What is a prospecting offer? It’s an invite or a reason for someone who has become aware of your business to connect with you. Think of a coupon. Coupons are excellent prospecting offers because they invite those who are unfamiliar with a product to try it for a discount. For some, a coupon is an offer they cannot refuse. Financial advisors have more opportunities than ever with digital marketing to try various prospecting offers and connect with more clients. What prospecting offer is best for your practice? The short answer, not one but many.

There is no silver bullet when it comes to prospecting. However, there are multiple tools available for you to use. To decide which ones to deploy first, start with the tools that align best with your value proposition. If you have a niche practice, your prospecting offers should be specific to your target market and address their specific needs.

Here are some compelling prospecting offers used by financial advisors to connect with more clients:

Free Consultation – People in transition such as those who are going through a divorce, have recently lost a loved one, or are preparing for retirement can all benefit from a free consultation. To market the offer, be very specific about the need your free consultation will help to fill since each transition is very different. Advertise the offer front and center on your website and provide a contact form for prospects to tell you how best to reach them. Mention the free consultation following each blog post, at the end of your videos, on printed pieces and in Facebook ads.

If you are unfamiliar with how to launch a campaign for a free consultation, outsource the task to a marketing resource who can work with you to craft compelling copy, design a landing page and help you launch social media ads.

Increased Financial Knowledge via Seminars – Seminars remain one of the most successful prospecting tools for advisors. There is a real need for financial education, and the offer to help someone learn is very appealing to pre-retirees who are unsure how to transition from an accumulation phase of life to a distribution phase. Seminars are also low-risk for prospects. They can attend for free, or for a nominal fee. They are in a group setting and do not have to disclose the specifics of their financial world. Seminars provide advisors the opportunity to demonstrate their expertise and build trust before meeting one-on-one with a prospect.

In the past, seminars were marketed using snail mail. Facebook has proven to be a powerful tool for marketing seminars, and many marketing companies have fine-tuned the process to help advisors ensure seats get filled.

Digital Risk Analysis – When markets are volatile, people start to question the risk in their portfolios. Riskalyze offers a digital prospecting tool in the form of a questionnaire that advisors can embed on their website, in their email signatures, and on social media. The tool determines the prospect’s unique risk number, providing them with a measurement benchmark to compare to the risk number of their portfolios. In exchange for access, the prospect enters their contact information. Riskalyze is helping advisors build their email lists enabling them to communicate further and build trust with those who have engaged with the tool.

Embedding the RiskAlyze questionnaire on your website, in your email signature, and on social media is easy and instructions are readily available to the public in their knowledge base. Click here to view how to embed the questionnaire on your website.

Goal-Based Planning Insight – If you subscribe to eMoney, you can utilize their digital lead capture tool to attract prospects who are curious to see if they are on track to reach their financial goals. A custom-branded landing page is provided to you from eMoney that links to their self-guided goal-based simulation. This landing page can be incorporated into your website, added to your email signature and used with posts and ads on social media. Real-time alerts notify you when a prospect has entered their data providing you with greater insight for more meaningful conversations from the get-go! For more information on eMoney’s digital prospecting tool click here.

If you are not familiar with how to make modifications to your website or do not have an internal resource to help you, a web designer can work with you to get the offer positioned front and center on your home page.

The key for any prospecting offer to be successful is in your ability to market the offer. Adding a digital tool to your website will do nothing for your practice if you aren’t making people aware it exists. Facebook ads are an effective means to get the word out. You can create multiple ads for each offer that target a different profile.

For a more detailed insight into what can work best for your practice, schedule a call with one of our Business Development Consultants.