When a potential customer comes to your website, what are you hoping they’ll do? If you want to sell your product or service you’re probably hoping that they’ll engage with you in some way that puts them into your sales funnel. This is called capturing a lead. This usually occurs when a potential customer fills out a form, provides an email, and other things that provide you with information that allows you to contact them later. This info is more likely to be shared with the use of an effective lead magnet.
A lot of people think this is going to happen automatically. They believe that just putting a ‘Sign up for Our Newsletter’ or ‘Contact Us’ Button on their website pages is enough to get people to volunteer their information, but that’s just not the case. In fact, most companies only capture about 10% of their web traffic as actual leads. That means 90% of their potential customers are just walking away. Those are a lot of leads to lose, not to mention a lot of money.
So, what’s the solution? How are you supposed to get potential customers into your sales funnel when they visit your website if those little opt-in buttons don’t work? The answer is much simpler than you would think. It takes just a little more effort than the opt-ins you’ve probably been relying on. The solution is having one or more effective lead magnets. The idea behind a lead magnet is that you are giving something away in exchange for the information you want from potential clients. It’s been reported that companies who utilize the use of quality lead magnets capture over 75% of their web traffic as leads. Capturing these leads is the key to creating customers and eventually repeat buyers.
A lead magnet is usually a piece or collection of information that is valuable to potential buyers. Most of the time your web traffic is on your website for a reason, they need something. A lead magnet is not only a way to get people into your sales funnel, but it’s a great way to show potential customers that you have what they need; you’re able to help them with whatever problem they’re experiencing.
For example, in the world of digital marketing, a good portion of a companies web traffic comes from individuals or business owners who are looking to up increase their Google rankings. Therefore, it’s a good idea for a marketing company to have a resource or white paper that reveals some ways a business can accomplish this. They would use this resource as a lead magnet, putting an offer to download it on their web pages, blog posts, and etc.
In order for this resource to be an effective lead magnet it would need to capture leads as the potential customers download it. That’s where forms come in. Like I said before, a lead magnet is meant to be offered in exchange for information. After a potential customer clicks to download the resource it should then take them to a page where they have to complete a form in order to move forward with the download. Usually this form will ask for their name, profession, website, email, and maybe even telephone number. Some companies have forms that are more in-depth, asking the person what services they are interested in or why they came to the website in the first place. What you include in your form is dependent on your company and the kind of sales funnel you have in place.
An effective lead magnet is essential to capturing quality leads. Don’t settle for only 10%, use a lead magnet and capture as much as 75% of your web traffic as actual leads for your business. They’re easy to create and even easier to utilize. If you’d like more information on lead magnets, you can talk to us by requesting a consultation or even taking a look at our resource on lead magnets!