Why is a lead bait important to have on your website?
Stepping into an online business means you’ll need to learn a wee bit of marketing jargon here and there.
Lead = Your potential customer
Bait = What you give in exchange for lead details (Name and email at minimum)
Sure, a contact form is pretty much mandatory with a website – though if your customer doesn’t have a question for you or isn’t entirely ready to get in touch just yet; give them something else that they can part with their contact details for.
It’s great if you have physical items you can dish out, such as free samples or printed brochures. However this can be costly for your business and you may not actually have anything physical to distribute just yet. So you need to think outside the box, and look into digital freebies, coupons or consultations.
The bait has to be at no risk or agreement to the user.
You need to come off as approachable and willing to part with free content, coupons and so on in order to gain the users trust. In some cases, one brochure or a call is all it takes for a lead to be reassured that you’re trustworthy and the right fit for them.
Lead baits are vital for getting customers to part with their personal information.
So unless your customer is a 100% hot lead directly asking for a quote; you’ll need to give them some bait first. Here are a few examples:
- A free downloadable brochure or pricing list (We can design these at Reddy for you!)
- Free entry into a competition / monthly draw
- Sign up to the monthly newsletter
- Sign up to the newsletter and get a 10% off coupon
- Free, no obligation quote or call back
- Be the first to know about a product or event launch with early bird discounts
You can have many many leadbaits on your website. Though we don’t recommend overkilling this when asking customers for their contact details.
Lets say you offer heaps of brochures. If you need contact details to download each one – it’s not worth the effort. Instead, place your best brochure up for download and highlight this on a fair few of your webpages. This brochure should be the one with the full list of pricing, the best pictures and the most insightful content on how to help the customer make their decision. Make it worth it to the user that they parted with their data in the first place – not a disappointment.
Also, offer alternative lead baits elsewhere on your website. Place a call back form on your contact page or sign up to the newsletter as a strip at the bottom of your blog posts; to give the user an action to complete after reading.
When you have given the user the bait via confirmation email, you collect the leads details. Ideally into a CRM email marketing tool so that the contacts are organised and automatically contacted.
We would recommend at minimum (if they have opted into email marketing) that you send a follow up email a few days to a week later to ask how it went. *This may need to be a little longer or to be triggered manually if you are offering free consultations with varying dates.
Ask them if they enjoyed the read, if they found the planning session beneficial, if they’d like to purchase another product with a thank you discount code?
The more touch points you have with your users the better. But remember, don’t come across as overly pushy – you want them to remain opted in to your marketing list, not to hop out the moment they got their freebie.
For those looking to go a little further with their collected leads and automated email marketing; check out our post on Email marketing tools.
Data in this modern age is one of the most valuable assets any business can have.
However it is very important to remember that customers need to opt in for email marketing purposes, since the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation act of 2016) came into play.
This means you cannot send any marketing bumf to users who have provided you with their personal data, unless they have clearly stated that they are ok with you doing so.
If not, you can only contact them for the purposes they parted with their data for. E.g. To get the free guide or the call back. You will not legally be allowed to send them any newsletters, competitions or promotional emails on discounted products and services. Even if it is Black Friday.
For those who have opted in for further marketing purposes – they must have the option to opt out at any time, often done with an unsubscribe link in the footer of your emails.
