For over 10+ years, I’ve helped hundreds of financial advisors successfully generate exclusive leads, appointments, and clients online without relying on:
- Direct mail
- Networking events
- Seminars
- Cold calling
- Cold emailing
- Relying on referrals
In this article, I’ll show you the best lead generation strategies for financial advisors (that really work) and provide real-life examples of qualified financial advisor leads you can get.
Looking for exclusive financial advisor leads?
Step 1: Watch our free Masterclass Training (that explains how it works)
Step 2: Click here to schedule a call to learn more about working with us.
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Executive Summary
The best way to get exclusive financial advisor leads is to set up an automated appointment funnel that generates and converts leads on autopilot.
This video explains how to set up this funnel, promote it and automate the whole process to get financial advisor leads with people who WANT to speak with you.
Once you have this funnel set up, here’s an overview of some strategies you can use to promote it.
We help financial advisors generate high quality exclusive leads using both free and paid marketing strategies. To learn how our financial advisor lead generation service can help you click here to watch this free training I’ve recorded.
Note: These strategies apply to financial advisors, financial planners, wealth managers, and even insurance agents looking for annuity leads or IUL leads.
The Best Financial Advisor Lead Generation Strategies
Here are the top 7 ways to get both free and paid leads as an advisor, financial planner, insurance agent, registered investment advisor (RIA) or financial professional:
1. Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
Fastest way to buy exclusive financial advisor leads
Running Facebook & Instagram ads is one of the fastest ways financial advisors can buy exclusive leads for their business or firm.
How much do financial advisor Facebook Ads cost?
After spending a few thousand dollars, Facebook will tell you your cost per lead and cost per appointment.
For many of our advisor clients, the cost per lead is $20, and the cost per booked appointment is $200. The costs can vary depending on your target market, age, location and how much leads have to invest.
Once you know your average cost per appointment, you can decide how many financial advisor appointments you want each month!
Best of all…
Buying leads from Meta (Facebook and Instagram) is much cheaper than buying leads from another lead generation or marketing company.
Facebook Ad Pros
Facebook Ad Cons
Many of the top advisor firms run Facebook ads to get new clients.
Here is an example of one of Fisher Investments’ Facebook ads:
Notice how the ad specifically calls out who it’s for (retirees with over $500K in investable assets) and gives away something of value to capture leads.
We use a similar strategy for our clients.
We give away a free educational video that explains how a financial advisor can help them, what makes them different and why working with them is better than other alternative solutions.
Using this strategy, one of our financial advisor clients was able to get leads with Facebook ads for under $10 as seen here:
Why does this work so well?
We can get leads at such a low cost because we have been doing this for many years. We already know what works and what doesn’t. This helps you avoid countless mistakes, save money and save time.
“In less than 30 days I’ve already had multiple Zoom calls with people who have millions of dollars to invest… I’ve never experienced this with any other lead generation program!” – Paul (Financial Advisor)
See ‘Step 4’ of this video for more info on how to use Facebook ads to generate leads.
2. TikTok Ads
Cheapest way to buy financial advisor leads
TikTok ads are a surprisingly new and powerful way to generate financial advisor leads at a much lower cost compared to Facebook, Google or YouTube ads.
But… I know what you’re thinking…
“TikTok Ads!? Really? Isn’t that just for young people…”
The answer is “No”.
Not anymore.
TikTok has over 9 million active users over the age of 55+ in the USA alone. Many of these users have $500K, $1 Million, $3 Million or more in investable assets. You can even use TikTok to target accredited investors and generate high net worth investor leads
How do TikTok ads work?
TikTok works the same way as Facebook ads. You buy financial advisor leads and appointments directly from TikTok.
Four out of five of our financial advisor clients report getting leads and appointments at about a 25% to 50% lower cost when using TikTok ads instead of Facebook ads.
Here is an example of one of our advisor clients who successfully generates leads and appointments from TikTok ads.
And here is another example of one of our advisor clients getting exclusive leads for less than $5 with TikTok ads:
As you can see, a social media presence with TikTok ads can work well for advisors if you have the right marketing strategy together.
TikTok Ad Pros
TikTok Ad Cons
“It has been completely eye opening to get highly qualified high net worth leads through TikTok ads that are ready to speak to a financial advisor.” – Eric (Certified Financial Planner)
Watch this video to learn how we can help you with running financial advisor TikTok ads.
3. YouTube Videos
Fastest free way to get financial advisor leads
Creating financial videos for YouTube is one of the best ways to start generating free financial advisor leads. YouTube videos can appear in:
- YouTube Search
- Google Search
- YouTube homepage (as video recommendations)
What’s great about YouTube is that a video you record once is automatically promoted by YouTube (for free) to people who find it helpful.
YouTube Pros
YouTube Cons
To generate financial advisor sales leads using YouTube, you must create high-quality content that answers questions your prospects are searching for online. After people watch your video, you can direct them to your sales funnel where they can learn more about working with you.
Here’s an example of the video views one of our financial advisor clients gets each month after implementing our YouTube lead strategy:
As you can see, they went from zero to thousands of views (over a period of 6 months).
Many of these viewers convert into leads, appointments and clients each month.
Overall, YouTube SEO is an excellent lead generation strategy for most financial advisors who are up for the challenge. Competition for advisors is still relatively low on YouTube, so there’s a lot of potential for growth if you start today.
Tip: You don’t need a lot of views or subscribers on YouTube to get clients. I have financial advisor clients using YouTube with less than 1,000 subscribers who get clients each month from YouTube alone! The key is to create very specific videos which get high quality views that convert into qualified leads.
To learn more about using YouTube to generate leads, check out ‘Step 4’ of my Free Masterclass Training.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Best free way to get free financial leads
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another excellent way to generate free, high-quality financial advisor leads each month.
