At first glance, many business owners see inbound marketing as a great way to get new traffic. They think it’s great that they can start blogging, being active on social media and watch those traffic numbers rocket through the roof like Santa on an eggnog binge.
Ho Ho Home invasion.
Now, getting new traffic is all well and good – but then what? Acquiring visitors only achieves the Attract phase of the inbound process. So what’s next? How do you take these new found prospects and move them down the sales funnel, turning them into legitimate leads that will eventually become paying customers and become champions of your brand?
Step 1: Start Creating Landing Pages with Premium Content Offers
Chances are your visitors are coming to your website because they like your content or search engines like your content enough to rank it highly. Awesome. Now that these visitors have digested the appetizer that you’ve put in front of them, it’s time to make them an offer that lets them take the next step. This is where an introductory premium offer comes in. This could be anything from a free downloadable guide, a free software demo or even as simple as signing up for a newsletter to receive more information. The trick here is to ask for something in return. Gather a few key pieces of information from the visitor that allows to you to begin creating a profile for this person and nurturing this lead.
Well officer, he had a white beard, red suit, black boots and he parked his sled illegally on my coffee table.
Remember that it’s only an introductory offer so don’t get too crazy. Visitors may be hesitant to provide you with a phone number or their blood type right off the bat, but a name and email address is a small price to pay for great free introductory content.
Step 2: Start Creating REAL Calls to Action
Premium content and calls to action go hand in hand. How many websites have you seen where the only interactions are buttons that read ‘Call Now’ or ‘Buy Now’. These ice-cold calls to action don’t work because they assume that the visitor is already at the point of sale. only 3% of your website traffic is ready to buy from you right now. The other 97% are still getting to know you so it’s important to create offers that appeal to them and aren’t intimidating.
Step 3: Make your Premium Content Prominent and Shareable
Remember the Delight phase of the sales funnel? This is the part where your fans start the whole process again with someone new. That’s what’s great about share buttons. People who already love your content – and more specifically your premium content – work like a volunteer sales team to push people toward your premium content and start the process over again with someone new.
Share this, or we turn the puppy into face cloths.
By including social media sharing buttons on your premium content landing pages, you’re creating the opportunity to fast-track leads so to speak, from being a stranger straight to becoming a lead. In addition, don’t just hide your premium content at the bottom of blog articles and emails. It’s premium for a reason. Make sure there are dedicated spots on your website and even in social media where you can display the goods prominently.
Step 4: Start A/B Testing
Testing and trying new things is the only way to find out which methods work best. If a certain call to action isn’t getting a significant click through rate or if your forms aren’t getting filled out because you’re asking for too much information, A/B testing can provide good measurable data to support that. Test a variety of features on your landing pages like layouts, calls to action, images and see which ones deliver the best results. A/B testing provides you with the data you need to fine tune and refine lead generation.
Turning website traffic into legitimate qualified leads is the dream of any business, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Making those dreams a reality starts with this 4 step guide. Lead nurturing starts with spoon feeding your visitors bit by bit until they’re ready to digest a little more. And then a little more. And then a little more, until eventually they see you as the trusted expert in your industry that they can’t live without.
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