One of the more interesting takeaways Simplicity Lone Beacon has discovered through our data science initiatives is the way Facebook leads act after opting into a form. The technology we use for our clients allow us to monitor the interest levels of prospects and clients by tracking their online actions and then assigning numeric values to those actions. This results in a lead score; the higher the lead score the more engaged and active the individual is, and thus the more likely they are to be ready for a sales conversation.
We determined that of all the places on the internet and in the real world a new lead can come from, Facebook generated the fastest number of highly engaged leads within a 90 day period. However, curiously- Facebook leads average lifetime leads score was far lower than the other lead sources. Consider that Facebook prospects are like fast-burning comets; they burn brightly and then quickly break up the longer they travel.
For Independent Financial Advisors this means that with Facebook leads, your sales staff are up against the clock more than any other lead source. It is important to catch these leads acquired through Facebook right away because their interest and perceived need for an advisor will most quickly die out.
I suspect this is due to how individuals interface with Facebook in their day to day lives. Facebooking is an activity done when there is a small amount of downtime in between life events so decisions made on Facebook by users tend to be quickly and casually made. This means that a prospect may not always fully grasp the brand they are dealing with when they respond to an advertisement, resulting in less brand recognition than they might gain from other traditional means of financial advisor marketing. The likelihood of a lead receiving email content after an initial download lessens over time more rapidly because prospects may not always remember the brand they downloaded a guide from or remember that they requested a finance guide at all!
Enter the Welcome Sequence
With this in mind, think about how much more valuable a powerful welcome sequence is for converting these fast-burning Facebook prospects to sales qualified leads. The point of a good welcome sequence is twofold.
- Put your brand’s best foot forward. Sharing with a new prospect the best content the brand can provide that brings value to the reader and highlights them as a thought leader in their space.
- It allows leads to move themselves down the funnel and begin a sales conversation by giving them the opportunity to book time with you.
Without a good welcome sequence these Facebook leads need to search and find a way to contact the advisor themselves online. This is a massive ask for a brand they just met via a Facebook ad. Or…
Prospects can be directly delivered a convenient way to schedule a comprehensive financial review request, strategically placed somewhere in the emails of a welcome sequence (or weekly newsletter). This is why all of our clients’ newsletters and welcome sequences contain a call to action to schedule a meeting with the advisor in the second block of content. We are giving the prospect the opportunity to move themselves down the funnel before they lose interest or life gets in the way.
Consequently, Simplicity Lone Beacon’s new newsletter template we have rolled out across every advisor, was put into place to remove even more friction in the initial call/meeting sign up process and allows hot leads who are ready to move themselves down the funnel to actually have an opportunity to do so. We are seeing a 6% increase in click through rate nationwide as a result of this change, which means more initial meetings between prospect and advisor are being booked!
This article was written by Simplicity Lone Beacon’s Director of Marketing Automation & Analytics, Marcus Roth
