Facebook is much more than a social media platform. Facebook is an irreplaceable business tool for most financial firms, regardless of location or size.
Facebook has a daily active user base of more than 1.62 billion, so you can be sure that Facebook can help reach new audiences you might not have otherwise.
Facebook Lead Generation can help you be found through search, build a community, promote your content, and even help establish a strong brand image.
Facebook lead generation for financial advisers
One of the most compelling reasons to use Facebook marketing is to attract new financial leads.
One question we’re always asked at Opulent is do facebook ads work for financial advisers?
Many marketers fail to use Facebook to source leads. If you are one of these marketers, you could miss thousands of potential clients.
Even if your current financial lead generation efforts on Facebook are working, there is always room for improvement. This is why we created this guide.
Let’s start with the basics and define what a Facebook Lead is.
What is a Facebook Lead?
A lead is someone who has expressed interest in your services by providing their information to you in some way. You can demonstrate interest by filling out an inquiry form, downloading a guide, or participating in an online survey.
A status update, photo or video can’t be deemed a Facebook lead if someone likes it. This action does not indicate an interest in your company, product/services, or even a connection to your business. It’s possible they liked your post simply because it featured a cute puppy (our office dog, Ted, gets all the attention!)
Let’s look at the two types of financial leads you can capture on Facebook, and their differences.
Facebook offers two types of leads:
You can generate two types of financial leads on Facebook: indirect and direct leads.
Direct Leads
Sharing content that links back to your lead form on Facebook will generate a direct lead. In exchange for content, visitors can share their information, such as a guide or infographic. This form is usually found on a landing page dedicated to the service offering.
Indirect Leads
Facebook is a great way to generate indirect leads on the road to conversion. If you share a blog post that contains a call to action at the bottom, it indirectly leads to visitors to that landing page.
Although promoting landing pages directly is a great way to generate leads, providing relevant content on Facebook without a form will make your Facebook page a more welcoming home for content that your target audience will love and return for.
Let’s look at some ways to generate direct and indirect financial leads in the section below.
How to generate financial leads via Facebook ads
Lead Ads
Facebook lead ads are the most used tool to generate leads. These posts are sponsored by your company and appear in your audience’s News Feeds, Stories, Marketplace, Marketplace, and other areas. Based on their behaviour on Facebook, these ads target Facebook users most likely to be interested. Clicking on a lead ad will prompt users to complete a form and send contact information to your company.
Facebook Posts
Your Facebook posts hopefully attract your audience’s attention, otherwise, why would they follow you? These posts can be either one-off or dedicated campaigns that direct viewers to your Facebook page or website. A link to a form can be included in the post. Or, users can go to a landing page to submit their information.
Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger acts as a live chat option for your Facebook Page. You can be reached in a private conversation with users to answer questions about your brand or its products.
Are you unable to manage a chat channel 24/7? It’s possible. To respond to customer queries, you can easily set up auto response messages.
Facebook Events
Is your company hosting a networking event or seminar? Maybe your company has a fundraiser or charity that people can donate to. It can all be shared on Facebook.
To create pages dedicated to your upcoming events, you can use the Events Tool. Register for your event from one location. Your audience can sign up and fill out forms to show their interest in attendance.
Facebook Live Video
Facebook Live Video is a great option if you want to generate leads quickly. Live Video allows you to create a live stream that your audience can view on their News Feed. Live Video allows viewers to comment and react to the video, and can be used to direct prospects towards your marketing content.
If you are throwing an event, you can “Go Live!” on Facebook to show your audience what is happening. This gives people a glimpse into the event and helps spread the word about your brand.
The recording of your video will remain available on your Facebook page even after it’s finished. People who missed the live video can still catch it later.
These are just some of the many ways Facebook can be used to generate leads. Continue reading to learn more about how you can leverage Facebook to generate leads in your business.
8 ways to generate financial leads on Facebook
Let’s now look at the ways you can capture leads, direct or indirect.
1. Facebook allows you to post landing pages directly.
Sending people to your landing page with your offer is one of the best ways to generate leads on Facebook.
Make sure your offer features a compelling featured photo that is being pulled into your Facebook post. You’ll need to optimise your image and add appropriate open graph tags to Facebook to ensure that Facebook pulls the correct image from your blog into your Facebook posts.
It’s also important to clearly communicate to your reader the destination of the button click. They could become confused or frustrated if they believe they are clicking on a blog post, but a form pops up instead.
To indicate the location you are sending them, use phrases such as “Download your guide” or “Get your cheat sheet” to show where they are located and what action they should take to receive it.
You may also want to use clear language. Even non-design-savvy marketers can create a customised image in Canva to make their post stand out!
2. Post the blogs that bring in the most leads.
You can also generate leads by choosing and posting the best blog posts.
