The Two Things About Lead Generation

As part of our ‘2 Things‘ meme, we boil down a big web topic into 2 essential points that we think represent the best lessons we could share. I volunteered for the topic of lead generation. There are countless approaches and ways of implementing a lead gen strategy, but in order for it to be a success you need to make sure these two things are done right.

1. It should be a fair trade between you and the site visitor.

If you’re asking your site visitors to give up their personal information, they need to receive something of significant value in return. Arbitrarily putting up registration walls in front of your content without really thinking through whether the value is worth forcing someone through a registration will leave the site visitor feeling cheated and mistrustful of your intentions when and if you do contact them. Ideally, that registration represents an inherent value to the site visitor, regardless of the benefit of that registration represents for your business. This value can take many forms: a premium educational resource or event (phone consultation, webinar, research study, etc.) or the convenience of having that education sent to them directly (signing up to receive updates by email).

2. Ask for only what you need and stop there.

Only ask visitors to share enough information as is necessary for you to determine if they may be a good fit. If you’re simply building a newsletter subscriber list and not planning to follow up with these individuals, asking for address, company size, etc. is overkill and will deter conversions. If you do plan to follow up with the lead by email or phone, asking too little information can present its own problems. You need to ask enough information upfront to know whether it’s worth either of your time to engage with them further. If you are in a position to setup ‘remember me’ functionality for registration forms, it’s worth it. It will keep your leads clean (less duplicate or conflicting data) and make life a lot easier on the site visitor as they don’t have to repeatedly fill out forms as they browse your site.