How to generate leads for a financial advisor firm

Are you tired of chasing elusive “stealth wealth” leads? Have you tried buying lead databases only to end up with an expensive pile of “Not interested, thank you” replies? We feel you. Lead generation for financial advisors is no fairy tale. It is the hard, tedious work of digging for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

At Belkins, we collaborate with financial advisors to develop a customized lead generation system tailored to your product, service, ideal client profile, business objectives, and work approach. The best part is that this system will continue to work for you even after we’re done. Instead of a list of scraped emails, you get the crystal clear vision to spot the best opportunities in your market — and the perfectly calibrated fishing rod to catch them. 

So, how do we find financial advisor leads? Why, we’re glad you asked. Let’s dig in!

Challenges in lead generation for financial advisors

• FINRA, SEC, GDPR, and CCPA regulations make proactive mass outreach an obstacle course. 
• Generating high-net-worth (HNW)/institutional leads consistently is hard, and the risk of pipeline stagnation is high.
• Differentiating yourself in a saturated market dominated by the “Big Four” giants demands a one-of-a-kind value proposition. 
• Long and complex sales cycles that involve multi-person buying committees require solid resources for nurturing. 
• Building trust in the digital world is not easy; meanwhile, financial advisor prospecting is all about trust.

What defines a qualified lead for a financial advisor?

To fill your pipeline with deal-making-ready prospects, you need to build a lead qualification system. At Belkins, we use lead scoring. Using a variety of criteria like compliance, budget, intent, authority, and others, we usually tier the leads into 3 categories: MQLs, sales qualified leads (SQLs), and opportunity qualified leads (opportunities).

A basic marketing qualified lead (MQL) — which means “anyone who has clicked on your ad and loosely matches your demographics” — is unworthy of active outreach. (Meanwhile, it’s what you usually get — if you’re lucky — when you buy lead lists for financial advisors.) 

Key lead qualification criteria for financial advisors:

1. ICP fit: Does the lead align with your micro-segmented ICP (firmographics, technographics, revenue)?
2. Compliance: Does the lead meet regulatory and internal compliance filters (e.g., not conflicting with existing clients, in a permissible industry)?

If (1, 2 = YES) then (Lead = MQL)

3. Intent: Has the prospect articulated a specific financial challenge or goal that your firm directly addresses (e.g., “seeking M&A tax advisory,” “need for executive compensation planning”)?
4. Budget: Can they afford your services? This isn’t always explicit initially, but firm size, funding rounds, and industry can imply budget.

If (3, 4 = YES) then (MQL = SQL)

5. Engagement level: Do they demonstrate consistent, high-intent engagement (multiple website visits to certain pages, reading blog/social media on niche topics, replies to targeted outreach)?
6. Authority: Is the lead a decision-maker (CFO, CEO, Founder, Head of Treasury) or a key influencer within the buying committee?
7. Urgency: Is there a timeline for addressing their need or challenge?

If (5, 6, 7 = YES) then (SQL = Opportunity)

Having the list of qualified leads based on the right ICP solves the “numbers game” problem. 

How to nail the right ICP for financial advisors

Many advisors think they know their ICP, but we often see clients bringing in a portrait that is too broad or based on assumptions. Even if this is not the case, achieving the depth needed for effective outreach to HNW/institutional clients requires some extra effort.

Using ICP in lead generation isn’t just about demographics anymore. Targeting “small business owners” will yield a vast amount of contacts with very low value, as you won’t know which of them require your help and which ones are too far up in the funnel. With targeting like this, your only strategy is the “numbers game”, and while you’re busy cold calling thousands of uninterested leads, more savvy competitors will scoop up all the purchase-ready folks.

To make your offer truly relevant, know the prospects’ intent, context, and psychographics. Layer the criteria to sift out the warmest, most relevant leads for financial advisors: 

1. Firmographics: When searching for HNW B2B prospects, the company size, measured by employee count, is a stronger indicator of potential than revenue figures alone. Beyond employee count, consider industries that are in their growth stage, with high margins, recent funding rounds, and specific financial pain points common in certain sectors (e.g., M&A activity for the real estate industry).
2. Technographics: What software or platforms do they use? This can indicate their budget or integration needs.
3. Intent signals: Are they researching competitors’ solutions? Do they visit specific pages on financial news sites? Do they engage with financial advisory content? All of these actions signify high purchase readiness. 
4. Compliance: Some affiliations trigger specific compliance requirements for financial services: for example, firms subject to international data transfer laws (due to cross-border operations), those with internal vendor restrictions for financial partners, or the government sector. These act as a filter for suitability.

