Génération vs Achat de leads: Quelle méthode adopter pour votre cabinet de CGP?
Introduction to lead generation and lead buying
L'acquisition de clients est le moteur vital de toute entreprise tout comme les cabinets de CGP. Dans ce contexte, les leads – ou prospects qualifiés – représentent l'élixir convoité par toutes les sociétés désireuses d'accroître leur portefeuille client. Mais une question se pose souvent : faut-il générer ses propres leads ou est-ce plus judicieux d'en acheter? Cet article explore en profondeur ces deux stratégies afin de vous aider à choisir la meilleure approche pour votre cabinet de conseiller en gestion de patrimoine.
Understanding prospecting
Prospecting is the first step in the sales process. It involves actively seeking out potential customers and arousing their interest in your products or services. The main aim of prospecting is to find relevant buyers who may not yet be familiar with your company.
Objectives and methods
The objectives of prospecting include identifying potential new customers, establishing initial contacts and initially qualifying prospects. Prospecting methods may vary, but often include activities such as :
Cold calls
Prospecting emails
Meetings at events
Professional social networks like LinkedIn
Exemples d'activités de prospection pour un CGP
Let's take the example of a wealth management consultancy just starting up. To prospect, the sales team could :
Cold calling from directories to present their wealth advisory services.
Send personalized emails using data brokers.
Participate in events and networks to meet prospects face-to-face.
Use social networks to build brand awareness.
Publicités en ligne est encore peu utilisée par les CGPs mais gagne à être plus exploitée
Prospecting enables us to establish direct contact with potential prospects, which can speed up the sales process. However, it often requires manual effort and can be time-consuming.
What is lead generation?
Buying leads means giving yourself direct access to contacts presumed to be interested in your services or products. These leads are usually supplied by companies specialized in collecting and qualifying customer data. This method may seem attractive, as it promises a rapid gain in potential customer volume.
In practical terms, buying leads involves paying an external company to provide you with contact details and information on people or companies likely to be interested in your offer. The price paid generally depends on the sector of activity and the degree of qualification of these leads.
Some lead providers simply share contact lists, while others ensure prior qualification (suitable profile, clear expression of interest or purchase intent, etc.) before passing on prospects to their customers.
The main advantage of this method is its speed and turnkey nature: for a small investment, you gain direct access to a portfolio of leads that can be used immediately by your sales force.
Pourquoi acheter des leads pour votre cabinet de CGP ?
Buying leads can be a quick way of supplying your sales force with fresh opportunities. If you're short of time or don't have the in-house resources to implement an effective inbound strategy, this may be a good option.
Here are just a few of the situations in which buying leads makes sense:
Launching a new business: rapidly acquiring a first portfolio of leads makes it easier to generate the first revenues and validate the suitability of your offer/market.
Seasonality: some sectors experience peaks of activity at certain times of the year. Buying additional leads during these intensive phases can be a flexible and effective option.
New geographical territory: to rapidly extend your presence in new areas, the contribution of external leads accelerates your sales conquest.
Aggressive campaigns: for one-off, offensive prospecting campaigns, having a large volume of leads at your disposal quickly maximizes the impact of your campaigns.
Of course, there are a number of precautions and checks to be made before resorting to external lead buying, and we'll come back to them later in this article.
Where to buy qualified leads
There are various platforms and specialized companies where you can acquire qualified leads. It's crucial to evaluate the reputation and methods used by these suppliers before any purchase, to ensure that the data received corresponds to your expectations and quality criteria.
Here are a few tips to help you choose the right lead provider:
Check reviews and recommendations from previous customers
Ensure the legality and ethics of data collection methods
Validate the actual qualification of leads and their suitability for your target group
Compare lead prices by sector and type of qualification
Require a data confidentiality agreement
Test with small volumes before committing to large ones
Some sectors are more conducive than others to the purchase of leads. These include real estate, credit, insurance, e-commerce and business services (IT, telecoms, events, etc.).
The quality of the data provided varies enormously. Some contacts are limited to a name, phone number and email address, while others include much richer information: company, position, projects or interests, etc. The more qualified the lead, the higher the unit price. The more qualified the lead, the higher the unit price.
How to generate wealth management leads
Dans le domaine spécifique de la gestion du patrimoine, obtenir des prospects qualifiés demande une compréhension fine du marché et du profil client idéal. Utiliser des techniques éprouvées telles que le référencement naturel (SEO) ou Google Ads peut s'avérer très efficace.
