Funnel Folks Before The Form; New Lead Generation Strategy
By Michael StelznerGenerating excellent leads is important for big businesses. For folks that utilize online resources to collect leads (think Google, email, …) Justin Talerico of Ion Interactive proposes an interesting new strategy that could ratchet up your lead quality.
He talks about “pre-conversion segmentation” as a way to get folks to the right place before a white paper is presented. Talerico explains, “That means focusing on a guided path of choices, not just one landing page. Properly designed pre-conversion segmentation can entice 40 percent to 80 percent of respondents beyond the initial click and get you valuable data in the process. Step by step, you’ll engage respondents, earn their trust and profile them.”
In a recent article written by Talerico, he provides the following example:
Let’s use an example of an enterprise software firm selling to elusive decision makers like CIOs, CTOs and CEOs. Let’s say you promised a white paper to entice the first click. Upon landing, offer versions of that white paper that let you segment respondents in a way that’s valuable to you.
Perhaps your software is especially effective in certain industries. If so, offer white papers that are industry specific. This offer should be graphical — with few words — and formless. With this next click, you’ve earned trust by keeping your promise and you’ve engaged the respondent; you’ve made him want the white paper even more, as you’ve made it more specific to him and you’ve learned his industry. Now you can use sub-segmentation to weed even further.
Once you have narrowed the choices, I would add that you should present at least a page of the white paper formatted in HTML before you require registration information. Ideally, hide the form below the fold so readers further qualify themselves before they realize they need to fill out a form.
Read Talerico’s full article on this theory.
Do you think these extra steps are going to keep prospects engaged or lose them in tunnels of choices? Let’s hear your thoughts.
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August 18th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
These are great ideas. I love the industry-specific angle because it also builds credibility by demonstrating vertical focus.
I think the method you chose for your offer depends on where you’re at in the lead pipeline and how you stage your prospects. In general, I believe that lead quality is the real choke point in demand generation, much more than cost-per-lead. I would rather have many fewer leads that are likely to close than hundreds of lookie-loos. But if you’re launching a new product, you might just want a lot of churn to get the message out and give your sales people warm bodies to pursue.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:56 am
I have to go along with Matthew Turner — I would much rather generate better leads, and I think Talerico makes some great points in his article. As an owner of several businesses, I want my sales people chasing hot leads, not warm bodies.
I may want to make a splash when I’m launching a new product, but I still want to be methodical and as, well, scientific as possible when building a leads list.
Online, I think you run the risk of losing people when you give them too many choices. The higher up the business food chain you go, I believe, the more likely it is that you’ll lose the reader if there is too long a path to follow.
I like doing B2B direct response work for this reason, actually. I usually get the best response rates through precision targeting in combination with a well-written piece and strong offer. That goes for whether I’m doing it online or off.
In the end, though, I say Test Everything. Do what works!
August 19th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Matthew and Michael;
Great comment! I agree that fewer better leads are better and it does seem that Justin’s idea would only work for a broadly targeted offer.
Mike
August 20th, 2006 at 6:53 am
Your online marketing should have two goals: (1) generate leads and sales, but also (2) build as large an e-list of qualified prospects through e-mail address capture. Justin’s strategy will interfere with the second goal by cutting down people who submit their e-mail address. Rule of thumb: for each step you add to the registration process, your submit rate drops approximately 10%.
August 21st, 2006 at 8:38 am
While behavioral economics and analysis suggest that submission rates decline as the number of steps increase, we’ve found that engaged participants are much more likely to submit than passive ones. By adding a step that engages respondents in a conversation matched closely to the reason that they clicked, we immediately establish rapport that leads to increased conversion at much higher quality.
If you are seeking to merely collect email address and name, the game may be very different. But, if you are in that mode you are creating a relatively low quality list to which you will re-market to warm into leads. Post-click marketing asserts that you spend far less to warm leads if you take the first steps in that direction within the initial conversion path. Basically, you get warmer, higher-quality leads much earlier in the overall process.
Look for an upcoming study from MIT on the results of testing early segmentation against immediate form presentation–including the impact on conversion rate and lead quality.
August 21st, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Hi Justin and Bob - Justin, please be sure to keep me informed when that MIT study comes out. Bob, I like your idea of using the leads to build a list. I think Justin also comments on that with the idea of warming leads. All good thoughts! - Mike
August 21st, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Michael Knowles mentioned testing and I just wanted to point out that we couldn’t agree more - we test all conversion paths, generally testing two or more paths against each other until we have statistically significant results that let us know which path is pulling in the highest quality conversions. And then we keep on testing from there, trying to inch up conversions and respondent quality.
In that vein, even when using a whitepaper as a means to build an email list, we have had some surprising results. We recently tested two paths - one required email address, but the whitepaper was provided immediately for download on the very next page, and the second path required an email address so that we could email the whitepaper to the respondents. The second path would allow us to collect valid email addresses, but we weren’t sure how the fulfillment mechanism would affect the results.
We were surprised to find that conversion rates did not drop when we required valid email address, and in some cases, requiring a valid email address even increased conversions and overall lead quality.
August 26th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Michael - Do you think that having a paragragh that describes the whitepaper is better then providing a whole page of the whitepaper? Also, what do you think of leaving a few whitepapers without putting a form in front of them and then making the rest require a registration. thanks
August 26th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Hi Chad - Good question. I think a paragraph is NOT enough for some people to exchange their personal information for the white paper. For a good example of how this works, see http://www.stelzner.com/copy-HowTo-whitepapers.php (Had 35,000 registrations in 3 years for this paper).
YES, some white papers can bypass the registration. The question is — do you want to collect leads?
Mike