Lead Generation for Financial Advisors: Effective Strategies to Grow Your Client Base
It's a competitive landscape for financial advisors, so learning digital strategies to market your business and bring in new clients is more important than ever. Everyone needs financial support, but not everyone understands the importance of having a financial advisor. It’s up to you to position yourself and your business in the marketplace and to educate and inform potential clients when they’re ready to make decisions about their financial futures.
Lead generation for financial advisors is simpler than ever in today’s online world, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. A strong lead generation strategy should utilize multiple channels and employ a targeted approach to identifying prospects most likely to work with your firm. Here, we explain how to get leads using several proven methods.
5 Lead Generation Strategies for Financial Advisors
Strategy 1: Content Marketing
Content marketing involves creating web content and driving traffic to your web pages through search engine optimization (SEO). While there are many types of content, some of the most common include blogs, white papers, case studies, and educational content.
A great content marketing strategy has two main benefits. First, it positions you as a thought leader in financial planning, and second, it bolsters your SEO to attract more clients.
Creating content tailored towards certain keywords helps attract qualified leads who are asking search engines the questions your business can answer. This strategy targets leads who are already interested in your services.
As you create more content and rank higher for specific keywords, content marketing builds your domain authority, which makes your website rank higher in search rankings for a range of related search terms. It’s a great way to cast a broad net to reach your target market, as the higher you appear in search results, the more likely people are to click on your content.
Moreover, content marketing is a great way to retain client relationships because it allows you to offer additional services to clients without requiring a formal meeting. With updates on important financial trends, regulations, and market activity, your content marketing can provide advice to educate and engage with clients and prospects. As you develop and refine your content, you create a powerful resource that can attract new clients and nurture long-term relationships.
Best Practices
- Work with a technical SEO expert to ensure your website is fully optimized for search engines
- Create a list of keywords you believe your clients are most interested in and create content with those keywords (working with an experienced SEO writer is a good idea)
- Offer a mix of content, including thought leadership, case studies, news, and more
- Amplify your content with paid advertising, using audience segmentation to drive the highest-quality leads to certain types of content
- Always add a call to action (CTA) at the end of every piece of content so people know what to do next, whether it's signing up for a seminar, scheduling a consultation, contacting you directly
Strategy 2: Social Media Marketing
Seventy percent of Americans use social media. With this massive addressable market, social media can be a powerful marketing tool that allows you to capture the attention of potential clients via entertaining or educational content.
Social media is an outstanding tool for engaging with potential clients and fostering relationships with new ones. By building a strong social media presence, you can help people understand that they can visit your pages for interesting content about financial trends, answers to common investment questions, and other bite-sized content that adds value to their lives.
Remember, social media isn't just about writing updates on Facebook and X. Creating video content is a great idea, too, as 93% of marketers today say they've received a positive return on investment by using video marketing. You should offer a variety of social media posts across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, and TikTok.
Best Practices
- Maintain an active social media presence across your chosen platforms
- Repurpose content for different platforms when possible, but don't always recycle the same posts; you should bring something unique to each platform
- Always engage with commenters and messages to answer questions, offer support, and encourage people to schedule a consultation
Strategy 3: Educational Content
A 2022 study found that educational content makes consumers 131% more likely to buy from a brand or business. Education is among the best lead generation strategies for financial advisors because customers often come to you looking for guidance. They want to learn how to get the most out of their money. Demonstrating your subject matter expertise through thought leadership pieces, advice columns, videos on current events, and purely educational content that explains financial planning and investment concepts will give prospective clients a taste of the value you offer. That will very quickly turn them into high-quality leads.
Your educational content can cover a wide range of subjects, including taxes and budgeting, charitable giving, retirement planning, and more. Making your advisory firm a go-to source for valuable financial information will continue to attract visitors and encourage them to share with other potential leads.
This kind of content provides clients and prospects with valuable educational tools and reinforces your firm’s reputation as a thought leader. As more people turn to you for answers to financial questions, your authority and reputation will grow.
Best Practices
- Offer a variety of content types, from static blogs to videos
- Update content regularly, creating timely content for moments like tax season along with targeted content for particular demographics, such as those considering retirement, estate planning, and more
- Consider gating content so visitors must provide information such as an email address or phone number to access it
Strategy 4: Referrals
One of the best ways to get qualified leads for financial advisors is through referral programs. Ultimately, your clients are your best advocates and salespeople. 92% of people trust reviews from friends and family more than they do other marketing efforts. Regardless of your firm’s size, word of mouth is one of the most effective strategies to expand your client base. Doing great work is one way to encourage your clients to spread the word. Make sure your current clients know you are willing and able to do the same great work for their friends and family.
Strategy 5: Professional Networking
Strategic partnerships can be great ways to offer additional services to your clients. To build those partnerships, you need to network. Attending industry conferences and other events is a great way to meet people in fields that could be complementary to the services you’re offering.
For instance, meeting tax accountants at a small tax firm may be a great gateway to a valuable partnership. You’ll be able to form strategic partnerships and get introduced to new potential clients who work with the accounting firm. And you’ll be able to return the favor by introducing your clients who need more advanced tax planning to the team of accountants. You can generate leads from their clients and offer your clients a valuable new service through a partner.
In any industry, it’s always a good idea to make networking a regular part of your professional life. You never know when you might meet someone who could be a great asset to your firm or offer you an opportunity to grow.
Best Practices
- Always vet any potential new partner by asking around about their reputation and reviewing customer testimonials
- Identify areas you’d like to strengthen within your firm and focus on meeting professionals who can fill those gaps
- Don't shut down potential connections because you don't see an immediate fit; nurture relationships and be patient—you never know when an opportunity may present itself later.
Tips to Get Qualified Leads for Financial Advisors
Lead generation is a constant effort. To meet the goals of your business and sustain growth, you need to generate a steady stream of leads and convert a significant number of them into clients. Each of the strategies outlined above is an excellent way to do that, and each can benefit from some general digital marketing tips. These include:
- Segmentation: Audience segmentation is the process of categorizing prospective clients into distinct groups or segments, enabling you to deploy more targeted messaging. For instance, individuals over 60 likely won’t benefit from messages about first-time homeownership as much as younger individuals.
- Personalization: Great digital marketing campaigns leverage personalization, even if it’s just using a person’s first name. While it’s easier to engage with individuals personally on social media, it’s helpful to use a marketing tool that can automate personalization for more extensive campaigns, such as email nurturing.
- Automation tools: From AI-created blog content to automated social media publishing and video editing— there are countless tools on the market that can help you scale your marketing efforts.
You can implement these tips across all kinds of digital marketing mediums to amplify your efforts, especially leveraging tools that allow you to incorporate marketing best practices across many channels.
Elevate Your Marketing with Kestra Financial
Growing any business is a constant challenge. Lead generation will help you sustainably grow your brand and attract a steady stream of new clients. However, some lead generation efforts are more effective than others, and it will likely take some trial and error to determine what works best for your business and ideal clients.
Make the switch to Kestra Financial and leverage our team of marketing consultants and industry-leading vendors to help you maximize the impact of your marketing efforts so you can attract new clients, build your digital presence, and grow your firm. Contact our business development team to learn more and discover all the resources you can use when you join our community of high-performing financial advisors.
