Generating Traffic vs. Generating Leads

So, you want to engage with potential clients through your website. Where do you start?

If you’re already a savvy Nitrogen user, your thoughts might be drifting to the Lead-Generation Questionnaire right now.

The Lead-Generation Questionnaire (LGQ) is an embeddable version of the Nitrogen Risk Questionnaire you can put on your website so visitors can discover their Risk Number right then and there, before they even reach out to your firm.

The LGQ also collects their contact information, investment dollar amount, and other pertinent information you need so you can follow up and help.

One of our advisors has even said that the LGQ “outperforms anything else we’ve done to generate leads.” (Thanks, Nyle!)

But it’s important to note that simply adding a button to your website will not do the magic work of flooding your inbox with investors who want to work with you.

You need to bring traffic to your website first.

Traffic ? Leads

You can usually correlate your web traffic and with the number of leads you convert, but these aren’t one and the same.

More traffic does not guarantee more leads. You can get thousands of visitors to your website with a solid social media campaign, but if you don’t explain what you’re providing or how people can get in touch with you, that traffic will be nothing more than a notch in the vanity statistics belt.

That’s where the LGQ comes in. We love hearing success stories like Nyle’s, but every now and then an advisor will call in and say “I stuck the darn button on my site, and I’m not getting many leads!”

That’s when it’s important to remember that the Lead Generation Questionnaire isn’t a traffic creator, but it is the best tool out there to convert your traffic into actionable leads.

If leads are the LGQ’s output, how do we generate the input?

Most Popular Traffic-Generating Tactics

People need to have a reason to visit your website.

Your clients may check in from time to time to log into their accounts, and new referrals will certainly want to see what you’re all about—but what about the rest of the world?

If you have a growth focus and want to keep a steady stream of prospects, it’s likely you’ll need to do more than rely on referrals to get enough leads to keep your team busy.

Here are five traffic-generation tactics that every financial professional can use.

• Original content
  Original content ties all the other pieces of a marketing strategy together. If you regularly publish a blog, video, or other types of content to your site, you’ll always have something new to say on social media, emails, or ads.
• Social Media ? ? ?
  Social media has been avoided by some in the financial profession, but today there’s no reason to fear compliance. Use social media to share what’s happening with your firm or share new content you’ve published to keep clicks coming.
• Search Engine Optimization
  It’s important to make sure your website content reflects what you do and who you do it for. That way, when someone is searching for “financial advisor in Fargo” your website will have the necessary message to bring you to the first page of results.
• Paid digital ads
  If you’ve got a social media account, you can create and run a digital advertising campaign. Digital ads allow you to target a specific audience with interests that match your ideal clientele, making it a more cost-effective technique than most paper ads. Best of all, most digital ads can be set up in only a few minutes and you control the spend.
• Email campaigns
  Email campaigns allow you to speak to a targeted list of people so you can connect with more intention. Whether it’s your client list or a set of people who have downloaded something from your website, email is a great way to communicate and keep your firm at the forefront of a prospect’s mind as they consider their options.

Once you’ve identified traffic-generating tactics you want to use, you’re ready to pair lead-generating ideas with those techniques.

Lead Conversion Best Practices

Now that you’ve got people visiting your website, it’s time to hook them with your services and display the value you can deliver.

As a foundational principle, it’s best not to point leads to a page that lacks a call-to-action. It’s too easy for someone who doesn’t know you well to get lost or not see what they want right away and click out. Instead, try creating dedicated messaging that provides a single, clear path forward.

Here are the top five tips for generating leads from traffic coming to your site.

• Build purpose-driven landing pages with a single action
  A landing page gives you an opportunity to present a narrow, defined message. If you have an established niche or are targeting a specific demographic with an ad, you can hone in on what’s important to them instead of trying to speak to a broader audience. Additionally, you should drive your entire messaging to a single, clear action, such as “Schedule a call with me.”
• Remove navigation options from landing pages ???
  On your full website, easy navigation is a good thing. You want people to get around easily and find the page they want quickly. But when driving traffic to your site from an ad, your landing page should be devoid of navigation options. Instead, everything points to that singular action you want the visitor to take.
• Embed the Nitrogen Lead Generation Questionnaire
  Asking a website visitor to schedule a call with you is a decent call to action, but you can do better. Embedding the Nitrogen Lead Generation Questionnaire can be that single action you want visitors to take. It’s a more effective tool than an ask to schedule a call because it asks less of the person’s time, and it gives them immediate value by showing them their Risk Number.
• Explain your value up front
  Your messaging will go a long way toward who decides to take your Questionnaire and who doesn’t. Use clear statements that explain what it is a visitor will receive if they take your quiz, and don’t be afraid to use questions. A simple “What’s your Risk Number?” can intrigue and entice.
• Ask for minimal information ?
  Ask for too much information upfront can drive leads away. You’ll discover most of the information you know about a lead after they give you their information as you follow up with them. Initially, you only need to ask for three pieces of information: First name, last name, and email. If you have that, you can begin to engage and get to know them and qualify if they’re a good fit for your firm or not. The Lead Generation Questionnaire was designed to capture just the right information to be actionable without causing friction to the user.

As you look to put these traffic and lead-generating ideas into action, you should also examine your firm’s overall attitude toward digital marketing to be sure you have the right expectations in place.

Approaching Digital Marketing with the Right Mindset

Success with digital marketing can often be narrowed down to having the right mindset. If you go in expecting a hundred leads within the first day of your ad campaign, you’ll likely be disappointed.

However, if you begin with the understanding that marketing is a long-term initiative and investment and a habit that you need to continually refine, you’re more likely to experience sustained success.

Long-term marketing success is built on a series of short-term successes.

By getting the right message to the right audience at the right time in the right medium, your firm can benefit from effective digital communication.

And as a final thought, here’s one last bit of proof from the data that digital marketing (and the Nitrogen Lead Generation Questionnaire) can help expand your firm.

We partner with Snappy Kraken, a marketing automation platform for financial advisors, to deliver custom marketing campaigns with messaging built around the Nitrogen Risk Number.

As of March 2019, there were 38 Nitrogen users currently running an active campaign in Snappy Kraken.

Those 38 users generated:

• 15,906 page views (an average of 418 per user).
• 1,451 engagements with the LGQ (an average of 38 average per user). That’s a 9% conversion rate!

All in one month. The stats don’t lie; more often than not, an effective combination of traffic and lead-generating techniques can help you expand your firm’s impact through digital marketing.

Ready to start building your firm’s digital strategy with the Lead Generation Questionnaire at the center? Learn how to embed the Questionnaire on your website.

Special thanks to our friends at Snappy Kraken for empowering fearless investing with us.