The Website Lead Generation Manifesto

Richie Contartesi

If your B2B marketing company is trying to generate and nurture leads for your business or client, you might find yourself bewildered by all of the advice and tips out there. Sometimes it can be a hassle trying to listen through the static for the good stuff, so we decided to filter the noise out for you. With that said, there are 5 basic principles of website lead generation you should follow to make the most of your lead generation efforts and nurture those leads.

Optimize Your Website Lead Generation Pages

One of the most important things you can do is create a lead generation page that works well. Every lead gen form, though, can always be better. This is why you should do A/B testing and conversion rate optimization. Here are things you should look for when you’re trying to optimize your website lead generation pages.

• Try before you buy: In B2B circles, a “try before you buy” gimmick works wonders. Think about Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature for Kindle books, and you’ll see what we mean. You can do this too, by offering a free preview of the best part of your site in exchange for a bit of data.
  
• What you’re giving away: Make sure that what you’re giving away is perceived as being the same value as the information you’re asking for. A 10-field form isn’t an equal match for a 5-page eBook, so be sure to make your giveaway something valuable.
  
• Social proof: You want to show that others find your stuff appealing, because a herd mentality works well in B2B marketing. For example, you can show a live count of people who have registered for your webinar to make people not want to “miss out.”
  
• A/B testing: Constantly come up with new ideas to test your pages, or you’ll find your lead gen pages get stale and stop working as effectively.

Create Content

Providing valuable content to your audience makes them more willing to share their personal data because your content helps them achieve greater success for their own businesses. Content also helps you rank higher in search engines, but what sort of content should you create? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• eBooks and White Papers: These can establish you as a leader and authority, which draws in more customers.
  
• Blog Articles: People follow blogs that interest them or provide value to them. Your next customer could easily come from an RSS subscriber.
  
• Videos: Make sure there’s a call to action at the end, but great videos can draw in tons of leads.
  
• Infographics: These are highly shareable and improve your brand exposure. If you expand on them with more content, that’s even better. Make sure you link to a landing page to generate leads.
  
• Webinars: Get in touch with well-known experts, and leverage their participation in webinars. You can also get special guests from other companies to make the webinar even more enticing.

Embrace the Mobile Market

Roughly 60% of decision-makers read their email on mobile devices, so you’d better make sure your email marketing will engage these people. Follow four simple rules to make sure your mobile pages work properly for conversion and nurturing your leads.

• Use large CTA buttons: Remember that your lead is using a touch screen, so your call to action button should be large enough for fat fingers.
  
• Keep your forms short: Typing on mobile devices is slow, and people won’t put up with having to do it for long. Keep those forms short and simple.
  
• Click to call: They’re on a phone, right? If they need a bit more personalized attention, make it easy for them to call you with a clickable phone number in addition to your form.
  
• Don’t send them to a homepage: Having to do too much “pinch to zoom” gets frustratingly annoying, so don’t do it. That just makes people hit the back button.

Market After the Conversion

Just because someone has filled out your lead form, it doesn’t mean the deal is sealed. Even though this has been proven time after time, confirmation pages are still a highly ignored conversion point that you should take advantage of while the iron is hot. This is called a post-conversion lead generation, and here’s how you can leverage it.

• Liking, sharing, and following: Your confirmation page is the place to put those Facebook and Twitter sharing and follow widgets. This encourages their use, since someone seeing the confirmation page is interested in your business, and keeps them from cluttering up your landing page.
  
• Bonus time! If you really want folks to feel special, give them something else after they convert, like another eBook.
  
• Remind them about your webinar: Most people completely forget that they signed up for your webinar, so follow up with a recording that invites them to your next event.

Nurture Your Leads

Make sure you nurture your leads along, not try to bully them into a sale. By sending them useful content in their email, you can keep them engaged and make them view you as a subject matter expert. This will, over time, persuade even the most stalwart fence-sitter to become a customer. Here are three reasons to nurture your leads.

• Larger purchases. Nurtured leads tend to make purchases that are 47% larger than non-nurtured leads.
  
• More sales opportunities. On average, a lead that you nurture will produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities over one you don’t nurture.
  
• Half of your leads aren’t ready to buy yet. They might need some handholding or regular check-ins to make sure you stay at the top of their mind because they’re qualified but not yet ready to buy.

These principles will help keep you at the top of your game in the B2B marketing business. Keep them in mind, or you could suffer poor conversions and sales.

Conclusion

Did this article help you understand how to get the most out of website lead generation? If not, please ask your questions in the comments below. If so, share with a business owner or entrepreneur you believe can benefit!

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