Most financial advisors and asset managers presumably believe in disciplined investment management, and have protocols for how to get referrals and otherwise build the sales pipeline.
But have they developed repeatable habits for creating and managing a world-class lead generating website?
We offer up 65 habits to muster a super successful site:
Strategy
1. Your site is built with the idea of creating trust with your target market.
2. You have a marketing niche and you say so.
3. You have a value proposition.
4. You have developed success metrics.
5. You think inbound marketing can increase leads.
6. Your home page has a hero shot.
7. You have a marketing budget and you stick to it.
8. You have a clear idea on your firm’s compliance responsibilities.
Blogging
9. You have or are on the way to having 100+ blog posts.
10. You blog at least once each week – better two per week.
11. You have a link to your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook business accounts.
Content Marketing
12. You have an inventory of at least three EBooks or white papers available for download on your site.
13. You produce product fact sheets.
14. You publish investors’ guides, newsletters, and white papers.
15. You produce podcasts.
16. You do webcasts or webinars.
17. You use motion graphics as part of your presentations, and are they on your site.
18. You know that a landing page is where your leads click when they ask for the free offer.
19. You believe in infographics and have them on your site.
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Social Media
20. You have an active social media strategy.
21. You have specific goal on how many leads you want to generate per month.
22. You have goals regarding how many lead leads you want from organic sources.
23. You specific goals for how many new clients you need and from what sources.
24. You have goals for pay per click advertising.
25. You tweet and/or retweet at least 10 times per day – more is better.
Branding
26. You know what a persona is.
27. You know who your client’s personas are.
28. You know what your prospects read.
29. You write different content for different types of clients.
30. You prepare different content for prospects at each stage of their buying cycle.
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Lead Generation
31. You know who visits your site.
32. You have case studies on your site.
33. You collect leads in more ways than via the “Contact Us” page.
34. You update content more than once per week.
35. Your landing page forms collect lead information - name, business name, email, and other relevant data.
Calls to Action (CTAs)
36. You know that CTAs are the forms on landing pages where leads go for more information.
37. Your CTA is visible and above the fold.
38. You know where to place your CTAs on your site.
39. You A/B test headlines, images, and text to see which drives more conversions.
Thank You Pages
40. You email a thank you note after a prospect asks for information.
41. You restate the value of the offer in your thank you page.
42. You provide additional value by having a second call to action in your thank you pages.
Email Marketing
43. You use email marketing seeks to nurture your list of existing leads into clients.
44. You have a way your prospects can opt-in and op-out to receive (or not receive) future emails.
45. You automatically segment and send email to targeted clients.
46. You send your emails at least once every two weeks to prospective investors.
Mobile Marketing
47. Your site can be read easily on a smartphone.
48. You have a website that can be read easily on a tablet.
SEO
49. You have a list of keywords.
50. You optimize your site for SEO.
51. You write your site for how people, not search engines, search.
52. You include links to other web pages on your site.
53. You include links to other website from your site.
54. You actively seek to backlink your site from influential sites.
Design
55. You have a style guide.
56. You have a defined tone and voice.
57. You maximize the use of images, bullets, layout, and formatting.
58. You proof your content before publishing.
59. Your design helps the content focus on your client’s challenges and needs.
Metrics
60. You know who visits your website.
61. You measure the ROI on your website, blogs, landing pages, and calls to action.
62. You track your web traffic by visitor, campaign, and source.
63. You A/B test two variations to see which drives more conversions.
64. You know what website sections, pages, and articles your visitors visit.
65. You analyze your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook pages - click though rates, cost per click, and cost per lead.