There are three components to a successful lead generation strategy.
- Compelling free educational offers available on the site.
- Well-designed landing pages that require the visitor to complete the form in order to get the offer.
- Prominently placed calls to action on a website to guide visitors to the landing pages.
The hardest part of this process is designing compelling offers.
Is My Offer Compelling?
For an insurance agency, is an offer to provide a free quote compelling? No. That's simply part of doing business. Here's a list of forms that are NOT compelling offers:
- Contact Us
- RFQ forms
- Request a Demo
- Download our Product Specs
- Free Trial
- Request a Free Consultation
- Enter to Win (unless the chances are really good)
- Save 50% When You Buy Today
None of these are compelling offers. Website visitors will share their contact information with you when they believe that you understand their challenges, problems and goals. Trying to convince a visitor that these offers are compelling is like trying to convince a visitor that doing business with you is a privilege. A visitor could care less about your product or your pricing until they think you understand them.
How to Design a Compelling Offer
So what IS a compelling offer? Every industry and business will have a different answer to that question but there is a process you can go through to help you arrive at the answer for you business. Start by asking yourself three questions about your business. You need the answers before you go on so take your time and arrive at answers you believe in:
- Who do you sell your products or services to? (Be specific. Pick one market and one decision maker in the buying process if your sale is complex.)
- What problem do you solve for them?
- How do you solve that problem? How do you do it better than anyone else? (If you can avoid it, don't mention your product features. Use industry terminology only.)
Now, with the answers in mind, you can create a statement about your offer. Use your answers to fill in the blanks in the sentence below as a starting point:
How [insert who you sell to] can [insert verb] [insert the problem] through [insert solution].
If that's confusing, here's an example:
How small business owners can turn their brochure websites into lead generation machines by leveraging SEO, social media blogging and website design best practices. (Yes, that's a link to the landing page.)
Once you have this (sometimes lengthy) sentence, you're well on your way. The next step is to objectively evaluate your offer using a simple test.
Does it Pass the WIIFM Test?
WIIFM stands for "What's In It For Me?"
When your visitor arrives at your site, they're most likely looking to solve a problem or at least get information. In order to grab their attention and compell them to share their contact information before they leave your website , your offer should make the WIIFM clear.
In other words, your offers should start with "How to Solve [insert visitor's problem here]"
Websites that do this well can convert 10-20% of their traffic into leads. If you don't do this well, you will convert 1-5% of your traffic into leads. If you want some help measuring these conversion rates, try out HubSpot's new free tool, Action Grader.