When you built your website, did you build it to simply be a monument to your business? Something for you to set as your home page and admire? Or did you plan that it would win customers?

As business owners must live in the real world, a website that does not generate leads is little better than a dust-collector. So today we are going to explore three methods of generating leads for your business that work better than just giving them your contact details.

1: FREE OFFERSoffer1

This is the most common tactic you will find. You offer something of value to the customer for ‘free’ in exchange for their email address. This is usually an information product of some kind, because there is not only value, for the lead, but once created, it does not cost you anything, no matter how many people take up the offer.

If you are scratching your head wondering what kind of information product you can provide, remember you are the expert, you know far more about what you do than your customers, so put something together that is related to your industry that your clients are actually interested in.

  • If you are an electrical company, give power saving tips (everyone wants to save money),
  • If you are a chef put together your ten best time saving tips in the kitchen (everyone wants to save time)
  • Do you sell cars? Write an article on how to avoid buying a lemon. (Everyone wants a reliable car).

The example pictured here combines compelling copy with a strong value proposition and a clear button, a winning combination that people are just wanting to click on.

2: ONLINE TESTS

Online tests are magnetic. There is a basic desire that seems to be built into us to see how we measure up. For example, if you are an accountant and you set up an online test like “How close is your business to financial success?” not only are people going to automatically want to find out how close they are to success, but you are also attracting your target market. (ambitious business owners) This way you both find and qualify the lead.

If you are wondering how you get a lead from setting up an online test, the concept is simple. The test results are emailed to the person, meaning they will have to give you their email address before they can get access to their full results. I say “full” results because it is a good idea to show some of the result on the site as a teaser to encourage them to read the email.Screen-Shot-2014-04-30-at-6.20.36-pm

3: PREMIUM CONTENT ACCESS

This is similar in principle to the free offers in that for the viewer to access desirable content, they need to provide their email address. I came across a great example of this on Sam Ovens consulting website, where he makes a strong value proposition, and offers a video to share some of his marketing wisdom but requires an email address to access it. I saw this and knew that is exactly his objective, and guess what… I still put my email address in. Proving yet again that this technique works.Screen-Shot-2014-04-30-at-6.14.48-pm

Next week we will be looking at relationship building and what you can do once you have those leads.

WOULD YOU TRY IT?

Have you ever tried online lead generation? What technique did you find worked best for you? Are you planning to try it in the future? Let us know in the comments below!