SEO for financial advisors is when you rank first on Google for keywords related to your firm’s services.
You can write articles on your website that answer questions your potential or prospective clients search for on Google.
Creating educational content like this is known as content marketing.
For best results, you need to answer questions that:
- Have a balance of low competition and high search volume
- Are likely to be searched for by your ideal clients
- Convert visitors into leads & clients (not just provide information)
The more questions you answer on your financial advisor website, the more leads and appointments you generate.
SEO Pros
SEO Cons
Does this strategy really work?
Well, chances are you found this article through a Google search. This article alone receives hundreds of financial advisor visits each month.
This in itself is proof that this strategy really does work when you do it properly.
Here’s an example of one of our financial advisor clients who started creating articles following our financial advisor SEO strategy. After creating articles, the website SEO traffic started to increase, as seen here:
This client now gets leads & appointments each month (for free) from their organic SEO strategy.
Here’s what another financial advisor client said after implementing our SEO strategy:
This free training explains how it all works in more detail.
5. Automate lead generation
Best financial advisor prospecting strategy
Are you tired of manually prospecting and reaching out to leads? AI lead generation tools can automatically generate new financial advisor leads for your firm on autopilot.
Here are a few of my favorite lead generation tools to get financial advisor leads:
- FastBots AI: This tool allows website visitors to talk to an automated AI chatbot that converts traffic into leads, appointments, and clients.
- Surfer AI: This tool allows you to create 2,000+ word high quality articles that rank at the top of Google at the click of a button using AI.
- Descript: Easily edit YouTube videos using AI to start getting financial leads from YouTube.
- Meet Alfred: Are you using LinkedIn to connect to potential clients? Meet Alfred allows you to automate your LinkedIn lead generation.
AI tools analyze data, target ideal leads, and help automate outreach, which means you can spend more time focusing on your clients and less on searching for them.
AI Lead Gen Pros
AI Lead Gen Cons
Want to learn more ways to automate your financial advisor lead generation campaign? Check out our lead generation services here.
6. Buy financial advisor leads
Another strategy for obtaining financial advisor leads is to buy leads from other marketing or lead generation companies.
Why might this sound like a good idea?
When you buy financial advisor leads, you don’t need to do any of the marketing work yourself!
But keep in mind…
When I speak with most financial advisors who have bought leads from other marketing companies, they usually tell me that the results have not been as good as expected.
Here are some problems they experience:
- Low-quality leads
- Leads that were hard to get hold of
- Low show-up rate for appointments booked
- Unpredictable results
- Shared leads
- Low-quality lead lists
- Expensive leads
So even though buying financial advisor leads can work in some cases, there are some pros and cons to be aware of.
Pros of buying leads
Cons of buying leads
When financial advisors buy leads, it can work in some cases.
However, most of the time, many successful financial advisors find it’s better to get their own leads – which are exclusive – and to be in full control of their digital marketing campaign.
You can do this by buying financial advisor leads directly from channels like:
- Facebook Ads
- TikTok Ads
- YouTube
And other paid advertising platforms.
7. Financial Advisor Prospecting
Another effective way to get financial advisor leads is with effective prospecting strategies.
Financial advisor prospecting is when you proactively reach out to potential clients every day through cold calling, cold email or LinkedIn outreach.
In my experience, cold email and LinkedIn outreach are much more effective than cold calling because they can be automated and scaled up more easily.
It’s also worth noting that prospecting is very different from email marketing. Email marketing is when you send helpful emails to leads who have opted to receive communications from you to convert leads into appointments and clients. Prospecting is when you proactively reach out to people who have not heard about you before.
When someone replies positively to your prospecting efforts, you have successfully generated a new financial advisor lead.
To get the best results from prospecting as a financial advisor, it’s important to include a call to action (CTA) in the emails to encourage leads to take the next step in your sales process, such as scheduling a call or watching a video about how you can help them.
How much do financial advisor leads cost?
There are two ways you can get financial advisor leads. The free way and the paid way.
Note: If you’re using free lead generation strategies (such as Google or YouTube SEO), then there are no costs to get leads. It’s completely free!
Here are the costs of buying financial advisor leads:
Buying financial advisor leads from a lead company:
- Average cost per lead: $200 (typically only 1 out of 10 leads convert to appointments)
- Average cost per qualified appointment cost: $2,000
Here are the costs of getting leads yourself through paid ads:
- Average cost per lead: $20
- Average cost per qualified appointment: $200
The results above are based on clients who have generated exclusive financial advisor leads using Facebook, Instagram or TikTok ads.
We also have some clients generating financial advisor leads, appointments and clients for free every week using free and low-cost organic strategies.
Want to see how it’s all possible?
Conclusion
There are lots of ways you can generate financial advisor leads. However, if you’re new to generating leads online, it can be easy to make mistakes (costing you time and money).
If you’d like to work with an expert to help you get faster results and make fewer mistakes watch ‘Step 5’ of my Free Masterclass training.
This explains how we can help you generate leads as a financial advisor. We provide both done-for-you and consulting options for advisors looking to generate high quality leads.
Looking to Hire a Financial Advisor Lead Generation Company?
If you’re ready to take your lead generation efforts to the next level, consider hiring a company that specializes in financial advisor leads. We help advisors like you generate exclusive, high-quality leads through both paid and organic strategies. To learn how our service can help you grow your business, click here to watch our free training and schedule a call.
Ashley Davis (or ‘Ash’ for short) is the CEO & Founder of Skyline Social. For over 15 years, Ash has been helping business owners get high-quality leads, appointments, and clients each month. He has extensive experience working with B2B & B2C industries in finance, insurance, marketing, sales and beyond. Learn more about the author here.