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.

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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.

Looking to hire a financial advisor lead generation company?

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

Facebook Ads

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

  • Fast results
  • Very scalable
  • Cheaper than buying leads from another marketing company
  • Bigger audience size compared to TikTok ads
  • Target older age demographics more easily (including the upcoming baby boomers)

Facebook Ad Cons

  • More expensive compared to other social media channels (e.g. TikTok ads)
  • Not as profitable as other free lead gen channels

Many of the top advisor firms run Facebook ads to get new clients.

Here is an example of one of Fisher Investments’ Facebook ads:

Example of a Facebook Ads from another financial advisor firm

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

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:

Example of a financial advisors tiktok ad lead generation results

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

  • Cheapest place to buy exclusive leads
  • Fast results
  • Very scalable
  • You can target people over the age of 55+ only
  • You can target people by geographic location
  • You can target people by income & wealth

TikTok Ad Cons

  • TikTok’s audience size isn’t as large as Facebook
  • Only works if you have the right strategy
  • Some financial advisors can’t use TikTok for compliance reasons

“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

401K leads youtube

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

  • Videos can rank both on Google & YouTube search engines
  • YouTube has less competition compared to Google SEO
  • Videos build trust faster than written content
  • Get leads with people who are looking for your services
  • Create videos once and get leads for years in the future
  • You get faster results vs Google SEO

YouTube Cons

  • Some financial advisors might not feel comfortable on camera
  • Results are not instant. You can typically see results in 3-6 months.

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:

YouTube Traffic Growth

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

Example retirement Google SEO search

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

  • High quality leads: Leads are actively searching for a solution so they convert quicker
  • Profitable leads: Leads are FREE because you don’t need to spend any money on paid ads
  • Evergreen leads: Get leads and clients for years into the future without any extra work

SEO Cons

  • Requires work: You need to create content to see results
  • Takes time: Results are not instant. It can take 6-12 months to see results.

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:

SEO results for financial advisor

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

Lead generation on laptop

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

  • Automates lead generation, saving time and resources.
  • Most of it is automated.
  • Works in the background while you focus on other marketing activities.

AI Lead Gen Cons

  • Some tools can be expensive.
  • Requires a learning curve to use effectively.

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

Sales Funnel

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

  • You don’t need to spend any time on marketing to get leads
  • Get new leads very quickly

Cons of buying leads

  • Leads are sometimes shared with other advisors
  • Leads are more expensive compared to getting them yourself
  • You’re not in full control of your marketing
  • Some lead generation companies provide low quality leads
  • Some companies only sell leads lists that are not great quality
  • You need to chase leads (phone calls, texts, voicemails, etc) just to get an appointment

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
  • Google
  • YouTube

And other paid advertising platforms.

7. Financial Advisor Prospecting

Email marketing

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?

Watch this video here.

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.