Want to become a lead generation expert?
Then it goes without saying that you need to learn how to consistently generate leads for your clients.
However, bringing in leads isn’t enough, you also need to make sure that those leads convert into paying customers.
Otherwise, your clients will soon catch on to the fact that the ROI isn’t there and start looking for someone else to handle lead generation for them.
That’s why today we want to share five tips that will help you to generate leads that convert.
The best way to generate leads online is the lead generation funnel:
In this article, we are going to assume that this is the approach you are taking and share advice on how to maximize the effectiveness of your lead generation funnel.
A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer the potential customer in exchange for their email address.
It is the foundation of your lead generation funnel because it is the most important factor that determines whether or not the potential customer will convert into a lead.
Moreover, it’s also the foundation of your client’s entire sales funnel because the lead magnet sets that potential customer’s expectations.
Impress them and they will want to check out your client’s premium offers. Disappoint them and they won’t give your client a second chance.
It’s pretty much impossible to overstate the importance of lead magnets, so whenever you are working on a new lead generation funnel, that’s what you should be focusing on the most.
A lead magnet can be anything that a potential customer can either download to their device or access online:
…etc.
There is also an advanced type of lead magnet called “FREE + shipping” lead magnet where you offer a physical product for free but ask the potential customer to cover the shipping cost.
For example, one of our lead magnets is our co-founder Russell Brunson’s book “DotCom Secrets”.
You can get it for free, all we ask is that you pay for shipping, which costs $9.95 within the U.S. and $19.95 internationally.
A “FREE + shipping” lead magnet can be a great way to increase lead quality, but it’s going to decrease the lead quantity, so we don’t recommend suggesting this idea to a new client right out of the gate.
Instead, it’s better to prove yourself by creating an effective lead generation funnel with a digital lead magnet, then pitch the “FREE+shipping” idea as an experiment once the client trusts you.
Note that framing it as an experiment is a helpful way to manage their expectations.
When you present an idea as something you want to try to see if it works, the client won’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t because you didn’t get their hopes up in the first place.
What’s important is that:
You know how in supermarkets you sometimes see those stalls where you can get free food samples?
The idea is that if you like the food sample, you might then buy that food item.
Well, a lead magnet is like that free food sample, its purpose is to give the potential customer a taste of the value that they will get from your client’s paid products.
So tailor the lead magnet to the product that your client wants to sell to those leads.
For Example:
Matthew Hussey, a world-renowned dating coach, has a lead magnet called “9 Texts” where he provides nine texts that women can copy-paste when texting a guy they like.
And if a woman downloads this guide, tries out these texts, and gets positive results, then she will probably be inclined to check out Matthew’s paid product called “The Momentum Texts” which provides 67 more text scripts.
See the logical progression from the lead magnet to the paid product?
That’s what you should aim for with your lead magnets.
When marketers first started using lead magnets back in the 2000s, even low-effort lead magnets were super effective because this concept of getting something for free in exchange for your email address was new.
However, as this approach to lead generation caught on, the effectiveness of lead magnets started going down because people began to develop lead magnet fatigue. What’s that?
Think about all those eBooks you have downloaded that you then never bothered to read and all those webinars that you have registered for that you then never bothered to attend.
That’s lead magnet fatigue:
You download or sign up on impulse, but you then forget all about it. It simply doesn’t seem worth your time. After all, free eBooks and webinars are dime a dozen these days, there’s nothing special about it.
So now the challenge that you face as a lead generation expert is this:
How can you get people interested in your lead magnet when they are sick and tired of all the junk out there?
And here’s the answer:
You need to create a SUPER VALUABLE lead magnet that your potential customers DESPERATELY WANT.
So make sure that you produce something so valuable that potential customers would happily pay for it should your client ever choose to sell it.
It has to be that good.
Just because the lead magnet is free doesn’t mean that you don’t have to “sell” it.
Meaning:
You still have to persuade the potential customer to buy it.
So you can think of your lead magnet landing page as its sales page. You need to make it clear to the potential customer how this lead magnet will make their life better.
A basic squeeze page only needs these three elements:
However, adding additional elements such as a subheadline, copy, and social proof is likely going to increase the conversion rate of the page.
That’s why we recommend you to use medium-length lead magnet landing pages in your lead generation funnels.
For Example:
Nick Stephenson, a best-selling author and a marketing coach that teaches writers how to sell more books, has a lead magnet called “$0 to $1k Per Month”.
Above the fold, there’s a headline, a subheadline, a description of the lead magnet, and a call-to-action button.
As you scroll down, you see this video:
Then there’s the first testimonial:
Below that there’s more information about the course accompanied by a call-to-action button:
Then there’s a section that highlights the team’s experience in helping authors grow their businesses:
Then there are two more testimonials:
These testimonials are followed by a detailed course breakdown:
Below that there’s information about the bonus course and a call-to-action button:
Then there’s one more testimonial:
It is followed by more information about the course:
Finally, there’s the last call-to-action button:
So this landing page has:
Seems like a lot of effort to persuade someone to sign up for a free video course, right?
But if you are serious about lead generation, that’s how much effort you should be putting in, because it’s the way to maximize the conversion rate of your lead magnet landing page.
When it comes to lead generation, there are two types of traffic:
It’s important to understand that you can have the best lead generation funnel in the world but if you drive low-quality traffic to it, it won’t convert.
Of course, we need to be realistic here, you will always get a mix of low-quality traffic and high-quality traffic. However, your aim should be to minimize the former and maximize the latter.
The best way to do that is to analyze the client’s sales data to determine what their existing customers have in common, then use those attributes in your targeting.
Note that this also means being ruthless about excluding people who do not fit your criteria for an ideal customer.
“Quality vs. Quantity” is the eternal dilemma of lead generation because there’s always a tradeoff between the two:
Go too far in the direction of quantity and you will end up with a huge email list that is largely useless and costs too much to maintain.
Go too far into the direction of quality and you will end up with so few leads that it won’t be enough to sustain the business.
So there needs to be a balance.
However, we believe that it’s better to err on the side of quality, so we want to encourage you to focus on quality over quantity.
This means measuring your performance using these two metrics:
In contrast, focusing on quantity would mean optimizing for the former metric, without any regard to the latter.
The reason why we recommend prioritizing lead quality over lead quantity is that lead generation should always be viewed in the context of the entire sales funnel, not as an isolated activity.
There’s no point in wasting time, energy, and money on collecting email addresses of people who are never going to buy from you. Or, in this case, from your client. Email list size is a vanity metric!
Remember, as a lead generation expert, your job isn’t to just bring in more leads, it’s to help the client improve their bottom line.
A lead generation funnel isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it type of thing.
You should view it as a work-in-progress that you continuously optimize.
Of course, it all depends on the client’s budget, some companies simply can’t afford to keep a lead generation expert on a retainer.
However, if a client does have a sufficient lead generation budget, then you should not only continue generating leads but also keep optimizing the funnel for lead quality:
Your client will be happy to see this constant improvement!
Being a lead generation expert can be a lucrative career. But you know how you could make even more money?
By becoming a sales funnel expert who is able to not only generate leads but also convert those leads into paying customers and then into repeat customers.
Want to learn how to build a sales funnel from scratch?
That’s what our 5 Day Challenge is all about!
Our co-founder Russell Brunson, who charges his clients $1 million + 25% of gross sales for building a sales funnel for them, will walk you through creating your first sales funnel step-by-step.
You will learn how to:
…in just five days!
So don’t hesitate.
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