2015's 50 best ways to generate leads: 31-40

In your content marketing efforts, target individuals with specific problems, and build your site content around how you can help those individuals.

People go to Google with all sorts of “problems”. It might be that they need a policy quickly, or have been declined for coverage due to a medical condition. Perhaps they’re concerned they can’t get a policy due to their age.

Guess what? People include their problems in their Google queries every day so; create pages on your site with unique content about how you can help them. 

In doing so, you’ll achieve two goals:

1. You’ll have less competition – Let’s say you provide specific information for business owners on your site such as articles, resources, and testimonials about how you’ve helped other business owners. You’ll be perceived as a specialist in this niche, and business owners will prefer to do business with you over non-specialists.
2. More of your site visitors will convert into leads – The visitor who finds your site after searching Google for “life insurance for diabetics” or “can I get life insurance if I’ve had a recent DUI?” is going to be far more likely to request a quote than someone searching general terms like “how does life insurance work?” or “what is term life insurance?” because they’re farther along in their life insurance search.

The more you niche down in your content marketing efforts will influence the perception that you are an expert in your particular area of specialty, and your site conversions and sales will go through the roof.— Chris Huntley, Director of Marketing at JRC Insurance Group 35. Stop Asking CPAs for Referrals!

You want leads from CPAs? Then stop asking them for referrals, and instead focus on helping them deliver more value to their clients by allowing them to offer proactive and holistic advice.

According to the Sleeter Group, 76 percent of CPAs’ clients want their CPA to help with their planning needs. So why not just give the clients what they want rather than trying to sell them on working with you directly?

By supporting CPAs and working through them to deliver the services that their clients want and need but they themselves do not offer you create a win/win/win.

The client gets the work done in a comfortable environment, the CPA delivers more value to their client and therefore strengthens their relationship, and you are rewarded for doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes. Key take away: to successfully work with CPAs stop trying to make yourself look good and instead focus on how you can help the CPA look good to their clients! – Anton J. Anderson, Managing Partner of Elite Resource Team  34. The Biggest Gift to Advisors in 30 Years 

Birthdays are a big deal, and those close to retirement offer a great opportunity for a review of an individual or couple’s Social Security claiming strategy. Doing so seamlessly leads to broader retirement income discussions, in which the topic of annuities can be raised. Specifically, the advisor can address the following:

• Needed monthly income
• Guaranteed income and how important it is in covering non-discretionary spending
• Creating a longevity hedge so the client will not outlast their income
• Using an annuity to cover spending gaps in Social Security benefits

Putting an annuity together with Social Security results in a floor of reinforced hardwood as opposed to the cheap linoleum of some other strategy. It’s for these reasons I can confidently say coordinating Social Security with annuities is the biggest gift to advisors and agents in the past 30 years.–William Meyer, Founder and CEO, Social Security Solutions

33. Build a Client Sales Force

Who doesn’t love quality referrals from great clients? We certainly do. It turns out that our best clients want us to grow through referrals as well. How do we know? We asked them.

Schedule family-style dinners with your best clients. We chose 18 families and invited six couples to one of three dinners. At each dinner, we shared with them the goals we have for our firm, in great detail. I then left the room while they individually completed a two-page survey about how we are doing as a firm, what we’re doing well and what they’d like to see us improve upon. 

We spent the rest of the evening talking openly and asking questions about their experience. It turns out they are adamant about us growing our business through their word-of-mouth! As a result, we created Ambassador Kits for them to distribute to their friends, introducing our firm and the services we provide, as well as a copy of my book. Rather than spend money on mass marketing, we built and equipped a sales force of our best clients, exactly as they instructed us.--Adam Cufr, RICP®, is a founding principal of Fourth Dimension Financial Group, LLC. 32. A Center of Influence

Focus your lead generation efforts on a very specific niche market that interests you. Identify a Center of Influence appropriate for the niche and consult them for their advice. 

People that are asked for their advice are flattered to have been asked, they are generally more than happy to give it because everyone wants to think they’re an expert at something, and they feel invested in wanting the advice they give to work.

Ask the question like this:  “Mrs. Smith, Do you have a few minutes to give me some advice?”. Assuming that she says yes: “I’d really like to expand my financial services practice with more successful (insert niche description) just like you. Do you think that’s a good idea?” If yes: “If you were me, how would you do it?”. 

The listen and let them architect your lead generation strategy. Under no circumstances should you bring up the word referral. You also shouldn’t care if the person that you ask advice of is a client. If there’s radio silence for a bit that’s ok. 

Give them time to think. The more thoughtful their advice the better it will be for you. Even if it turns out that they don’t think you should focus on the niche you originally had in mind, they may well raise some really valuable points that could save you a lot of time and energy.    

It’s probably the most effective lead generation technique I’ve used and some of the most successful advisors I’ve ever met built their practices using it. Almost every advisor out there asks for referrals. Very few ask for advice.  It’s a differentiator and a game changer.–Rebecca True, President / Sr. Financial Advisor, True Financial Advisors 31. Hospitals

With the arrival of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), we must continuously think outside of the box to survive.

Looking to place agents and brokers in the lobbies and emergency rooms of local hospitals is a win-win on every level. 

The hospital helps patients who are paying out of their pocket, the patient meets with an expert, and we help the patients buy insurance.

Agents are free, and the cost to the hospital for having agents help private-pay patients is zero.—  B. Ronnell Nolan, HIA, CHRS, is a working broker and the president of Health Agents of America Inc.

For more lead generation tips, visit www.LifeHealthPro.com/50best