Here’s how we worked out the right ICP for a client in financial consultancy for startups:

The reply rates in that case were wildly different across different verticals. When we discovered this, we adjusted our outreach efforts accordingly and doubled the client’s KPIs, securing 31 appointments in one month.  

What lead generation methods work best for financial advisors?

Effective lead generation for financial advisors lies in adapting the proven tactics from older methods to strategic, innovative shifts. Here’s how to merge digital intelligence with a client-first approach:

1. Integrated omnichannel engagement. HNW and institutional buyers conduct extensive research across all channels when they are looking for a financial advisory firm; keeping all your eggs in one channel — even if it’s Uncle Bob’s referral — is risky and positions you as a tech laggard. 
   
   📚 Relevant reading: How to create a winning B2B omnichannel marketing strategy
   
   
2. Using intent data. Meeting the prospects right when and where they voice the need for your services is the best shortcut to being hired on the spot. Employ social listening and targeted research tracking (e.g., “M&A advisory,” “executive deferred compensation,” “private equity investment options”) to facilitate timely, proactive outreach. 
3. AI-driven hyper-personalization. AI has immensely enhanced the analytical capabilities of even the smallest businesses. Use it to micro-segment your audience, find hidden patterns in your ideal customer profile (ICP), and predict optimal engagement moments for various personas based on their specific tasks and challenges.
4. Account-based strategies for high-value prospects. You can’t win over a corporate CFO or HNW individual with a generic pitch. Reaching high-value sales leads for financial advisors requires finesse and a strictly individual approach. Tailor proposals for family offices or specific corporate departments to speak directly to their unique financial goals and compliance needs. 
5. Compliant first-party data collection. The looming cookieless future and privacy concerns mean firms must collect their own first-party data. Compliance is non-negotiable, especially when learning how to build a client base for a financial advisor. Gather compliant first-party data through forms with explicit consent for future personalization and targeting.

How can financial advisors attract high-net-worth clients?

Attracting high-value B2B clients (corporations, large partnerships, venture-backed startups, family offices acting as businesses) demands a sophisticated approach. These prospects demand discretion, as they seek bespoke corporate financial solutions and business-specific value.

First, micro-segment the ICP: Zoom in from the vague “big corporations” to “corporations with a particular need for X, Y, Z (e.g., tech companies after Series A/B for institutional investment, companies anticipating M&A, businesses with complex international operations, etc.).”

Now, with this list of fitting businesses in mind, build connections with the corporate decision-makers. You can employ several client acquisition strategies for financial advisors:

• Referrals are the #1 source of high-net-worth financial advisor leads
  • From your other clients: Do a good job for an existing client, and they are likely to tell their peers about you. 
  • From professional partners (attorneys, bankers, bookkeepers): Companies’ bookkeepers are a great source for referrals.
  • From internal champions: Existing client executives can refer other executives, departments, or regional branches. 
• Traditional networking works, though it has to be very targeted
  • Business Network International (BNI) or the chamber of commerce: a solid, established route for building relationships, either with decision-makers or with other professionals who then refer.
  • Business clubs with revenue and/or sales threshold of over $200M. 
  • Charity/philanthropic organizations: You can look for their board rosters online and use them to enrich your lead data scraping. 
  • Events — especially exclusive, curated events like CFO Leadership Council meet-ups, CFO Strategy Summit, M&A seminars, etc. If you can’t attend the event, you can usually find the list of attendees on the event website, inside the event app, or by scraping it from LinkedIn. 
• Content marketing turns your expertise into a magnet
  • Guides: Create content on highly specialized matters like “Optimizing executive deferred compensation plans” or “Tax implications of cross-border M&A for tech startups.” Publish them on your blog and LinkedIn profile. 
  • Media outreach: Coauthor white papers with other experts, submit articles to B2B financial publications, or even publish a book. This establishes you as a recognized authority.
  • Online communities: Join online groups and forums like the CFO Leadership Council, and contribute with answers to questions. If you know your thing, you’ll get noticed.