Your audience will click on the title and topic of your blog post to be enticed to read it. Then they’ll find a CTA in that post, preferably near the intro, to help them solve a problem or learn more about something.
Pro tip: Social media managers found they generate more leads via Facebook by publishing blog posts with anchor text CTAs in their introduction.
3. In your captions, include links to landing pages.
Most marketers are aware of the importance of visuals, such as images and videos, in their Facebook strategy. Facebook posts with images receive higher engagement than those without.
These higher engagement rates can be turned into lead generation opportunities by including links to your site in the descriptions of your images, especially your cover photo and profile pictures.
Links help your audience get to know you better, whether it’s to a blog article, lead gen content or an “About Us” page. Your cover photo and profile picture descriptions are prime areas to do this. This way, anyone who views your cover photo directly can access the download URL.
4. Videos can be used to promote leads generation offers
Facebook’s organic reach fell to 5.2% by 2021. This is a huge drop from 52% back in 2016. Thanks to tweaks to Facebook’s algorithm.
It’s nearly impossible for your audience not to see your content if you don’t create a Facebook advertisement. Marketers are increasingly turning to video to get maximum engagement.
Why? Facebook favours video content. Videos have an average engagement rate of 0.26%. This is significantly higher than other types of posts.
If you want to increase your Facebook lead generation efforts, you should use videos to promote and introduce your content.
You can include text CTAs in the description of the video. However, verbal CTAs can be added to indicate “register” or “download”. This can be done both in the beginning and end for maximum exposure.
5. Pin posts that link directly to lead generation to the top of your feed.
Pinning a post to your Page’s Timeline will allow you to highlight and show what might otherwise be a standard post. It will remain at the top of your Timeline for seven days, after which it will return to the date it was published on the Page’s Timeline.
A pinned post can be identified by the distinctive “pinned post” marker located at the top. Pin any post that you choose to share should be useful to your audience and relevant for your online goals.
6. Add a CTA to your Facebook Page.
A relevant CTA button on your Facebook Page is an important lead generation strategy that every marketer should use. It’s super easy to implement and has no added cost.
This button, while simple, can be powerful and help drive more traffic to your website from Facebook Pages. It can also be used to generate leads via contact sheets and landing pages.
There are now 17 options for buttons that you can choose from. These options include “Sign up”, “Contact Us”, “Book Now”, “Use App”, “Watch Video”, “Register” and loads more.
After you’ve chosen a button and linked it to a page of your website, it will appear at a fixed position below your cover image and to your right.
Some marketers will choose a CTA, and then keep it the same for weeks or months. But you can take your marketing game one step further by switching up the button and the link to it to better match your business goals and current running campaigns.
For example, you could align your CTA with your cover photo, and a pinned post around a single campaign.
7. Ask your clients on Facebook to share their opinions about your services.
Posting a status update asking for feedback about your financial services, and linking to a landing site where people can share their reviews.
This can be risky, as you could open the floodgates to negative comments. Be careful about the services and tools you use for feedback.
It’s a good idea to have someone responsible for responding to any Facebook reviews, both positive and negative.
Respond quickly to negative feedback. This will show that you care and keep them from becoming more serious.
8. To increase your content’s reach, run targeted ads.
Facebook is a great platform for expanding your reach and generating leads.
Facebook offers many targeting options that allow you to target people based on their behaviour’s, interests and demographics. You can even create ads that target them based on what they do outside of Facebook.
We will cover three major formats of Facebook ads: boosted posts, right-hand column, and News Feed adverts.
This distinction is mainly due to the location of the advertisement and the size and amount of writing they each allow.
Boosted post:This Facebook feature allows marketers to turn regular Facebook posts into advertisements by “boosting” them. Although the post will appear organically to some users (not to other users), admins can press “boost” to increase reach and deliver it to more people by setting a budget.
Right Hand Column Ads:This ad placement is used to convert a user into an active Facebook lead. The ad is usually displayed on the right side of the News Feed. These ads often cost less, while still including many advanced testing options.
News Feed ads: These appear directly in the user’s News Feed. They look more like native advertising.
However, you can add a small CTA to them. These are part of a technique called “dark post”, which uses News Feed-style ads that don’t appear in your Page’s News Feed.
These ads are more engaging than right-hand columns ads, although can be more costly.
We hope you find these ideas useful to generate financial leads via Facebook.
Facebook as a whole, and Financial Adviser Marketing Techniques are forever changing.
These ideas discussed are a good start, but it is important to test each strategy with your audience and never stop learning about new tips and tricks for the industry.
Reach your audience with highly accurate demographic targeting, and benefit from this low-cost method of brand awareness and financial lead generation.
Get your ads seen on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter via our Social Media Advertising Services for Financial Advisers.
Request your free Social Media Advertising audit and unlock your conversion potential.
Read our 30-page comprehensive guide to marketing for financial advisors
