Lead Generation Blueprint for Effective Inbound Marketing

Transcription

1 Lead Generation Blueprint for Effective Inbound Marketing 2014 Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 1 Page

2 What every business owner needs to know about generating more quality leads. In this report I am going to share with you the most important tool to making your business grow. Let's face it - the key to a growing business is consistent, reliable results in your marketing. However, technology is changing the way people and businesses not only find us, but how they interact with us. Consumers now have so many more options and tools to help them with the buying decision that they will make. The key to customers finding us is not in traditional advertising. I mean, can you imagine spending you marketing budget on an ad in the yellow pages? We will break down the essential parts to building an effective lead magnet, so your customers willingly give you their information, and discuss what you should do next. So print this report out and use it as a Blueprint on how to generate more quality Leads. What do you need? 1. Finding your ideal client Lead generation first starts with knowing exactly who you want as a client. Once you know who your ideal client is, you can craft your message to market to them directly. For this, you will need. Buyer Persona Worksheet Keyword Worksheet 2. Build a Lead Magnet What is it that your clients desire? What do they need? Once you determine that, you want to give them something free to address that desire or need. A free report or a video on one specific topic that will catch the attention of your ideal client will draw them to your offer Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 2 Page

3 Is it a free Report? A video? An audio recording? 3. Lead Capture Web Page. To generate a high-quality lead, you must cater exactly to the target client that you have in mind. You do this with a specific Landing Page for them and that shows them exactly what you're offering. A good template is Headline Sub headline 3 to 5 bullet points A lead capture form 4. The Payoff After a lead provides you with their contact information, they want their payoff. They want whatever it is that you promised them as your lead magnet. Whether you send them an with a link for a download, or perhaps even something in the mail, you want to give them something of value. 5. An Automated Follow-up Sequence So now what? You have an and a name, so what do you with that lead information. Automated follow up sequences are the most effective way to keep in front of your prospects and ideal clients. A system that will do the work for you is key. Program Automated Workflow (Drip ) What is Inbound Marketing? What kind of promotion can attract strangers and reliably convert them into customers? There is more to modern marketing than finding a target audience and shoving a product in their face. Companies can no longer buy their reputation with magazine and television ads, they have to earn it by providing value Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 3 Page

4 In this e-book, we answer this question by breaking down the inbound marketing process, explaining the critical components necessary in each step, and guiding you through the development of your own marketing blueprint. First, let s get familiar with some effective characteristics of inbound marketing. Consistent Successful marketing campaigns focus on a consistent user experience. Each step in the process of converting a visitor into a customer must fluidly transition to the next if you want to maximize the campaign s potential. Anything that could cause a delay or indecision with the customer s next action could lose them. Informative An effective campaign provides reliable information to prospective customers. Most prospects come from visitors who are researching information in order to make a good decision. This is known as informative marketing, with the company taking the role of a consultant. A consultant earns their reputation by providing quality advice. Responsive There is a big difference between making a sale and turning a customer into a brand advocate. The key to winning customers is being responsive to their needs and preferences. Follow-up s expressing the desire to help a customer solve a problem give a personal touch to your campaign. Targeting segments of customers to better customize their experience is explained later in this e-book Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 4 Page

5 Now that we ve discussed these characteristics, we can discuss how to apply them to each process in your marketing campaign. Effective inbound marketing has three main processes: Creating the right lead magnet or compelling offer Creating an effective landing page Nurturing your leads Creating the right lead magnet Inbound marketing is similar to other writing professions in that we must develop fresh content for our audience. In order to do so, we need to have a good understanding of who our target audience is. The concept of a persona is not a new one in advertising, and is the creation of a character with real aspirations, fears, motivators, and needs. If this person were real, how could we best market to them? What kind of content would they prefer, and what kind of social media would reach them? After developing an idea of who the target audience is and how best to reach them, we need to choose which phase of inbound marketing we want them to see. Content must be developed for each phase in order to fluidly transition your audience through the process. We first need to turn a complete stranger into a lead, or possible customer, which starts with making them aware of your existence. Awareness The visitor receives their first impression of you. Example: May and her family recently relocated for a new job. She s interested in knowing more about the city she moved to, and finds an interesting list on a realtor s website containing fun facts and statistics about the city Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 5 Page

6 Research They have a problem and need to find a solution. They search for reliable information leading to that solution. Example: May wants to find a larger rent home because she s expecting a new family member. She browses communities on Facebook, and finds a video tour of a 3 bedroom home in her city. May becomes interested in buying a new home. Comparison They have made a decision and are comparing similar products/services. Example: May is interested in buying a new home in her area. While looking for local listings, she lands on June s real estate agent page on Zillow. May read a positive review about June, not knowing that June encouraged reviews from her clients, and wants to know more about her. Purchase They are deciding from whom to make a purchase from. Example: May decided the area she was looking to buy a home in her new city. While looking over several Realtor s Facebook pages, a cover photo of a featured home caught her attention on June s profile. The cover photo had several pieces of information and multiple photos of the home. May decides to contact June about it. In order to make an effective marketing campaign, we need to focus on the awareness phase. This means your goal is to create content that attracts new visitors in hopes of generating leads. The other phases are important, but not nearly as vital as awareness. Now that we have the goal of our content, we need to decide its subject and format. Subject Your subject choice really depends on what s popular with your target audience. If you already have content on the web, there are marketing analysis tools available to figure popularity. If you don t, there are many free ways to find popular topics. Google offers several research tools, including Google News and Google Trends, to source public information and find good subjects Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 6 Page

