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Today’s most successful marketing and lead generation campaigns use content to drive results.
This is no secret.
High-value content can position you as an expert in your niche and remind people why you’re the go-to for helpful, authoritative advice. It also helps convince potential clients that you actually know what you're talking about.
But, not all content serves the same purpose for financial advisors. Blogs are great for SEO and educating, social media posts help you connect with current and potential clients, and emails are unmatched in their ability to nurture cold leads into warm prospects.
So where do lead magnets fit in?
Lead magnets are a special content tool used to collect the information of potential clients so that you might add them to your email list and stay in contact with them over time.
It's a proven strategy many advisors use to introduce themselves to prospects and move them into the pipeline.
A lead magnet could be a white paper, tip sheet, e-book, infographic, or any piece of content that solves a problem or helps your audience understand a complex topic.
Unlike the blog posts on your website, lead magnets are offered in exchange for contact information—usually an email address.
When the prospect downloads the resource, you immediately have a qualified lead. You know what they’re interested in and can approach them with meaningful, personalized content that speaks to their interests.
Did they download an estate planning guide? Invite them to your legacy webinar.
Did they download your tax planning tips? Send them your best tax-based resources.
Sounds great, but where do you start?
How Advisors Can Create a High-Converting Lead Magnet
Today’s post outlines the steps to creating a high-converting lead magnet from ideation to creation to publication.
1. Pick Your Topic
What problems do your clients need to solve? Think about the questions you get asked (or tend to answer) the most and build your lead magnet around that. Your clients are always your best inspiration! What are they most concerned about? Where do they lack the most knowledge? What do you wish they knew or understood?
You can also look at high-performing pages or blogs on your website, as those metrics are a clear indication of what interests your audience. You can take that high-performing blog and turn it into an e-book to dive deep on the topic.
2. Be Engaging
Since lead magnets are typically longer and more data-rich than your average blog post, make it visually engaging with images, charts, graphs, statistics, and infographics. Colorful graphs help to illustrate your information visually, making the message easier to digest and more memorable.
Another way to engage is to tell a story. Use a case study, real or fictional, to analogize your point. Storytelling creates an emotional connection, which rarely fails to draw people in. You might even want to include a checklist or a brief quiz at the end, and be sure to follow it up with a call-to-action (CTA) to get in touch with you to start the conversation.
3. Give Them (Almost) Everything
Once complete, your lead magnet should be between 2,000 and 5,000 words. You want it to be engaging enough that readers will finish it, but not so complete that it answers every single question they have. Leave some questions unanswered and invite them to contact you to get more in-depth about their specific situation.
4. Design That Pops
We talked a little about design above, but it can’t be stressed enough. It doesn’t matter how good or valuable your content is; if the piece lacks good design and formatting, you will not get the results you want.
Clean design, easy-to-read fonts, simple color combinations, and a good mix of high-quality graphics are essential. Avoid long blocks of text or confusing layouts. The reader should be able to move through the document easily, ideally with bite-sized chunks of information separated by informative headings.
Ensure the colors match your branding, and the tone aligns with your online presence. You want to offer a seamless presentation that the reader can easily associate with your website and other online properties.
5. Put the Word Out
Now that your lead magnet is done, you’re ready to launch it. To ensure maximum coverage, you’ll want to post it on your website, promote it on social media, and send it out to your existing email list to see who bites.
You’ll also want to create a landing page for the piece, which will act much like a blog post (as mentioned below) but without the distractions of site navigation.
Here are a few ideas on how to promote your lead magnet:
- Introduce it on your blog. Write an introduction or executive summary as a blog post, at the end of which you’ll invite people to download the piece in exchange for their email.
- Promote it with social posts. Create a series of social posts to tease some of the content of your lead magnet. Publish a new one weekly with a link to your landing page.
- Send a teaser in LinkedIn messages. This is a beneficial tactic if you have a highly specific audience.
In conclusion, a lead magnet is a great way to attract new business, fill your pipeline, and offer value to your existing clientele. If you need help creating advisor content that converts, we’re here to help. Reach out today, and let’s talk about it.
Related: Advisors Get More Leads With These 6 Landing Page Best Practices