Note that attracting HNW leads for financial advisors as described above is a long and strategic game. Further on, we will tell you about faster and more automated ways to find financial advisor leads — keep reading.

📚 Relevant reading: A B2B sales prospecting framework that lands high-value meetings

How to deliver your value proposition with a honed outreach approach

Time to send your prospects an offer they can’t refuse. How do you formulate it right? 

Based on our experience, financial advisors often struggle to explain complex services in a way that demonstrates immediate, compelling value to diverse B2B financial clients. 

We usually create the value proposition based on knowing your product and knowing your buyer. 

Answer these questions to formulate your unique value proposition (UVP):

• What will your product’s or service’s transformative impact on the business be? 
• Does it have angles and applications you haven’t considered yet? 
• What’s its value for different industry verticals? (You will likely see that one industry might prioritize benefits that aren’t relevant to another sector. This is your starting point for creating a customized value proposition.) 
• What is the level of novelty? If it’s an innovation, you will need to educate your prospects on it. 
• What differentiates you from the competition, especially in a field as competitive as financial advising?

With your speaking points, facts, and figures ready, divvy them up between the prospect subcategories. A “one-size-fits-all” message means “one-size-fits-none” for high-value B2B financial clients, so we recommend adjusting outreach messages based on the ICP segment and their level of engagement.

Come up with several themed approaches to reach out to fit prospects:

Here are a few of the approaches we use at Belkins. We recommend A/B testing them on smaller audience segments and tracking not just open rates but also the quality of leads and conversions to meetings. Then, use this data to double down on what works.

1. Referral-based approach. An approach based on using pre-researched colleagues of the main contact (POC) to find the right decision-maker. Mentioning people who are actually relevant makes the outreach more personal. For example: “We’ve seen that {{referral_name}} might also be involved in this — would it make sense to loop them in?”
2. Case study approach. Send messages that “show, don’t tell” your value proposition, amplifying it with real success stories and results for other customers.
3. Networking approach. Shift the focus from a sales pitch to collaboration, inviting prospects to exchange ideas or share feedback. This is effective for early-stage engagement or complex solutions. 
4. Mixed approach. Highlight your product’s benefits for the prospect’s industry, then amplify the value of potential collaboration by demonstrating real results of existing clients. At the end of the email, name-drop another potential decision-maker.

What marketing channels are best for financial advisor leads?

There is no one best marketing channel for financial leads, as every customer journey dictates specific points of contact. At Belkins, we are achieving the best results with our omnichannel lead generation approach. As McKinsey reports, the modern B2B buyer’s journey now spans 9–10 channels before a purchase is made. So, you must be present everywhere, and with the right message for every channel — no less.

Example of an omnichannel strategy for a B2B financial advisory client

In this case, we started with an email and followed up with LinkedIn; depending on the industry, you can adjust the order of steps. We found that this sequence worked best for this financial advisor serving startups. 

1. Starting with email

Our content writers crafted several email messages based on the personas and value proposition, then tweaked them to test three different approaches. These emails were sent from warmed-up mailboxes to ensure optimal deliverability.

We tracked all the response rates and types of replies, reiterating the messaging every 1–2 weeks to determine which subject lines and messages worked best for each vertical and position. 

2. Double-tapping on LinkedIn 

If the emails remained unopened, we followed up on those contacts with a LinkedIn reengagement campaign. 

Use LinkedIn as the primary contact channel for high-potential leads, ensuring no one is left behind.

3. Employing intent-based calling

The intent-based call is the third point of contact in the omnichannel strategy. 

The essence of intent-based calling is in the name: you only call prospects who have already demonstrated an intent to purchase. 

