on a single topic or target a specific issue/challenge prospects face
- Are packed with valuable information that’s easy to digest
- Get prospects interested in what you have to offer and steer them toward the next step in the sales funnel
Again, ask yourself what the clients you hope to attract are most likely to be interested in or struggling with.
Step 3: Choose a Format
Lead magnets can take different forms. Some of the possibilities include:
- Infographics
- E-books
- Online webinars or seminars
- Checklists
- Spreadsheets
- Cheat sheets
- Calculators
- Calendars
- White papers
- Guides or booklets
- Templates
- Quizzes
Understanding how your ideal client prefers to consume content can give you an idea of which form your lead magnet should take.
Step 4: Create Your Lead Magnet
The last step is the design phase, and if you’re thinking, I don’t have a degree in graphic design, don’t panic.
There are plenty of online tools financial advisors can use to create simple yet visually appealing lead magnets. Sites like Canva, for example, feature templates that you can purchase and customize to fit your firm’s branding.
If you’re struggling with the design aspect, you might consider working with a marketing agency or design firm or hiring a freelance designer to help. You can communicate what kind of content your lead magnet should include and who it’s for, then leave the design up to someone else.
Step 5: Deliver Your Lead Magnet
Once you have a lead magnet to offer, you need to make it accessible to prospects. The simplest way to do that is to create a fillable form that you can add to your website. You can do that with an email marketing service.
Prospects enter their email address on the form and receive an email to confirm they want to be added to your list. Once they confirm their subscription, your lead magnet is automatically delivered to their inbox.
You can embed the form on your site’s homepage or create a separate landing page. You can then share a link to the form’s landing page on social media to encourage your followers to visit and sign up to get the lead magnet.
Financial Advisor Lead Magnet Ideas
Need some inspiration for lead magnets that convert? Here are a few examples of lead magnets for financial advisors.
#1: Social Security Planning Checklist
Social Security is often a confusing topic, and a simple one-page checklist can help prospective clients assess whether they’re on the right track. You might create a downloadable PDF file (again, using a tool like Canva or Google Docs), that covers 10 important Social Security planning steps or tips to know.
At the bottom of the checklist, you can include a clickable link to your website’s contact form and encourage prospects to schedule a chat.
#2: Retirement Readiness Quiz
Are you ready to retire? That’s a question plenty of advisors ask prospects, and a retirement readiness quiz can help them answer it.
The way that you collect leads with this type of lead magnet is by requiring quiz-takers to enter their email address to receive their scores. You can use online quiz generator tools to put together a list of questions and answers, along with scoring guidelines.
#3: College Planning Seminar or Workshop
College planning can be a source of stress for some, and an online seminar or workshop can help you address parents’ biggest concerns.
You can create a seminar in a slideshow format or record yourself leading a webinar, which allows prospects to view it when it’s most convenient for them. For added value, offer a downloadable workbook that parents can use to follow along and sketch out a college savings plan.
#4: Wealth-Building Cheat Sheet
A cheat sheet makes a great lead magnet for clients who are looking for unique tips or hacks to solve a problem. A great title or headline can help grab a prospect’s attention so they’re curious about what the cheat sheet includes.
Here’s an example of the difference your title makes.
- 6 Ways to Build Wealth
- 6 Secrets for Supercharging Wealth That Billionaires Don’t Want You to Know
Which one would you be more likely to read as a prospective client? The first title is informative but bland. The second title is more compelling, since it hints that you have knowledge that other financial experts don’t.
Remember, however, that the goal is to capture attention, not to mislead. The SEC’s marketing rule prohibits advisors from using misleading or unbalanced statements in advertising.
#5: One-Page Financial Plan Template
A one-page financial plan template allows clients to create a snapshot view of where they are financially and where they want to go. This kind of lead magnet might appeal to people who are wondering if they’re on track financially, or if they need to make some tweaks to their plan.
Once they’ve downloaded their template, you can send an automated email as a follow-up, encouraging them to get in touch to discuss their plan.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do Lead Magnets Work?
Lead magnets can be a powerful tool for attracting new clients and increasing conversions. The most effective lead magnets speak to the needs or concerns of prospects and deliver the information they’re looking for in an accessible format.
Should Financial Advisors Use Lead Magnets?
Developing one or more lead magnets is a fantastic way to attract more clients to your firm while increasing your brand’s visibility. You can use lead magnets to get prospects on your email list and into your sales funnel, allowing you to tell them more about your firm and how you can help them.
How Can Financial Advisors Attract More Clients?
There are many ways to generate leads as a financial advisor. Some of the most popular methods include content marketing, email marketing and social media. You can also use a lead generation service to target prospective clients who might be looking for advisory services.
Bottom Line
If you’re not harnessing the power of lead magnets yet, you could be missing chances to connect with prospective clients who need your help. You can start with one lead magnet first, then try some A/B testing with different formats or topics to see what type of content your target audience prefers.
Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business
- Outsourcing some of your marketing efforts can save time, leaving you free to focus on serving your existing clients. SmartAsset AMP is an advisor marketing platform that can help you connect with leads while giving you the tools you need to follow up. Schedule a demo to learn how you can leverage it to grow your firm.
- Compliance is something you can’t afford to overlook when developing your firm’s marketing plan. It’s important to ensure that your promotional materials and advertising efforts align with all applicable regulatory guidelines. Compliance software can make this task easier, though it’s not a substitute for a chief compliance officer (CCO).
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