How To Improve Your Lead Generation For Financial Services

Do less than 10 out of 100 inquiries your sales team receives fail to convert into sales? If so, this article will help.

Within this article we’ll review 3 ways to improve the quality of your leads so that your sales team can close more deals quickly.

1. Update your ideal customer avatar
2. Review your current ads and taylor changes based on new customer profile
3. Use Facebook’s algorithm to generate better leads.

Let’s review each of the above one by one to clarify your next steps.

Create a new customer avatar

During your next morning meeting ensure every sales representative fully understands, and can identify, who your ideal customer is. Over time, it’s easy to include many types of people as your perfect client however, that’s detrimental to the growth of your business if not simply inaccurate.

With a clear reminder, each team member will focus on the specific needs of your highest-valued customer. In turn your sales team will quickly improve their outreach and return on your investment.

For example, if you’re selling Term life insurance and for the past year the majority of your sales come from women in their mid-sixties who live in Venice, Florida, your marketing and lead generation efforts will be better spent focusing primarily on this group.

Take a few hours to assess the data. Who are the 20% responsible for 80% of your returns?

Review your current ads and make adjustments

Armed with data and proof, now you can send that intel to your marketing team to restructure your ads, messaging throughout your social media channels and snail mail ads. Within a few days, perhaps weeks depending on the marketing vehicle(s) used, the calls your sale team receives will be more congruent and hyper-focused on women in their mid-sixties from Florida.

This methods is great for remaining agile and moving the needle forward for your company.

Use Facebook to generate good leads

We use Facebook PPC to help national B2C companies obtain a steady flow of good quality leads. With the ability to get messages in front of granular audiences, we’re able to repeat the above steps and scale relatively quickly. Each successive campaign yields better, more impressive results because we leverage Facebook’s algorithm to wedge our way into a specific sector of the national or global population.

Here are the steps we use to funnel perspective customers who are nearer to the end of the buying cycle.

1. Our ads do not look like ads
2. We provide relevant information
3. The call-to-action is subtle
4. The landing pages blend-in and look credible

Let’s review each of the above for greater clarity…

Our ads do not look like ads

The human eye is trained to spot ads quickly… if we’re not expecting to see it, our brains translate it as a threat and it’s quickly dismissed. The hours it took your marketing team to create this ad was pointless and a waste of your budget.

Human phycology tells us that when we want something from another person, attention, money, etc., we need to appeal to their needs first and speak to them in their language.

To do this effectively select an image, or video clip thumbnail that connects with them on an emotional level. We are programmed to enjoy looking at things that trigger a feeing of:

1. Happiness
2. Laughter
3. Love
4. Success
5. Money (in the form of saving or gaining)

When emotions such as the above are seen, your audience will pause long enough to read or listen to your message. Three to four seconds are long enough to grab prospective customer’s attention and hook them into learning more about your service or product.

The next piece of marketing material that is produced for your company should be fully vetted. If it “smells” like and ad, dump it fast and start from the basics.

For example, use a close up image of a cat or dog expressing the emotional trigger you want your viewer to feel. If you’re selling Term Life Insurance, the face of a sad dog with a captive headline such as: Things are different without you…. I wish I were prepared… An alternative version would show a dog with a joyful expression and a headline that reads “I’m so glad you’re here… and grateful you’re prepared…

Images of pets infiltrate into our minds ‘under the radar’ of the ad filter. It’s easier to embed your messages within this context and depending on the wording, tone and colors you use, it’s easier to generate higher-quality leads this way too.

Provide relevant information

This is a no-brainer and therefore shouldn’t  ‘need’ to be included in this list. So I’ll include what we do to ensure only useful content is seen and provided to potential customers.

Here are two questions I ask to determine what should / shouldn’t be in an ad:

1. If added will it help the viewer understand the service / product better?
2. If omitted will a benefit of the service / product be left out?

Once we discuss each benefits and connect the benefit to a specific transformation the perspective client will receive, the ‘hard’ work is done. It’s then about ensuring the headline and call-to-action are clear, magnetic and subtle.

Is the call-to-action is subtle?

Remember a few years ago seeing multiple red arrows on landing pages that said “CLICK HERE, NOW!!!”? I sure do and I don’t know about you but I do not miss those days! “Call-to-actions” like those scream, AD ALERT.

If the ole CLICK HERE, NOW!! is out, what do you use instead? Remember, we’re flying under the radar here so our goal is to think like our reptilian brain…

What will our less evolved mind respond best to? … Non-threatening suggestions and thoughtful recommendations. 

Craft your call-to-action as your favorite professor would highlight recommended material for an upcoming mid-term. Subtle hints…

For instance, “… did you find this information helpful? Great! Should you or your family need more help, you might benefit from speaking with an expert. If so, tap the link to reserve your seat.”

It may sound weird but this round about way of communicating in an ad is just want our old-brain needs in order to feel safe.

Do your landing pages blend-in and look credible?

Credible landing pages include the following information about your company:

1. Your logo
2. Social Media links
3. Phone number(s),
4. Mailing or business address
5. Disclaimer, terms, and privacy policies
6. Congruent messaging about your service / product(s)
7. Collect the minimum data from them necessary to help them

Let’s expand on #7. Most of our clients in the financial service space need more than a name, email address and phone number. Similarly you may need to know the prospective client’s location, age and income. Move the viewer through the process with greater ease by showing only a few questions at a time instead of showing one long form as soon as they hit the landing page.

Use landing pages from companies like Unbounce will help you produce awesome pages with engaging forms, without having to code.

Unbounce makes it easy to transfer the landing pages to a subdomain with your website’s hosting company. This way the URL is branded to your company… increasing trust and conversions.

To summarize what we’ve covered

1. You were reminded to update your ideal avatar based on sales data from the past 12 months.
2. You’ll use that data to create more congruent messaging and ads
3. Leverage Facebook’s algorithm for higher quality of leads
4. “Go under the radar” with your ad’s messaging
5. Use subtle a call-to-action and finally…
6. Create a landing page that rocks with Unbounce

So if you follow the above recommendations mentioned in this article, the quality of your leads will quickly soar to new heights.

Think your company & sales team will benefit from a steady flow of high-quality leads? Watch this 15-minute free training first! https://zane-white.com/free-training