There are many ways for financial advisors to grow their business, however, a tried and true strategy is referral marketing. The idea behind this strategy is simple: by incentivising your ideal clients or other parties with a reward, you will have them refer their friends and family to your company. Like any other type of marketing campaign, there are pros and cons associated with using this technique; however, if done correctly your business can see an increase in customer acquisition and retention rates. In this article, we will detail referral ideas for financial advisors, that we hope you will find useful in growing your business.
What is the best way for a financial advisor to get clients?
The key to getting more clients is finding a niche that allows you to differentiate yourself from other financial advisors. Focusing on a specific niche allows you to tailor your value proposition to a specific market and answer their pain points. It could be focusing on a specific profession - like surgeons, or a specialist area like aged care advice. Once you have found your niche and have a few clients, make it part of your marketing strategy to ask for a referral from existing ideal clients, as it will help you get even more new clients within this niche.
How do financial advisors get referrals?
Advisors can find the best referral sources for financial advisors in all sorts of ways. They can ask for referrals from existing clients, create relationships with other businesses, join societies and lead groups. In this section, we will cover five referral ideas for financial advisors that will help them make referral marketing work for them.
1. Ask For Referrals
An advisor's existing client base is the best referral sources for financial advisors, so make sure you are asking for referrals. When you incentivise referrals, people are more likely to refer people they know as they will receive something in return. One way of incentivising is to set up a gift incentive program. Simply put, if someone refers a client to you and it results in a client meeting the referee receives a gift as appreciation. The initial client meeting should be based around an offer such as a complimentary financial review so that there is value for the potential client.
The gift can be chocolate, wine, a gift card, a gift box or any other reward that you would like to offer. Another approach can be to offer a discount on your services, however, we prefer the gift incentive program as it is a more tangible reward, making it a better approach when asking for referrals. You may also want to rotate gifts to incentivise ideal clients to make more than one referral. In order to promote the gift incentive program, you can continue asking for referrals when you meet clients, but if you want to gain momentum faster you could also send a letter or email to clients.
A note about offering incentives: Please ensure you are compliant with all corresponding regulations when asking for referrals.
2. Make Use of Organisations & Societies
A lot of financial advisors use organisations and societies to generate the best referral sources for financial advisors. They may serve on committees, write articles for publications, speak at conferences or workshops, or provide pro-bono advice to certain types of clients if they are members of the same society. If you are going to hold an event, then it’s a good idea to hold a question and answer session after so that you can build a personal connection with members and provide value to specific members. Remember to bring marketing materials like business cards and flyers so attendees have a point of reference to look back on. If allowed you could even hold a feedback survey to improve your event and also get the contact information of attendees so you can later contact them.
3. Establish Beneficial Business Relationships
One of the best long term referral ideas for financial advisors is creating a mutually beneficial business relationship. Is there an accountant or insurance broker you have worked with before and that you respect? If so, it might be worthwhile having a chat with them about creating a mutually beneficial business relationship by referring your clients to the other party when appropriate. This approach allows you to enhance your existing services offering, by referring to them and also generating new referrals for your business. It’s important however to ensure your services complement each other and that you are direct competitors. When you ask for referrals as a financial advisor you grow your business and position it for long term success.
4. Engage With Lead Groups
Leads groups are a great way to earn referrals for financial advisors and create business connections. Members of the group share qualified leads with other members when they find a member who can help one of their clients. The group avoids conflict and competition by only allowing one member per industry. It’s important to build a personal relationship with each member in the group so that you are top of mind when they make referrals. The meeting s generally run weekly or fortnightly, so try to be consistent, arrive early and don't be afraid when asking for referrals.
5. Ensure You Can be Found Online
It's important that your financial services website can be found online by potential clients so that when someone refers to your business they can easily find you. If you can’t find your business when searching Google, then neither can potential clients. Furthermore, if your website doesn’t look professional, then the potential clients may lose trust in your business as it doesn’t portray credibility. At Bectre we help financial advisors create websites that increase trust with potential clients and allow them to be easily found when searching Google. If you would like to speak with us about how we can help, then book a free, no-commitment consultation or call us on 0432 412 024.
