Now that Consumer Duty is here, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is focusing yet more intently on ensuring that all financial advisers have the best interests of consumers at heart when marketing and selling their products and services.  

In this article, we demonstrate how advanced, digital lead generation is capable of connecting consumers to those financial advisers offering the products and services that are right for likely to match their needs. In doing so, digital lead generation has an increasingly valuable role to play in helping financial advice firms achieve their growth ambitions under the new Consumer Duty regime.  

How do lead generation services work?

Lead generation firms find potential clients for you by creating digital marketing campaigns that get the products or services you’re selling – for example those focused on pensions and retirement – in front of consumers who are already showing an interest in these. They commonly do this by targeting those who are searching on Google using keywords that match or are similar to the words you use to describe what your business does.

Accurate targeting is key to success

How successful this is depends on the sophistication of the campaign and the data that sits behind it. If a campaign is too broad or targeting is wrong, you’ll end up attracting consumers that aren’t a good fit, for example the pension products you offer may not be in their best interests. And this, obviously, is exactly the kind of consumer outcome that Consumer Duty aims to avoid.

On the flipside of this, sophisticated digital lead generation can pinpoint the right consumers with a high degree of accuracy. At Lead Tech we’re an FCA-regulated digital lead generation business with 15 years’ experience of running campaigns to help our financial advice partners find new clients. This is how we do it.

Targeted campaigns delivered through effective digital channels

The years of campaign performance data and insights we have to draw on are essential in enabling us to map out and execute campaigns capable of finding those consumers that are most likely to be the right fit for your business and, crucially, are at the point where they are ready to act rather than just seeking information. We identify clear and proven sets of keywords and use these to create campaigns that are delivered through the most effective digital channels.

Using data science to understand consumers and build pictures of ideal clients

Our secret weapon behind the scenes is our data science and analytics team. We’re unusual in having a team of this calibre and, as part of their work, they use machine learning to look for patterns in data that it would be impossible for humans using spreadsheets to spot. This helps us understand, in granular detail, the characteristics of the consumers that are most likely to be the best match for each of the financial advice partners we work with. This can include everything from demographics and financial status and behaviours to life stages and attitudes towards technology.  

The closer we work with our partners, the better the results we get and we use these to further enhance our campaigns so we’re homing in yet more intently on the right consumers. Around four million consumers make contact with out websites every year, which gives us a phenomenal amount of data to work with.

Valuable conversations with consumers

When consumers contact us, what we do next depends on the partner we’re working with or the type of campaign or product. We can pass consumers directly on to our partners who will reach out and take it from there. Or we can deploy the experienced team in our own contact centre to speak to consumers first. They’ll have a conversation to understand their needs and circumstances before matching them to the financial advice firm that they believe will be right for them. As well as saving time for your advisers, this is an additional layer of scrutiny to help ensure 'good customer outcomes' before a consumer comes to you. And, of course, it gives us yet more invaluable insights that help us understand consumers even better.

Collaborating to optimise results

Feedback from financial advisers and consumers is vital in closing the loop. The more information we have on whether we’ve succeeded in finding the right consumer for a particular financial advice firm or vice versa, the more we can continue to optimise every stage of the journey and increase the likelihood of achieving the ‘good customer outcomes’ that the FCA is expecting.

Peace of mind that comes with FCA authorisation

Financial advice firms are often wary of using external services for activities such as marketing and lead generation because of the additional challenges that come with operating in a highly regulated industry – and the consequences of getting it wrong. And with Consumer Duty shining a spotlight on your supply chains not just your own activities, this is becoming an increasing concern.

When you work with Lead Tech, this isn’t an issue. Unlike the vast majority of lead generation firms, which operate as appointed representatives, we’re directly authorised by the FCA. This means we are responsible for the integrity of our own operations and ensuring we comply with Consumer Duty. And it also means we have a solid understanding of the financial services industry, the challenges you face and the opportunities that exist.

Next steps

We can help you generate leads you need to grow your business while making sure ‘good consumer outcomes’ are embedded every step of the way. Please get in touch so we can discuss your needs.