How to do intent-based calling:

• Set the waiting period before making a call. It will depend on the type of intent:
  • Semi-intent (e.g., LinkedIn connection accepted): Make calls the following day or within 2 days to allow time for lead exports and phone number verification.
  • Full intent (e.g., an active email exchange that stalled): Two days later, give a call as a reminder instead of a standard follow-up email.
  • Proactively call prospects who missed scheduled meetings. Offer to reschedule to ensure that leads who expressed interest are not lost due to scheduling conflicts.
• Have a call attempt and a no-reply protocol. Attempt 2–3 calls per prospect before marking them as non-responsive. This maintains persistence without overwhelming the lead.
• Determine the best time to call. Test different time slots in the prospect’s time zone and find the highest pickup rate time.
• Have a script in place, yet allow for flexibility. Make sure your offer in the script is clear to your audience. If you have experienced SDRs who are familiar with the product, let them personalize conversations based on the prospect’s responses.
• Handle any objections. Have scripts ready for the most common ones to mitigate them effectively.

How can AI enhance prospecting for financial advisors?

For B2B financial advisors’ lead generation, AI’s power lies in improving existing processes.

Precisely, two former bottlenecks are now being widely opened up by AI capabilities: finding the right moment and selecting the right words. 

Use AI to find signals indicating hot leads

Now AI can sift through your datasets, taking behavioral and contextual patterns into account, and identify the potential leads that best match your ICP and are likely to make a purchase soon. This process is far faster than manual research and helps you target precisely the leads with the highest earning potential, at the perfectly relevant moment.

Use AI to tailor the right value proposition to the lead

Before, this process was akin to staring into a crystal ball; now it’s done in seconds with AI. AI analyzes prospect data and gives you the precise features, benefits, and keywords to use for each lead, maximizing the chances of conversion. 

Is buying leads a good option for financial advisors?

Buying a lead database may seem like a quick fix, but it comes with compliance and ethical considerations that make it a minefield for financial advisors. See for yourself:

Generic lead lists for financial advisors are often of low quality and are sold to multiple individuals. Instead, look into platforms with granular filtering and individual lead vetting. 

• ZoomInfo, Apollo, Clay, and Lusha provide high-quality firmographic, demographic, and behavioral data to systematically build and enrich your profiles for targeted, compliant outreach.
• Platforms like Wealthfeed, with their credit-based system, enable you to review and verify individual prospect profiles before unlocking details such as net worth, email, and phone number.
• The best solution is to find a specialist or to partner with an agency that gathers custom, verified, and compliant opportunities tailored to your ICP, not someone who just sells you a list. Alternatively, find someone to set up an automation flow for you that scrapes lists with Sales Navigator or other aforementioned software and scores them.

How much does lead generation cost for financial advisors?

The cost of leads for financial advisors varies greatly, ranging from $5 per lead for catch-all emails sold in bulk to $75–$200+ per relevant, compliant lead. Based on data from hundreds of Belkins’ projects, a booked appointment with a decision-maker in your specific vertical ends up costing $500–$1,250 for financial consulting and adjacent industries. 

If you do everything in-house and choose the low-investment methods like content marketing, you can get your acquisition cost to $20–$30 per lead. However, you will need to invest a couple of years and considerable resources in building the funnels and refining the messages. 

Are lead generation companies worth it for financial advisors? While on the pricier side, professional lead generation companies can front-load your business with enough relevant prospects to give you several years’ worth of pipeline in a mere 6–9 months. The absence of overheads and a convenient “plug-and-play” model adds to the value you get.   

An outsourced partner, particularly one specializing in compliant B2B outreach for complex industries like financial advisory, is a strategic investment when:

• You need predictable growth
• You lack internal expertise or resources
• You operate in a regulated niche that demands proven compliance processes
• You want to scale fast and efficiently

Takeaway

Sounds like a lot? Consistently finding well-fit clients for your financial advisory business is indeed a journey. Luckily, you don’t have to walk this road alone. At Belkins, we have proven experience working with financial advisors and other high-stakes B2B service providers. Offload the tedious tasks of setting up email deliverability, sifting the markets for promising sectors, crafting multi-level prospect scoring, and digging for thousands of intent signals to our proprietary lead generation systems — and focus on closing the deals. 

Our specialists have the best reputation on the market — we truly take the time to understand your products, integrate with your sales team, and enhance their efforts – never to replace them. By partnering with us, you gain access to the best tools and software available, all included as part of our services.

Book a call today to learn how Belkins can elevate your financial advisory firm’s client acquisition or explore our client success stories to see the impact we deliver.