Joe Bayliss and Roy Furr
We’ll talk about your financial advisory business and generating more leads in a minute — but first, a story about fishing.
When I was about 10 years old, I (Roy) was on a camping and fishing trip with my dad.
We were at a little lake here in Nebraska, and we’d been fishing for a while.
I’d had a bunch of nibbles, but hadn’t caught anything.
I was bored. I reeled in my hook to find the worm had been nibbled away, with barely any bait left on the hook.
My dad wasn’t quite ready to help put another worm on, and at 10 I definitely didn’t want to do it!
So I sat there playing and killing time by dipping my almost empty hook in the water, right next to the shore.
Dip… Dip… Dip… SPLASH!
Suddenly my line got pulled so hard I almost dropped my rod…
And for the next couple minutes, I struggled to reel in my catch.
Once it was out of the water, we realized it was HUGE for a bluegill. It more than covered my dad’s two hands.
We took it into the local bait shop, and they weighed it. I don’t remember the exact length or weight, but I can tell you this: It was the biggest bluegill the bait shop owner had ever seen, and it earned me a Nebraska Master Angler award.
All from the nibbled remnants of a worm on an almost empty hook that I was just splashing in the water.
Which brings us to our lesson for today.
You may be surprised by what bait catches what fish.
We think about this a lot when it comes to offers, CTAs, and how we’re asking prospects to respond.
Just like in fishing, certain bait makes it more likely you’ll “catch” one type of prospect versus another. And when you’re fishing in certain spots, you may choose one bait over another because it is more likely to be productive.
Sometimes, you’ll be surprised with a “Master Angler” catch, even from the smallest of bait.
Perhaps the ideal lead is someone who is pre-qualified, pre-motivated, and pre-educated about getting a full retirement game plan and is ready to come in for an appointment expecting to become a client.
And yet, even though those may be your best leads, they’re only a small portion of the total potential leads in the market. Especially when you ask for that directly.
Different prospects are more open to different offers. And at different points in the buying cycle, the same prospect may be more or less responsive to different CTAs.
Many prospects may not be ready — or comfortable — to sign up for a face-to-face meeting to start a potential relationship. Instead they may want more information before they commit to an appointment with you.
And you’re probably not catching all the qualified leads you could unless you’re using a mix of offers and CTAs in your marketing and advertising.
Certain bait will attract certain leads. We know and work from these best practices. And we work with a diverse tackle box full of different lures and baits to maximize production.
Our best advice is to engage with every prospect possible.
We don’t care what stage the prospect is in at the moment. We just want to engage them in any way they feel comfortable. Because even if we don’t get a face-to-face appointment right now, we still get their contact information which enables us to market to them in the future.
This is why it’s important you offer prospects different ways to engage with you.
So what would that call to action be if it’s not a face-to-face appointment? It would be a lower hurdle “ask” like a free report, a webinar, a live event, or something else.
As you would expect, a lower hurdle CTA generates more leads than a direct to an appointment CTA. But that prospect typically takes more time and effort to convert into a customer.
This enables you to build a database of prospects. And if you are consistently doing this week after week, month after month and year after year, before you know it you have created a meaningful marketing channel that you own. (And that’s like fishing in a barrel!)
Some of our advisors have built databases that are 10,000, 15,000 and 20,000+ of prospects — high-quality prospects. And this is an enormously valuable asset.
So when should you use a lower hurdle CTA versus a higher hurdle CTA?
The length of the marketing medium can be the determining factor.
Are you likely to get a prospect to respond to a face-to-face CTA in short-form advertising?
Probably not. So that is typically a good vehicle for lower hurdle CTAs. Use long-form formats for higher hurdle CTAs.
Marketing to your database is another really important topic that we will cover in one of our next posts.
If you’d like our help generating more qualified leads and converting them into clients and production on the books, schedule a free Marketing Audit by clicking HERE. In just 30 minutes, we’ll share objective and straightforward advice on your strategy, marketing channels, marketing copy and offer.
We only work with financial advisors, tax consultants, and estate planners who invest more than $250,000/year in marketing.
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