In the previous article in my series on “Cold to Gold” marketing, I talked about getting noticed. In short, getting noticed is about getting your audience to stop what they’re doing and click over to your offer.
Today, I want to talk about what happens after you’ve “stopped the scroll” and gotten that initial click — now you have to earn the contact by getting them to give you their information.
Just getting someone onto your landing page doesn’t mean the deal is done. In fact, the average conversion rate for financial services landing pages is just 5.8%, meaning just under one in 20 people who visit your offer will actually take the desired action.
I can hear you asking: “Why did they click in the first place if they’re not going to download the offer?”
The answer depends on multiple factors, some of which are beyond your control, but advisers make a few common mistakes that can be easily fixed.
1. Sending people to a normal page on your website
All too often, I see advisers share a specific offer like an e-book on how to claim Social Security. But then, when I click through, I end up on the homepage of their website. Unsure what to do next, I click around until I happen to find a link to the promised e-book halfway down the page after scrolling past a bunch of other stuff.
As a marketer, I only keep exploring because I’m interested in adviser marketing — most visitors will give up the second they hit the page because they landed on something other than what they were promised and get distracted.
2. Including competing elements
If you promise someone a Social Security e-book, but the page offers them a webinar, consultation and an “About Our Firm” section, they’re going to bounce purely from analysis paralysis.
I can understand the thinking here — you want to give them as much information as you can while you’ve got them — but you’ve got to take it slow. They clicked on one offer, so just give them what they want.
Distractions and unearned upsells lead to distracted and irritated prospects.
1. Talk about the after-state
If you take nothing else away from this article, I hope you hear this: People don’t care about your offer or your business — they care about themselves.
There’s a reason self-help books are increasing in popularity: people want transformation. Rather than talking about your business or your expertise, talk about the after-state: how your offer will help them transform into who they want to be.
Maybe at this point in their life, they aren’t feeling financially stable. Their current state is “uncertainty,” and your resource will help them get closer to “certainty.”
2. Pique their curiosity
This is where you take your offer a step further. Any adviser can offer someone an e-book on Social Security. Use a curiosity-evoking element to make them feel like they can only find the answer they need by accepting your offer.
Anyone could do a quick Google search to learn about “The Basics of Social Security,” but if you present your offer as “The five most overlooked Social Security claiming strategies of 2021 — missing these could cost you a lot of money!” then you’re speaking to a specific audience and you’re highlighting that they may miss out on something important if they don’t accept your offer.
Curiosity is powerful. Make it sound like unique, insider information that they must read in order to get the answers they want.
3. Lose the distractions
Lastly, put your offer somewhere simple and uncluttered. Give them a clear, frictionless pipeline to the information they want.
Follow these three simple rules:
Keep in mind, this first step of getting their information is just that: a first step. If you’re doing marketing right, you’ll have plenty more opportunities to interact with them later.
The risk-to-reward ratio says: the higher the perceived value and the lower the perceived risk to your visitors for taking you up on that offer, the higher your conversion rate will be.
So how can you increase the perceived value of your offer?
If the resource you are offering is a brochure or whitepaper, first of all, don’t call it a brochure or whitepaper. As an adviser, you may get excited about whitepapers, but consumers rarely do. Call it a “FREE Checklist” or something more enticing.
Next, create a mockup of the cover of your resource on an actual book — better yet, do a mockup of someone reading that book.There are plenty of tools available that require zero design ability to put these images together (Mockup World and PlaceIt come to mind).
Now that you’ve boosted the perceived value of your offer, you can bring the risk way down by just asking them for their name and email address. If you ask for their phone number, they may feel like they run the risk of you doing a reverse lookup on them and getting more info.
Remember: if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Resist the urge to ask prospects for a bunch of information up front. Again, if you’re doing it right, you’ll have plenty of chances to learn more about them down the line.
Once you have that initial contact, you can do a lot with it to build credibility and nurture that relationship — which we’ll talk about in the next piece in the “Cold to Gold” series.
Robert Sofia is the CEO of the digital marketing firm Snappy Kraken.
Find this series on fintechforadvisers.com.
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