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In my last blog, I talked about everything that needs to be done before you’re ready to start your Inbound Marketing plan. Once your website and CRM are set up to start capturing leads, and your blog and CRM are planned and ready to go, it’s time to start thinking about free offers to attract new leads. These things can include e-books, webinars, free trials, or free consultations. Choose things that would appeal to your target audience and remember, the more ways you provide potential customers to interact, the better. These free offers are not only important to show your knowledge and experience, but they are the primary way you will capture customer information.
When creating a contact form, remember that the fewer information you ask for, the more leads you’re likely to get. However, if you only ask for a name and email, that lead will be less likely to ultimately buy from you than one that gives you their phone number, address, etc. The more information you are able to get from a lead, the more likely they will be to buy from you. Of course, if a particular lead downloads your latest e-book and attends your webinar, they will naturally be more qualified than a lead that only does one or the other. Your CRM should include a lead grading system to help you determine how likely a lead will be to buy.
Creating an E-Book
Creating an E-book to offer in exchange for a potential customers information, is one of the best ways to attract new leads. Choose a topic that relates to your business and create an outline. If you don’t have anyone on your team to write it, finding a writer on a site such as People Per Hour. The most important thing to remember about choosing a writer, isn’t the amount of experience they’ve had in your industry. In fact, looking for someone with lots of experience in your industry can be a bad thing. A good writer will be able to research and write on virtually any topic and be able to ask the write questions to make sure your content is accurate. It is far more important to find a writer that fits your brand and can adapt to embody the style you desire. Be sure to take a look at their prior work to make sure it is a good fit.
Hosting a Webinar
Webinars too are a great way to get leads interested and the big advantage over an E-book is that they are much more interactive. That said, they can be much more challenging to get started. Choosing the right day of the week taking various time zones into consideration too are all things that must be worked out. Not to mention choosing a topic, speaker, and a system to host it on. If you’re considering putting on a webinar, Hubspot has a great series of articles to help you get started.
Free Consultation
Offering a free consultation is always a great way to get leads in the door. The best thing about it is that it demands you reach out to them directly and follow up. In fact, it can be the best tool in your demand generation arsenal. A free consultation can help assure potential customers that you have what it takes to solve their challenges.
These are all great ways to attract leads, but the important thing to do is follow up with them; which will be covered in the next blog. If you don’t continue marketing to the leads you gain, there’s little hope you’ll ever convert them into customers.