Here are a few best practices:
Target queries related to financial planning: retirement, savings, investment, taxation...
Focus on quality, value-added information content: guides, how-to sheets, blog articles, instructional videos...
Personalize messages according to profile: young professionals, forty-somethings, seniors...
Integrate calls-to-action to encourage contact or quote requests
Nurture your contact base with promotional offers, newsletters and event invitations
A digital strategy combining search, social ads and content marketing is far more effective than simply buying leads in this kind of expert market.
Strategies for attracting more leads
There are several complementary strategies for increasing your lead volume:
Content marketing via a blog
Targeted advertising campaigns
Professional networking
Each technique has its own specific features, which need to be adapted to your business sector and sales objectives.
Content marketing
Content marketing consists of producing quality content (blog articles, product sheets, white papers, podcasts...) to attract prospects to your website.
The aim is to capture the interest of your target audience and convert them into leads via subscription or quote request forms, for example.
To make the most of this technique :
Create truly useful content that addresses your prospects' questions and needs
Optimize this content by targeting certain strategic keywords
Include prominent call-to-actions on all your pages
Measure and continuously improve your conversion tunnel
The result: high-quality leads, increased traffic to your site and enhanced brand awareness in your sector. To have an effective content marketing strategy, it's essential to work on your editorial strategy.
Advertising campaigns
The principle behind online campaigns is to sponsor the distribution of your ads (search ads, banners, sponsored posts...) to a targeted audience via search engines and social networks.
To optimize your campaigns :
Carefully select your targets according to their commercial intent
Create high-impact, conversion-oriented ads
Constantly adjust your bids and keywords
Measure your return on investment precisely
The result: a substantial volume of leads whose acquisition you can control in fine detail.
Professional networking
Networking consists of building up a network of contacts at professional events, with the aim of generating opportunities.
To maximize benefits:
Select the right events for your target audience
Prepare your pitch and sales leaflet
Collect as many business cards as possible
Ensure personalized follow-up of promising contacts
The result: well-targeted leads and potential partnerships.
Do you need to generate or buy leads?
The decision to generate or buy leads largely depends on the business model, the available budget and the sales cycle specific to each company.
In-house generation often offers better control over quality, whereas purchasing provides an immediate, but potentially less targeted, volumetric input.
In practice, many companies combine the two approaches in a complementary way:
In-house lead generation to ensure a steady flow of qualified leads
Occasional external purchasing to meet peaks in activity
The key is to understand the respective advantages and disadvantages of each method.
The 3 differences between buying and generating leads
Let's take a closer look at the main differences between these two strategies.
Cost per lead (CPL)
CPL varies significantly between direct purchase from an external supplier and in-house production thanks to the company's own marketing efforts.
Although the initial cost may seem higher when you generate your own leads, this is often justified by a better final conversion due to superior quality.
Let's take an example:
Cost per lead purchased = €30
Customer conversion rate = 10%.
Cost per customer acquired = €30 / 10% = €300
Cost per lead generated internally = €60
Customer conversion rate = 30%.
Cost per customer acquired = €60 / 30% = €200
Despite the lower purchase price of gross PLC, in-house generation is much more cost-effective.
Lead quality
The quality of a lead largely depends on the prospect's real commercial intent and their suitability for your offer.
A purchased lead can be shared with several competitors, whereas a self-generated lead will be exclusive to your company, which greatly influences its potential value.
Buying a lead "exhausted" by other sales approaches inevitably reduces your chances of conversion.
Long-term investment
Generating your own leads often involves a significant initial investment in terms of resources and time before you can reap the rewards of this strategy.
En revanche, une fois la machine lancée, le CPL a tendance à diminuer progressivement grâce aux effets vertueux du référencement naturel, de l'automatisation et des économies d'échelle.
The external purchase of leads may bring immediate results, but it has no lasting effect, nor does it structurally improve sales performance over the long term.
Conclusion
Ultimately, generating your own leads in-house or buying them from outside are two significantly different strategies in terms of investment, quality control, cost and long-term impact.
Rather than opposing them, it' s often a case of combining these two approaches in a complementary way to feed your sales funnel and fuel your business as best you can.
The most important thing is to precisely understand your needs, capabilities and objectives, so as to define the best mix of leads generated and leads purchased.
One thing's for sure: relying solely on external purchasing exposes you to structural weaknesses that are harmful in the long term. A sound strategy must include internal generation capacity to guarantee independence and profitability.
If you'd like to set up a strategy to generate your own leads, I invite you to book a free discovery call or download our free guide.
