It’s episode 14 of the Visceral Concepts Podcast! Today, join Visceral Concepts Founder Michael McNew as he discusses how to master lead funnels.
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For those of you who can’t listen, we’ve broken down the podcast below.
Online lead generation is the marketing focus of the future, and everyone is looking for that extra edge to improve. It’s no wonder that every “marketing guru” has some “secret strategy” they’re trying to sell you. After all, leads are the crux of growing your business.
Short of some miracle program, though, I thought it would be a good idea to share a few easy-to-implement tips that will help you grow your leads faster and more effectively. Since this company takes an inbound approach to marketing, I’ve been able to learn what works and what doesn’t, usually through trial and error.
Let’s start with a staple of truth.
Inbound Tactics Require Terrific Lead Funnels
The point of inbound marketing is to passively gather leads through your website and deliver them to your sales team. That means you need a system in place for converting website visitors to leads, then guiding them through the lead nurturing process. That’s exactly what a lead funnel is.
But for a lead funnel to really deliver the kind of results you need, you can’t put together something mediocre. It’s important to always be working on refinements that will improve your results. Constant testing, data capture, analysis, and application are critical to growing and perfecting your lead funnel.
It’s a time-consuming process, but the results are worth it.
Nothing You Do Will Give Your Lead Funnel An Overnight Improvement
It’s important to understand that you can’t expect changes and refinements to work immediately. Your lead funnel is a series of processes, and any change you make to it will take time to gather new data on. And, whether the results of a change are better or worse, they should ultimately help you determine the next modification.
Overall, as you alter and enhance your lead funnels, you should expect gradual improvement. In the short term you may see peaks and valleys. However, like any good investment, the time and effort spent on your lead funnel should be focused on delivering a long-term gain.
When you watch the data, you know how things can be improved.
Maximize Your Lead Funnel’s Potential
But before you can collect data, you have to know where to focus your efforts. Aside from the obvious foundation of creating great content, every lead funnel has some basic factors. Primarily, there needs to be a way to move site visitors into the nurturing process.
That’s going to be our focus for today. I have three pieces of advice to help transform your website visitors in to leads and make you a lead funnel pro.
Create Actionable Calls To Action
When visitors come to your site, they’re usually there for a great piece of content. They found use in an article, social media post, or case study that you produced and linked to your website. But what do you want them to do next? That’s where a call to action comes in to play.
CTAs are literally an instruction for what step you want your site visitors to take. Often it will either be a button that takes them to a landing page, or it will be a lead capture form. However, there may be something else you want them to do, like comment on or share the article. Regardless of what you ask your viewers to do next, you need to make sure your CTA is compelling.
Make sure you follow these CTA basics:
- Limit the CTA to a single, clear action that encourages an immediate response.
- Never use the word “Submit” on your CTA button. Choose a word more fitting to what you’re asking them to do.
- Focus on excitement and emotion.
- Try to begin with an action verb.
- Take advantage of the fear of missing out.
Add Exit Intent Popups To Your Site
It’s almost impossible to get site visitors into your lead funnel if they leave. I mean, what you really want them to do is spend a good chunk of time on your site getting to know your company, getting familiar with your expertise, and learning about your product or service. When they go to leave, you have to try to catch them at the door.
Exit intent popups are the absolute best way to do that. If you’re not sure what an exit intent popup is, it’s that “Wait, don’t leave yet!” popup that shows up when your mouse leaves the website. When used correctly and compellingly, they’re super effective for converting visitors who were about to leave into leads.
Here are a few keys to maximize your exit intent popups:
- Keep the colors simple. 1-2 colors is more than enough, save the actual imagery (if you’re using any).
- Be clever, but direct. Your headline should grab attention without being confusing.
- Don’t ask for more information than makes sense. If your popup’s offer doesn’t need to know the company size, leave that information off the form.
- Take the whole page up. You want to grab attention. That happens better if the whole page changes.
- Stick to the audience. Whatever shows up in your popup has to match why your visitor came to your site.
Include Gated Content
If you really want to up the ante of your lead funnel game, gated content is your answer. Gated content is the additional bonus material, like an ebook, white paper, or other high value content that your visitors can access in exchange for their contact information. It’s extra incentive to offer up contact information, and it overwhelmingly works.
As it turns out, 77% of B2B buyers are willing to provide basic contact information in exchange for ebooks and white papers. That’s a powerful way to get someone to exchange information. However, that means what you have to offer needs to be of enough value that they’ll be more open to receiving communications from you in the future.
When you offer gated content, remember:
- Intelligent forms help eliminate repeated requests for information. If they’ve visited your site before, having them enter the same data over and over again might prover irritating.
- Make sure your gated content must be emailed to the recipient. That will encourage honesty with their contact information.
- Similar to the exit intent popups, try to link the gated content to whatever brought your visitor to your site.
Make Sure You Have All The Lead Funnel Components In Play
Lead funnels are incredibly powerful processes that allow you to passively gain leads over time. That means a great lead funnel may have a lot of moving components. You need to get them all in play if you want to maximize your process, see more leads, and make more money.
