An effective financial advisor website provides clients and prospects with information and tools they can use. It can also act as a lead generator that provides opportunities to connect with prospects who are interested in the services you provide. If your website is not generating leads, you may need a website makeover.
Loic Jeanjean, sales and marketing director with Vancouver-based Advisor Websites, shares the following ways to increase your ability to generate leads through your website:
> Create a lead-generating form
Don’t just “give away” your white papers or case studies. Ask for the visitor’s name, phone number and email address in exchange for the download of that content. This exchange of information will enable you to call the person five days after he or she has accessed the content.
Thank him or her for taking the time to look at your document and explain that you’re interested in any feedback. Ask if he or she found the information useful.
This step shows that you care and that you take your business seriously, Jeanjean says. You might even receive constructive criticism that may help improve future reports.
Not every conversation will lead to a client relationship, Jeanjean says. But providing valuable content that demonstrates your expertise is a step in the right direction.
> Include two calls to action
If you have asked for users’ email addresses so you can send white papers, newsletters or blog updates, you have already implemented one “soft” call to action.
A “hard” call to action would be an invitation to those users to schedule a complimentary consultation with you. By making this option available, you are making it clear that there will be value to the interaction and this person will learn something, free of charge.
The hard call to action can produce more significant leads, Jeanjean says, so you should feature it more prominently on your homepage. The soft call to action can be featured on your “resources” pages.
> Pay attention to your analytics
Converting 1% of your total website visits into leads is a reasonable conversion rate. But if you are getting only 100 visits per month, the most you can expect is one lead per month.
Your goal, then, should be to increase visits. Find out which content is most popular and determine whether you can produce more of it. Which social media sites are leading the most traffic to your site? If you find that LinkedIn is doing more for you than Twitter, concentrate your engagement on LinkedIn.
“The more visitors you get, the more the math will start to work in your favour,” Jeanjean says. “If you have 1000 visitors a month, then, realistically, you should be able to generate 10 leads.”
This is the third installment in a three-part series on website makeovers.