Got Leads? Part 3: How Do I "Get" Them

Understand the lead funnel. Check.

Know where the leads are hanging out. Check.

Now…let’s talk about how to actually get them. First let’s just address the elephant in the room—purchased lists. Can we just “buy” leads? Of course you can purchase email lists, it’s not a best practice, you can get kicked off your email marketing system, and they are notoriously bad in terms of engagement…but people still do it. Remember back to our lead funnel—purchased lists go in the tippy top of the funnel in that sea of prospects of unknown qualification, so if you do decide to purchase lists you’ll still need to use content marketing to nurture them up to MQLs and SQLs. And depending on the quality of the list…that may be a pretty big lift.

Okay, onward to what we do actually recommend doing!

Content—The King, The Basic Formula

Yes we know it’s overused but it’s true #sorrynotsorry. The key to getting leads is content. Here’s the formula:

(Understanding of Target Audience + Value Adding Content Designed For Target Audience + Form Protected for Lead Generation) x Distributed Via Channels Where They Spend Their Time (See Part 2 of this Series) = Leads

Let’s unpack this a little further…

The Art of “Getting” The Lead

There’s a lot of tactical execution involved in getting the lead. Success at this step hinges on well-designed promotional communications, calls to action, landing pages, forms, and data passing to CRMs for sales distribution.

• Promotional Communications
  This is the gatekeeper to lead generation. Whether you’re sending an email or developing a paid social ad, the words you use (and how many of them you use) matters. We leverage promotional communications to drive prospects to your landing page where they’ll fill out your form and get your beautiful piece of content. The quality of your promotional communication directly impacts how many people go to your landing page—and therefore—how many leads you’ll get.
  
  Your promotional communications need to use simple, high-impact language that hook your audience fast. We’ll say it again…get to the point of your value FAST and don’t make the prospect scroll or go on a big hunt to find a button to click through and convert.
  

• Calls to Action
  We’ve all seen it—an email with no ask. Eek. Maybe I liked your email, maybe I even LOVED your email, but you didn’t tell me what you wanted me to do, and you didn’t give me anywhere to click to visit your landing page. Make sure you’ve got calls to action (CTAs) that are easy to find. Use buttons, use anchor text, place CTAs at every logical place in your communication where someone might want to convert.
  
  Pro tip—don’t put too many different CTAs. If you’ve got an email and you ask them to do 10 different things…chances are they’ll do nothing. At most include one secondary CTA that you can use for people who aren’t ready for the primary CTA yet.
  

• Landing Pages
  Make sure they’re mobile optimized, make sure the prospect doesn’t have to scroll or hunt to find your form, make sure there is a clear hook that gets them excited about downloading your content.
  
  You can build landing pages in your website builder or you can use automation tools like HubSpot to build campaign-based landing pages.
  

• Forms
  Creating the perfect form is kinda like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. You don’t want to ask for too much…or too little…but we want to get it juuuuuust right.
  
  Make sure you know what data points your team uses to qualify MQLs and SQLs and include the most important ones.
  
  If you do data assignment based on territories make sure you collect the geography data (IN THE RIGHT FORMAT, like two cap states vs. spelled out) that your team (and automation) needs to get their job done.
  
  Pro tip—ask them optionally if they want more information about your product. You’ll be shocked how many people say yes.
  

• Data Passing
  We’ll talk more about this in the next blog but make sure you’ve got a system in place to send the data to the right people in your sales and marketing organization to…ya know…actually work those precious little leads!

Up next we’ll be talking about what to do with those fancy leads after you’ve snagged them. Happy converting!