7 Format The format needs to match the preferences of your target audience. You are not limited to text-based content, such as e-books or whitepapers. Modern marketers use a mix of text and media content, including infographics, webinars, and videos in their campaign. The same campaign could reach its audience on search engines, social media, and video channels by repurposing its content in different formats. Repurposing content depends on gathering unique perspectives on the same subject. A quick solution is outsourcing to freelancers or creating a team inhouse, each of which adding their own spin on an idea. After creating your content, we need to add a way to transition the visitor to the next phase. This is accomplished through offer placement. Offer placement In order to turn your visitor into a potential customer, your website needs to contain an offer. Offers are placed on landing pages, which are web pages containing a description of the offer and a form requesting information from the visitor. A visitor fills out the form, receives the resource from the offer, and an information exchange is created. They get the content they want, and you get their contact information. The visitor then becomes a lead. This is lead generation. A good landing page targets a specific audience, such as traffic from an e- mail list. Each offer you create should have its own landing page, regardless of what content formats you choose. It all depends on the offer itself. A good landing page contains something of value to get the visitor interested. This increases lead generation. Creating an effective landing page There are three main pieces of a landing page, each of which playing an important role in its effectiveness. These are the headline, the body of the page, and the offer form. Headline The headline s purpose is to immediately make your offer clear. People have short attention spans, and may choose to leave a page if they don t find it 2014 Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 7 Page

8 relevant. Your headline is the first, and possibly last, thing a visitor sees. Make sure it grabs their attention. Body The body needs to contain a description of the offer and why visitors should download it or sign up. Specific benefits of the offer and what visitors need to do should also be included. Simplify the visual layout with bullet points and numbering. Highlight the main points with bold or italicized text. Include images that feature the offer. Images have the power to immediately attract the visitor s attention. Use this to your advantage. Form The form is the ultimate goal of the landing page. It should appear above the fold, keeping visitors from having to move further down the page to find it. Pay attention to the length of the offer form. It s important to find a balance between a visitor s time and the information you need. You need enough info to both contact and qualify the lead. There is a tradeoff between quality and quantity with forms. More information leads to a better quality prospect, but a long form means less people will be willing to fill it out. Before you release the content to drive traffic to the landing page, you must first consider how you are going to handle the leads. How will you keep them interested enough to turn them into customers? Nurturing your leads Lead nurturing is the process of further educating your leads about your business. It is accomplished through a series of communications that pre-qualify early-stage leads before making them an offer. Lead nurturing can easily be automated with auto-responders and automation software. The most important consideration is the timing 2014 Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 8 Page

9 between communications. Get the timing right. There is a positive correlation between subscriber recency and their click-through rate. response declines with the age of the lead. Automating the process involves creating a schedule of communications and adding new leads to the top of the list. The next step is to separate your leads into segments and maximize your targeting. Targeted s to segmented leads is simply the best way to convert them into a customer. Segment your leads into smaller groups and target each group with a separate set of communications. These could be targeted towards any demographic or activity you can think of. Examples of segmented groups: Leads who responded to a certain offer. Leads based on user metrics, such as frequent page visits. Leads separated by demographics shared in an offer form. The point is to make the communication more personal, hopefully pushing them down the sales funnel quicker. Customize your communications to meet their needs, and you will turn that lead into an advocate of your business. It is important to consider social media as a communication channel. If it s preferable to reach a segment of leads on Facebook, you should develop a way to do so. Promoting offers through social media differs from traditional mailing lists, but the fundamental principles are still the same. When you are ready to make an announcement to your list, such as when a new event will occur, or the release of a new marketing offer, how would you go about doing it? 2014 Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 9 Page

10 Dedicated s Dedicated s can set up the context to introduce the main call-to-action, hopefully pushing readers to your landing pages. These s can be used to notify your entire list, or just a segmented group that it would most appeal to. While there are times that everyone should be notified, in most cases you would want to segment your leads and reach each group in a different way. s are an easy way to reach your customers and measure their reaction. They re much less complicated than newsletters, and give you more flexibility to personalize for each segment. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when writing: Use only one call-to-action The most successful s are those that put the call-to-action as the focus of the content. They should not be stuffed at the end of it and never acknowledged in the message. Personalize your message Make your lead feel like you know them. Personalized s are known for having a higher open and click-through rate. Design for mobile Optimize your s viewing experience for mobile. Your layout should not stretch the page and make it difficult for the lead to read. Social and SEO friendly Integrate social media into your messages. Free publicity is never a bad thing! Reuse what works Don t toss your layout when you re finished. Use it as a template for the future Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 10 Page

11 Summary From creating a compelling offer, through linking it to an effective landing page, to transitioning your leads into customers, you have learned how to build an effective strategy for inbound marketing. You have also learned how to keep the campaign consistent, informative, and responsive to your customers needs the most effective way to build a solid customer base Jason and Nikki Christiansen, Internet Media Consultants 11 Page