How to Generate Leads for Financial Services
When it comes to generating leads for financial services companies, advertising and direct mailing typically produce response rates around 1% or 2%. Of those, obviously not all actually turn into paying customers. When lead generation dollars don't convert into sales, it makes the company less profitable, and it's necessary to consider ideas for generating higher-quality leads.
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Instructions
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Develop relationships in such a way that they benefit everyone involved. According to marketing expert Keith Ferazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, if your potential customer has heard good things about your company, he will be more likely to buy from you. Focus on the referral aspect of your business to achieve this. Reallocate marketing dollars to incentivize your existing customers to refer people they know. Utilize gift cards, free service, coupons etc. for getting the attention of your existing client base. Cultivate the relationships with your customers to achieve "relationship sales" within their circle of leverage. You will realize much higher conversion rates than leads generated through traditional demand generation marketing. Track the percentage of sales produced through referrals to see how much larger it is. The idea is to increase revenue and profit via a lower cost of sales. Save money by reducing the length of time of the sales process.
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Develop a closer working relationship between sales and marketing. Have the two groups work together to forge agreement on what constitutes a qualified lead. Determine if the current leads meet that criteria. Use the leads that formerly would have gone to directly to sales in new ways such as more extensive brand building within the marketing group. Utilize an email newsletter and additional direct mail offers to this group of potential customers. Make it informative, educational and offer an opt-in that will be the tool for ultimately generating great leads. Also, by generating consensus on what is a quality lead within sales and marketing, you will cut down on loss of morale from the sales group over failed leads, as well as sharpen the focus of your marketing group. Recalculate the closing ratio of the sales division after creating this highly improved customer lead.
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Focus your branding efforts on building a reputation via creative marketing. In the book Branding For Dummies, one of the premises is to make trust inherent since it's financial services while keeping their interest by being entertaining. Financial services lead generation need not be dull, as evidenced by the success "orange" campaign of a major bank. Another well-known insurance organization has used a talking duck to more than triple sales in the last decade.
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Consider thoughtfully the science versus art aspect of lead generation. Work diligently through the suggested lead generation processes above and expect a higher response rate from your leads. This way you can deliver what the business needs to meet its objectives.
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