PlanPro expands an advisor’s outreach and drives prospect conversations.

RetirementDNA needed to fill their pipeline with high-quality leads to drive growth. Working with PlanPro has enabled the team to double their prospecting outreach, enter a new market, and engage prospects with intelligence.

Executive Summary

  • RetirementDNA uses PlanPro for its high-quality contact data, ease of accessing plan intelligence, and consultative client support.
  • To create targeted lead lists and identify opportunities that align with their expertise, they apply filters based on specific geographies, industries, and red flags.
  • They leverage PlanPro’s contact database to boost their reach with high-quality phone numbers, email addresses, and LinkedIn profiles.
  • Before a phone call, they always have a plan’s profile open to quickly gain context and provide value immediately.
  • Providing plan insights and sharing PlanPro reports with clients is integral to RetirementDNA’s sales strategy, which leaves lasting goodwill on prospects.

Challenge

RetirementDNA, a division of Retirement Benefits Group (RBG), is a West Coast provider of retirement planning and employee benefits services. The team works with over 140 401(k) plans and focuses on the biotech and life sciences industry. With growth in mind, including expansion into a new market, RetirementDNA needed a robust prospecting software to identify and engage prospects. The team had developed a robust prospecting strategy that included paper mailers, email marketing, and LinkedIn. While fruitful, they wanted to execute on it more effectively. Shawna Christiansen, the director of retirement at RetirementDNA, was frustrated with low-quality contact data and a lack of plan insights from existing software. Working with PlanPro, RetirementDNA was able to increase its outreach significantly and have more productive conversations with prospects.

Creating Targeted Lead Lists

The RetirementDNA team had two needs for creating lead lists — (1) expanding outreach in their current geographic market, and (2) identifying leads in a new geographic market they were entering. Shawna and the team wanted to identify leads with specific red flags for targeted campaigns. Lead lists from legacy prospecting software were either not targeted enough or lacking in content. The team knew there was a broader market of companies they were a good fit for and wanted to reach it. 

Reaching Decision-Makers

RetirementDNA has built a strong reputation within the Biotech industry, and their business development has centered around strong relationships with industry groups. However, the availability of member company information was often limited to company names. Due to this, Shawna and her team struggled to create comprehensive lead lists with decision-maker contact data. Stale and indirect contact data from their legacy 5500 databases would interrupt their momentum. Shawna and her team would have to search Google and LinkedIn, often coming up short. The RetirementDNA team knew there were more opportunities in their target market that they could be reaching out to with the correct data.

Sharing Plan Intelligence with Prospects

In addition to connecting with prospects, the RetirementDNA team wanted to arm themselves with relevant data and talking points for their conversations. They believed in using data to help turn cold leads warm. However, the team was uncomfortable using vague plan “scores” in other platforms that left prospects guessing. Shawna felt stuck with obscure, pre-evaluated ratings that lacked actionable plan intelligence that she could share. RetirementDNA had experience helping plan sponsors with many specific issues and wanted to identify them for discussion quickly.

Solution

The RetirementDNA team signed up with PlanPro for its high-quality contact data, ease of accessing plan intelligence, and consultative client support. After signing up, they leveraged the platform immediately — creating targeted lead lists, reaching decision-makers, and sharing plan intelligence with prospects. 

To expand their outreach, RetirementDNA began creating focused lead lists. Criteria include industry, geography, and red flags to target plans with specific plan opportunities, such as the availability of lower share classes. This has allowed the team to create lead lists of better relevance that align with their core competencies. For example, the team leveraged PlanPro to expand into a new state. To complement their involvement with industry associations, they used PlanPro to fill a brand-new pipeline with fresh targeted leads instantly.

High-quality contact data was also crucial to the RetirementDNA team. PlanPro’s database of up-to-date contact information has enabled RetirementDNA to reach more plan decision-makers. Skipping the chore of scouring the web, the RetirementDNA team has been able to freshen and expand their contact database, saving time, and increasing their reach. Speaking of an early win, Shawna notes that through using PlanPro, they were able to double the size of their contact list for Hawaii in a single day.

“You doubled our contact list for Hawaii in one day. That was absolutely a huge selling point. Somehow you guys figured out the algorithm to go out and search the internet for contact data and make sure it’s up-to-date.”

RetirementDNA also leverages PlanPro when interacting with new prospects. It enables them to engage prospects as opposed to just selling to them. Plan profiles quickly provide context and identify areas of improvement in plan design to decrease meeting prep time and provide value immediately.

“Whenever I pick up the phone or send a follow-up email, I always have PlanPro open.”

Shawna spoke to a use case of re-engaging cold prospects. When re-engaging, she likes to include a tip on an opportunity for their plan. She leverages the plan profiles to identify these with ease, show her expertise, and drive interest for the prospect. 

The team also leverages PlanPro’s sponsor-friendly plan reports with RetirementDNA’s branding to share with prospects. They have found the reports, especially the plan insight bullet points, an effective way to encourage conversation. This educational component is an integral part of their sales strategy and leaves lasting goodwill on prospects. They not only provide helpful advice but are also able to pitch their team’s expertise and demonstrate how they can add value.

“We can’t thank you guys enough for everything you did right out of the gate to help us get new contacts and clients. PlanPro saved us a ton of money and has already paid for itself.”