The Elements of Demand Gen
Lead generation is always a hot topic, and for good reason. Every client has to start somewhere, and while personal introductions are great, they’re not a daily occurrence. If twenty personal introductions a year can become five clients, then a thousand leads should amount to something, right?
In principle, yes. In practice, like most things, it’s complicated. To understand the complications and decide if and how lead gen is right for you, we need to address three big things, and then consider the stuff under those three things.
The big things? Lead gen vs. demand gen. Conversion rates. And finally, lead nurture.
Lead gen or demand gen?
You’ve heard both terms tossed around. The main difference between demand generation and lead generation is that demand gen is focused on raising marketplace awareness of how you help people, while lead gen aims at converting that awareness into leads.
The worst kind of leads are disconnected from demand gen. It’s just anonymous emails who don’t know you and might not even be your target audience. The best kind of lead gen is the result of demand gen: they know your name, they know what you do, and they gave you their contact info knowing full well you were gonna reach out to them.
In between the anonymous leads and the leads from generating demand, there is a broad spectrum. When I was at CI Private Wealth, the corporate mothership ran banner ads with a generic “Comprehensive Wealth Management and Financial Planning” headline and a picture of mountains (I’m not joking) that linked to a form to contact us. I think we got three form submissions in six months. One of them didn’t know who we were, and none became prospects.
Companies like SmartAsset do a more thorough job, so that a lead has shown they are looking for an Advisor, in your area, who has your skills. Bottom line? Lead gen is neither good nor bad. As technology advances, the ability to purchase leads who are open to, or even looking for, a given service or product will get better. But the advantage of demand gen is that it results in inbound leads who have shown interest in you.
Conversion rates
A conversion rate is the ratio of one stage of the sales funnel to the next. Some ways of identifying these stages are Lead (an email address or other contact info with unknown likelihood of becoming a customer), Marketing Qualified Lead (an MQL has given buying signals and should be sent to Sales for evaluation), Sales Qualified Lead (an SQL has been evaluated by Sales and found to be worth contacting), Prospect (Sales has made contact and verified the potential value), Opportunity (Sales can attach revenue potential and is actively trying to close the deal), and Win.
These are a lot of stages, and most companies don’t use every one of them. I’m good with Lead, Qualified Lead, and Win for now. The important thing is to understand that you shed most leads along the way.
I have not found numbers from the RIA space around conversion rates, because that kind of marketing is mostly done by the big wire houses. But from my days in B2B SaaS I got some decent metrics, so I’ll use those. Our deals were in seven figures so like RIAs, this was a carefully considered relationship, not just selling toothpaste.
We found that you’d get at best a 10% conversion rate from lead to qualified lead, and 10% again from SQL to win. That means for 100 leads, 10 would be a potential match, and one would end up buying.
Now if it’s a referral lead from a friend, your odds of this becoming a client are much better. But a list you purchased from Dope8andit666 on the dark web? Considerably lower conversion rate. However, for the usual leads you’ll get from a mix of SEO, some Google AdWords, some social posts, and collecting business cards at a speaking event? You’re safe thinking 1 in 100 will become a client.
Lead nurture
Here’s the big one. Salesforce has a good definition of lead nurture.
“The process of developing and maintaining relationships with customers at every stage of their journey, usually through marketing and communications messaging. Automated lead nurturing uses software to send messages that are triggered by customer behavior or predetermined schedules.”
Whether you purchased your leads or got them from demand gen activities, you won’t receive 100 leads, then send 100 generic emails and immediately snag a client. Well, not unless you are Vegas lucky. Some leads are tire-kickers. Many won’t meet your AUM requirements. Some are happy with their current situation. Quite a few don’t open emails.
Some have sufficient assets and have been thinking about getting a new Advisor and will even read your email… but will need more convincing. This is a big decision, and you’re just one voice. After all, they’re hit with ads from Fisher every day, promising a comfy retirement from a $500,000 portfolio.
So, nurturing your leads just makes sense. How do you nurture? By proving over time that you understand your lead’s situation, you can help your lead have a better life, and you have examples of just how you do that.
In other words, give them content. And content works best if you follow a formula.
Consistency x frequency x accuracy = conversions
Create content that has a consistent theme; for example, you understand the complexity of the business owner’s financial situation. Deliver the content regularly, because out of sight is out of mind. And do it accurately, delivering it to a defined demographic, buying social media that will appear before your targeted audience, and presenting it in front of relevant organizations.
How much nurturing?
Comparing B2B SaaS to wealth management is like comparing apples to orangutans, but when I was in the software biz, we had a team of business intelligence folks who built great reporting. We did omnichannel marketing, which generated and then nurtured leads using email, events, webinars, and user groups. Every nurture “touch” (any sort of interaction, from visiting the website to talking to a sales rep) was captured by the marketing software or the CRM.
