Check out the entire Red Zone Marketing Guide, “Powering Your Unsolicited Referrals”

CONVERT Your Referrals
Design the path your prospects will take that will guide them to taking action and scheduling an appointment.

Define Your Prospect’s Journey with Distinct Touchpoints
What if you had a strategy and flow to your web presence that improved the user experience and led them where you want them to go—to a conversion (set up a meeting with you). 

The Prospect Journey Isn’t Perfectly Linear
The reality is that it’s very rare when there is a direct line between a referral and that initial prospect appointment. Of course, this would be ideal, but it’s unrealistic. Very rarely are prospects eager to come in and meet with a new financial advisor, share all their financial information with someone they don’t know, and then move their accounts from the advisor they have had for a long time. 

It’s a tough sell, no matter how great an advisor you actually are. Your best bet is to build touchpoints on the client journey that keep the mad scribbles to a minimum, guide your prospect through certain touchpoints on a well-defined journey, and land that initial call. 

So what is the path that a prospective financial planning client actually takes? Here is one of the most common examples.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PROSPECT JOURNEY

What touchpoints do you have in place? Where do you typically lose clients?

Defining the Fail Points
If you are having trouble moving prospects through the touchpoints on your journey, you need to be able to identify where and why. Here are some common reasons prospects fall off and become disinterested:

• They are not nurtured via email after they download a guide, attend a webinar, or join your email list.
• You don’t regularly update your social media profiles, or you haven’t in a long time.
• Your website is not set up to capture leads, so you can’t keep tabs on those who are interested in keeping touch.
• Your LinkedIn profile hasn’t been updated in ten years.

Tracking these fall-off points can get a little tricky, but they can be monitored through Google Analytics, social media insights, email marketing campaign analytics, and the like. But if you’re not sure how to get started, we suggest enlisting the help of a professional. To be quite honest, your ability to keep your pipeline full depends on it.

Converting referrals into appointments and clients is not easy. But it can be simplified by having a defined path that you have perfected to give yourself the very best chance. 

There are so many different marketing strategies you could employ to grow your client base, however, investing in designing the most referrable business is one of the smartest actions you can take.

Check out the entire Red Zone Marketing Guide, “Powering Your Unsolicited Referrals”

Maribeth Kuzmeski, PhD, President of Red Zone Marketing, is a marketing strategist, advisor to financial services companies, bestselling author of nine books, and a professional speaker rated as a Top 25 C-Suite Speaker as seen in Meetings & Conventions Magazine. She speaks on topics including marketing, branding, sales, and customer service.

Recent Articles:

Unsolicited Referrals – Part 4 Connect On Your Website

Unsolicited Referrals – Part 3 Compel Through Your Value Proposition

Unsolicited Referrals – Part 2 Craft Your Story

Unsolicited Referrals – Part 1 Create An Experience