Cetera Financial Group, one of America’s largest networks of financial professionals, today announced that its investor acquisition program is expanding to all Cetera-affiliated financial professionals and that participants are eligible for reimbursement of their investment into the program. LeadEngine, which is powered by SmartAsset – the largest lead generation platform for financial professionals – is Cetera’s exclusive investor acquisition program that connects financial professionals directly with highly qualified prospects who are actively seeking a financial professional.
Cetera and SmartAsset have collaborated since early 2019, testing multiple programs designed to match Cetera’s financial professionals with new clients across the U.S. Cetera-affiliated financial professionals currently using SmartAsset are outpacing the 5% lead-to-client conversion benchmark. Year-to-date, the LeadEngine program has converted more than $20 million in advisory assets for Cetera advisors, with more than $75 million in assets in the pipeline. More than 100 Cetera-affiliated financial professionals currently participate in the program.
“Based on the success of LeadEngine along with positive feedback from participating advisors, we are pleased to extend this proven program to all Cetera-affiliated financial professionals,” said Cetera Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Michael Zuna. “Our goal is to help advisors succeed in all aspects of their business, and we are excited to deliver a robust investor acquisition program that offers much more value than an affiliate relationship. From identifying qualified prospects to converting them to clients – and everything in between – LeadEngine provides a full-service, thoughtful and strategic approach to organic growth for our advisors.”
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“We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Cetera and help facilitate growth for their financial professionals across the country,” said Michael Carvin, CEO and Co-Founder of SmartAsset. “With an audience reach of more than 75 million consumers each month, our unparalleled scale creates opportunities for advisors to grow their businesses via a fully scalable, on demand client prospecting service. Plus, our latest innovation, ‘Live Connections’ – which delivers warm leads via phone transfer – further helps advisors by eliminating the investor prospecting burden allowing them to focus on what they’re good at: advising clients.”
Many advisors using LeadEngine report tangible success in a relatively short timeframe and offer advice to other Cetera financial professionals who may use the program. “Cetera helped my growth strategy by giving me quality leads through LeadEngine,” said Michael Argiro, a financial professional with Cetera Advisors. “In just four months, I have three new clients and over $1M in assets closed with another $1.5M in transition. Have a process, be patient and have fun.”
To complement LeadEngine, Cetera’s Growth Officers and engagement teams help advisors maximize prospecting opportunities. Cetera provides best practice guides in partnership with SmartAsset that review advisors’ email outreach, lead nurturing, and text messaging with MyRepChat. Cetera partners with advisors to craft personalized lead-nurture programs using a ready-to-use-email sequence in its MarketingCentral platform to streamline the lead follow-up process, allowing financial professionals to customize communication cadence and personalize materials and messaging.
LeadEngine is the latest growth resource available to Cetera-affiliated financial professionals. In September, Cetera rolled out the Growth360 program to its network at the Connect21 annual conference. Growth360 empowers Cetera financial professionals to learn from and incorporate the successes of their fastest growing peers and will continue to expand with new phases in 2022 and beyond.
