Need to generate financial leads in the UK

[papeter]

I need to generate financial compensation leads
from UK consumers.

Banks over the last few years have
literally swindled millions of UK consumers by
getting them to pay payment protection
insurance (PPI) whenever they took out a loan.
British Banks made fortunes by selling this service which
is a rip-off for the clients.

So I need to specifically target these consumers in the UK
who have issues with their lenders.

Can anyone recommend a good method for generating
these niche leads. I thought of using articles and
possibly press releases. PPC is quite expensive as I
know of some companies using adwords but the volume
of people searching is quite low.

I would use a landing page on a blog to direct them to a claims
company who would then get the contact the client
and try and get them signed up.

On the landing page I would have a video
explaining the process of claiming against the banks
and why the banks have misled their clients.

If anyone has any ideas I would be very grateful
for any input.


Thanks


Pete

[Chris Kent]

If it is so commonplace, maybe content network Adwords/Adsense ads on national newspaper sites like The Times.

[Neil Ashworth]

Hi Pete,

How much offline lead generation are you doing with this one?

The reason I ask is that this would seem pretty straight forward from a marketing/lead generation angle.

I'd start by contacting a number of independent financial consultants in your local area who will have set up loans and various other agreements over the last number of years like this and would have a database of clients to refer to you if the arrangements are profitable I'm sure.

For online lead generation social media sites like facebook and youtube are also pretty useful for this kind of lead generation - provide advice rather than a sales/lead request and people will step forward when they trust you enough to tell you how much debt they have.

Hope this helps!

[mookinman]

I'd say give Facebook a go. Absolutely everybody seems to be on there, so it's the one place your ads will get seen.

[artwebster]

What an interesting question - what are you offering the people you identify?
I don't remember anybody saying that selling protective insurance is illegal or immoral nor do I recall reading a financial review accusing banks of "swindling" millions of clients - a grave accusation, indeed.
When banks were told that mortgage clients were to be allowed to purchase their mortgage protection insurance independently, this was done in very short time and the banks were still able to provide the insurance to the bulk of their borrowers.
Payment protection insurance was not made compulsory by any bank that I am aware of - indeed, since I cannot get any form of insurance related to my health, all loans I had were bereft of such cover - even though I wanted it.
If you are looking to get a refund of "excessive" premiums I think you have a hard row to hoe - especially since the number of claims the cover has satisfied is very significant.
I agree that IFAs would be the first place to go but I have a feeling that if there was money to be made here, they would already be doing it.

[madison_avenue]

You will need to build niche websites targeting the keywords: "pay payment protection insurance" (PPI) and other long tail words around it. Write 20 articles on this niche. You will need to develop a strong backlink structure to support this site, using the full range of SEO mechanisms.

Sites such as Myspace etc never produce many leads however your main niche financial advice site might. But social bookmarking sites are good for getting backlinks and this is what I would use them for.

Build an authoritative looking site with lots of content. The financial comparison market is a tough one, the other players are sites like Moneysupermaket.com and USwitch.com etc with deep pockets.

But you can still move in on this niche as they will be concentrating the premium products and you will have the time to produce more targeted content for you targeted keywords.

all the best

[papeter]

Originally Posted by artwebster

What an interesting question - what are you offering the people you identify?
I don't remember anybody saying that selling protective insurance is illegal or immoral nor do I recall reading a financial review accusing banks of "swindling" millions of clients - a grave accusation, indeed.
When banks were told that mortgage clients were to be allowed to purchase their mortgage protection insurance independently, this was done in very short time and the banks were still able to provide the insurance to the bulk of their borrowers.
Payment protection insurance was not made compulsory by any bank that I am aware of - indeed, since I cannot get any form of insurance related to my health, all loans I had were bereft of such cover - even though I wanted it.
If you are looking to get a refund of "excessive" premiums I think you have a hard row to hoe - especially since the number of claims the cover has satisfied is very significant.
I agree that IFAs would be the first place to go but I have a feeling that if there was money to be made here, they would already be doing it.

I think you have had your head buried in the in the sand for the last 2 years. PPI has caused thousands of people nothing short of misery in the way it was sold by the banks.
It has caused many to go bankrupt and lose their home.

I used to work for one of the largest claims handling companies in the UK and we processed thousands of such claims on behalf of clients. FOS upheld 90% of cases and the banks eventually had to pay out and still do.

In a lot of cases the banks made it compulsary for the client to take out PPI at extortionate premiums which made the loan horrendously expensive. In the end over the term of the loan clients have been many times the original loan.

Actually, building societies who sold PPI with mortgages were more competitive and the their terms of sale fairer. We never had any complaints from mortgage PPI. Loans and credit cards were the biggest offenders.

I never said that PPI is illegal or immoral, you can get highly competitive PPI rates
from companies like British Insurance etc at much lower premiums than banks were charging. PPI is a good and necessary product especially now with many laid off work.

Yes, my 'grave accusation' as you state is fully justified. With all that said the banks are now paying for their misdemeanor aren't they? You sound like an ex-banker!

Just read these PPI articles which make interesting reading: Financial News, Mortgages, Loans, Savings, Pensions, Market Reports | This is Money

[spearce000]

You might want to consider taking out banner ads on some websites or forums specific to the UK.

A couple that come readily to mind are:
UK Business Forums - the UK's most active help and advice forum for owners, managers and entrepreneurs of small businesses and startups.
The Consumer Forums

I'm sure there are others, too.

[artwebster]

Hi, Papeter,

Thanks for the articles. I haven't had my head buried in the sand for two years but I have been rather poorly and missed this particular scandal.

[papeter]

Originally Posted by artwebster

Hi, Papeter,

Thanks for the articles. I haven't had my head buried in the sand for two years but I have been rather poorly and missed this particular scandal.

So sorry to hear that, no hard feelings then?
Hope you are on the road to good health once more.