When I looked at the average number of touches associated with a win, it was…
57. Yes, a raw lead had contact with us, on average, 57 times before becoming a win. That’s a whole lotta nurture. Going by that total, to narrow 100 leads down to 10 qualified leads and a win, you should expect:
· Around 15 touches for each of 100 unknowns to get down to 10 maybes, then;
· 30 or so interactions with those remaining to get them over the hump, so you’re talking to the one who’s really a good fit, and finally;
· Maybe 10 more touches from “Hello,” to “Welcome to Moneta!”
That seems like a lot
The Sisyphean task of thousands of touches to get one client sounds crazy. If someone relied entirely on typing emails and making phone calls to do that, it would be impossible. However, there are better ways to nurture, through mixing it up, doing what you enjoy, and automating when possible.
Mix it up
Don’t mix up your message: that blows your consistency. Do mix up how you deliver that message so you can deliver it more often and have a better chance of reaching the leads on the terms they prefer. Don’t put all your proverbial eggs in an email basket: a touch can be a website visit, a download, a video view, a podcast stream, a conversation at an event, or other things.
Do what you enjoy
Leads interact with you because they want something, ideally for free. Your best free offerings are content, but what if you’re not a gifted writer? There are other kinds of content and other ways to interact. Pick ways you enjoy getting in front of your leads. If you like doing video talks, make one every week and Marketing can set up your playlist on Moneta’s YouTube, so you can share it on LinkedIn and in your emails.
Hate video but love playing golf? One of the most successful Advisors I’ve known spent a huge amount to join the top golf club in Atlanta, saying “If I’m not spending 40% of my time on the golf course making connections and the other 60% working with clients, I’m doing something wrong.” Conversations are content!
Like speaking? If your leads are targeted - for example to dentists - get in front of every dental study group in the state with a bag of handouts, each with a QR code linking to a form on your team site to set up a call.
Marketing can provide best practices, processes, tools, creative writing, and design. But ultimately content, professional authority, and personal attention – attention which becomes increasingly vital as the lead comes closer to becoming a client – must come from the Advisor.
Automate some of the work
Finally, automation. Specifically, automated email nurture campaigns. I said earlier that leads interact because they want something for you. You can offer them content they want, say a paper called Dentists and Their Money: Three Keys to Personal Finance.
Using a well-designed automated nurture campaign, you can start with an email that has a brief opening showing you possess valuable knowledge, and then a featured link so that they can get, no strings attached, some of that knowledge by clicking a hyperlink. You then close with best wishes and hyperlinks to learn more about how you help dentists and to (it’s legally mandated) unsubscribe.
That featured link goes to a landing page which has code to measure visits and clicks, recording the IP address of each visitor. If an IP address is matched to an email address, that touch is recorded in a marketing automation system. The system then uses a simple decision tree and timed triggers to automatically deliver emails which were written and stored in the system well in advance. It goes a bit like this:
· SEND Nurture email 01
o IF OPENED remain in Nurture Track A
o IF NOT OPENED move to Nurture Track B
o IF CLICKED remain in Nurture Track A
o IF NOT CLICKED move to Nurture Track B
· DOWNLOAD CONTENT: remain in Nurture Track A, send thank you, send Nurture email 2 {five days} with link to Video 01
· NO DOWNLOAD: send email 01B {three days} with a reminder
You get the idea. You set up maybe six emails, each offering valuable content or offers. If they consume the content, they automatically receive the next email. If they don’t consume, they get a reminder. If they never open or consume anything, they are dropped out of the campaign.
No matter how you email your lead list, each lead action – a click, a download, a webinar registration - will have a numeric value, and when a lead’s cumulative score hits a predetermined threshold, Marketing sends an alert that they are now an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) so you can check them out on LinkedIn or other sources and then decide how best to go ahead.
Marketing has the HubSpot marketing automation system to do this kind of campaign. The catch is that HubSpot has not encountered a structure like Moneta, with one HubSpot implementation needing to serve 26 entities, each with their content and leads securely isolated. Buying and supporting 26 HubSpot systems is not realistic, but we do believe we can work with forward-thinking teams to develop automated nurture campaigns which are managed and “owned” by Marketing, with results sent on to your team.
If you’re interested in learning more, let’s set up a time to talk.
Summary
Leads are neither good nor bad. It’s all in the quality of those leads and how you separate the winners from the junk. For best results, remember:
· Not all leads are created equal
· Unless you’ve prepared enough content and activities to stay with them for the long haul, lead gen probably won’t amount to much
· Make content and do activities you enjoy, because otherwise it’s going to be a slog
· If you want to pursue automating emails or other advanced campaign tactics, ask Marketing