A lead magnet is a resource – or something of value – that you offer to your audience, with the intention that their acceptance turns them into a lead. In financial services, a lead magnet might be an attractive PDF guide on pension planning, or a video series on how to develop an investor mindset. These types of marketing assets can be a great way to increase your lead generation, if used properly.
Whilst the biggest mistake by financial firms would be to neglect lead magnets entirely in their marketing, next up would be the common mistakes made in their design and deployment. If you go to all the effort of producing a lead magnet, you likely want to use it as effectively as possible.
In this article, our marketing team at CreativeAdviser identifies some of the most common mistakes we’ve seen in the financial sector when it comes to lead magnets. We hope you find this content useful, and invite you to get in touch if you’d like to discuss your own marketing campaign with us. You can book a free, no-commitment consultation with our team if you are ready.
Wrong audience
Suppose you are offering a PDF guide on your landing page. Its main subject is pension transfers for people looking to move abroad. This may be great for financial planners who focus on QROPS and expat financial planning. Yet for locally-based IFAs and financial planners looking to develop a base within 20 miles of their office, this is probably the wrong guide to lead with. Make sure your lead magnet targets the right audience.
Not meeting expectations
Let’s run with the example of a PDF guide again, as your lead magnet. Imagine someone in your target audience downloads it from your landing page. Does it meet their expectations? If not, then it is unlikely to achieve its intended purpose of nudging them to the next stage of your sales process – i.e. making an inquiry or becoming a qualified lead.
There are a number of ways that a lead magnet can fail to meet expectations. The design matters, of course. If the guide is ugly to look at and poorly laid out, then readers are less likely to want to read it. Of most importance, however, is the content. If this is of insufficient (or excessive) length and poor quality, then they are likely to feel like they have been “short-changed” in giving you their contact information in exchange for the PDF guide. Make sure you meet – and surpass – their expectations by not cutting corners on the lead magnet you intend to offer your audience.
Wrong tone/emphasis
People download PDF guides and take hold of other lead magnets because they expect to glean value from them. They have a problem (or “pain point”) which they expect your resource to alleviate or address in some way. However, too many IFAs and financial planners make the mistake of gearing their lead magnet more towards a kind of sales pitch/presentation. The content is filled with self-promotion and offers, rather than focusing on the reader’s concerns/questions and offering some useful insights and information. Be careful to keep the former to a minimum in your lead magnet(s). This can come later in your sales process, after you have given your audience confidence that you know your stuff and have already helped them along their journey towards solving their problems. Earn the sale with great content and value.
Wrong distribution
Where are you offering your lead magnet? Can people even see it? Here, it is common to see financial firms posting their PDF guide or other resource to social media – where there is no advertising campaign in place, and little social following on the platform(s) in question. Sometimes, businesses use the wrong platform entirely for their lead magnet campaign. Looking to target retirees with a PDF guide on pension planning? You likely want to avoid Instagram and perhaps consider Facebook instead.
Wrong sales process
Have you considered where your lead magnet sits within your wider sales strategy? Many financial firms expect too much, too soon from their PDF guide or other lead magnet. The reality is, most people who download such a resource are likely not ready to immediately become a client. They may not even be comfortable taking the time and bold step of booking a free consultation with someone on your team. Yet, after reading a PDF guide, many people may be willing to go onto your newsletter email list and receive more helpful insights from you. Here, you can nurture them gradually over the months ahead, building up more trust and staying in their minds. Hopefully, then, at the time when they are ready to sit down and have a discussion with you, they will turn to you first.
Wrong management
Even if you get all of the above correct, it is still possible to drop the ball with your lead magnets by not managing your campaigns diligently or effectively. Financial advisers and planners are busy with clients and running a business, so it’s understandable that marketing campaigns get neglected. Here, a good financial marketing agency can help do the legwork and offer regular advice and updates to keep things on track, and also improve performance over time as more data comes in about what is working.
Paying for management might seem like a waste, since that money could otherwise simply go towards an ad campaign or other marketing budget. Yet it’s important to see this as a waste-mitigation measure (i.e. stopping you from wasting money needlessly on mistakes) and an investment to improve performance on the spend you do commit towards each campaign.
