Ok, I know that sounds kinda of lame for a title but bear with me – I’ll make it way less salesy.
Let’s start with this. Fill out this form, please.
Yeah. Right.
You see, simply asking for your email address is pretty much going to be a No Go, no matter what our relationship is. Heck, I wouldn’t even fill out that form.
THIS ISN’T FIELD OF DREAMS
Just because you built it doesn’t mean they’ll come. (too corny?)
You’ve got a few questions before you start dropping your email – right?
- Who am I and why do I want it?
- What am I going to do with it once I get it?
- What do you get in return?
I could go on and on. The thing is, lead generation is permission based marketing. Ever hear of Seth Godin? If you follow him like I do then you know for it to work, it’s a two way contract based in trust.
My form? That would have just signed you up for my newsletter. I could have explained that it comes out every Wednesday and you can simply unsubscribe if you don’t like it. That said, unlike so many other people out there I would never add you to my list without your permission (hence the permission based marketing, eh?)
I build a lot of lead capture for clients and incredibly some of them think that if you have a form, people will fill it out. Lead capture will simply just happen if there’s a form. I’m like… nope.
Now it’s true that the simpler that you make the form the more apt people will be to fill something out. Less is better (which is why I don’t even ask for your name – just your email addy). But there’s more.
Problem #1: Before you even begin to ask for any information you need to come from a base of trust.
Problem #2: You need to illustrate what it is that they are going to get in exchange.
If they don’t trust you and/or they don’t see value in what you are offering – they won’t give up the information that you want. It’s that simple.
CASE IN POINT
I’m building a landing page for my friend Jeremy. He’s looking for listings in his area. He’s got a great website and has a good amount of trust built up in his sphere. The problem he has is that he’s going to be pulling people in via ads and these people don’t know him from Diddly.
So Jeremy has to quickly do the two things. He has to establish a base of trust and he has to illustrate the value of what they are going to get in return. I say quickly because it’s the internet and advertising. Microseconds count when it comes to squeeze pages.
Nothing breaks down the walls as well as video. So in a little under a minute J.B. is going to introduce himself and explain what you get in return. Go ahead… play the video.
Well, how did he do?
Even if you don’t know him (maybe you do – he was a cohost on our podcast) you’ll have a better idea of who he is, right? I’m not talking about “trust him with your lawnmower” kind of trust – but certainly more than zero. We’re building trust and this is just the 1st step.
What about the lead magnet? The thing of value? It’s not like he’s giving it away in the video but you have a pretty good idea what is and what it looks like.
What kind of information is he asking for? I like that he illustrated it right on the screen.
Did you notice he also set the stage for continued contact?
Did you also notice that you can’t get the goods without a real email address? Did he do that in a way that wasn’t threatening? I think so.
We’re going to have testimonials on the page too so we’ll be building a little more trust via that as well.
Once you fill out the form we’re going to redirect your browser to a different page. Let’s call it the “Thank You” page. On that page we’ll have
- a confirmation that you filled out the form
- a sincere thank you (humans are kind and shouldn’t we thank others?)
- a notification that the requested goods were in fact delivered to the email address provided
- a expectation of further contacts (emails)
- yet another call to action (like a CMA request) in case you’re motivated to move faster
When you see that he did what he said he would do, we just built a little more trust and put another notch in the relationship ladder. Video once again comes in to play. In less than 30 seconds he’s going to cover all those bases plus a little more. Here’s the “Thank You” video we’ll be showing on that page.
Did he try to close you? Heck no. It’s way to early in the sales cycle for that.
But did he set you up for recurring contact in a non threatening way? Yeah I think he did.
That’s important – because in this case, as in most lead capture cases, it’s the incubation that we’re after. You might not be ready to buy right now but if we’re in the picture when that time comes – we know we’ll get the call.
Speaking of which. Here’s my lead capture. It’s literally going to show you step by step, in depth, how to do all this yourself. This post just skims the surface, showing you what needs to happen. My lead capture is going to show you how to lead capture. Seriously. Click that.
Photo by Jose Morales and Clark Young on Unsplash
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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