7 Tips to Generating Leads
You’d love to close a deal. But sometimes you’d be plenty happy just to
generate a lead, right? You’d like your visitor to fill in a contact form,
download a white paper or a demo program, register, opt in to your newsletter or
your email list, forward something of yours to a friend. You’d like this
because you’re hoping while your visitor might not be ready for you today, she
may well be interested in you tomorrow. And you’d like the opportunity to
initiate and sustain further contact.
It doesn’t matter if the sole purpose of your site is to generate a lead, or
if lead-generation is just one piece of your marketing strategy pie.
Generating a lead is always about communicating the value of doing business with
you.
We’ve talked before about
marketing
strategies that can help you generate new leads. Now I’d like to take a
broader view and look at how the design, architecture and content of your Web
site can motivate lead generation. Can you convince your visitors of your value
to them so they give something of value to you? Here are some ideas that will
help.
The message must be meat. The most important thing to focus on is
identifying what really matters to your visitors. What motivates them to seek
you out? What problems are you solving for them? What friction points are you
reducing for them? Identify the
benefits that
you and your products or services confer. Find your visitor’s buttons, then
push ‘em by serving up a
message of nice juicy
meat!
No jargon. Unless you’re marketing to a select audience that
absolutely requires you to communicate your credibility through insider-speak –
jargon – stay away from the stuff. Jargon tends to convince folks you aren’t
really interested in talking to them, so they’re far less likely to give you the
chance to talk to them in the future. If you have to include specific
terminology, make it available, but give it a lower profile – those who want to
know if you can really talk the talk will look to find it. If you’re not sure
how folks talk or think about your products or services, do some online consumer
group research.
Less We-we-ing. It’s not about you! Consider that a shout.
Brilliant though you and your business may be, focus on your visitors. Let them
know you understand their needs and what matters to them. Put them center
stage. Want a thumbnail picture of how customer-focused the language on your
site is? Try our We-We Monitor!
(It’s free.)
Keep things need-to-know. As need-to-know as possible. You might
want to get information that includes everything from name to shoe size, and you
can certainly ask for it. But the more information you ask for, the less likely
folks are to give it to you. Conversion rates are generally proportional to the
amount of information you request, and this is especially true for lead
generating conversions. Lead generation is about an exchange of value – your
visitor gets something of value from you in exchange for their information. And
what they have to provide should not be one iota more than they perceive to be
necessary! If you want more information, you’ve got to provide more value
appropriate to the request. You want my shoe size for your newsletter? Offer
me a free pair of socks after I’ve received your newsletter.
Help them see it. No two ways about it, if your visitors can’t make
visual heads or tails of your content quickly, they aren’t going to stick
around, and you won’t generate a lead. Layout matters. Evaluate the
scannability of
your text and use the
principles of eye-tracking to encourage your visitors to engage with your
site.
Qualify. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of helping your
visitors qualify their needs
so they can find what they are looking for and get to it quickly. It’s a
process that needs to begin on the home page. But not all your visitors know
exactly what they want. Some may not even be in a buying mood. That doesn’t
mean they won’t buy from you. An exceptional qualification scheme is critical
to getting a customer – it’s just as critical to generating a lead. Let them
know who you are, what you do and what you have to offer, and you are more
likely to persuade them to become a lead.
Test, measure and optimize. A big part of improving your lead
generation lies in evaluating what you’ve done so you can figure out how to do
it better. The web analytics you want to consider for lead generation include:
- Measure your responses – how many folks downloaded your white paper or
subscribed to your newsletter or opted in to your email list?
- Measure time spent on the site – how long are visitors sticking around?
- Measure reject rates, especially on your contact pages – where are folks
bailing out on your site? Are you losing visitors just when you think you
have them?
- Measure your leads-to-close ratio – is there a connect between perception
and satisfaction?
This is what it really comes down to: speak to the dog, in the language of
the dog, about what matters to the heart of the dog. Make this the centerpiece
of your Web site’s conversion philosophy and watch those leads roll in!
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