While Bitcoin is all the rage in the financial and futures industry, let us not forget the original online digital currency whose value has held strong over time: good old-fashioned personal information. A lead carries with it an intrinsic value, so it’s only natural for firms to entice and collect leads with genuine offers of value.
As a financial firm, what can you offer as a worthwhile “give” to the “get”? Here, we pose key questions to explore the elements driving the digital transactions of lead generation.
What can you offer of value in exchange for a lead’s contact information?
Besides having a general “Contact Us” form on your website – by offering something of real value, you’re more apt to attract leads to convert into your sales funnel while simultaneously extending subject matter expertise.
- A Unique Value-Add or Perspective – an article, listicle, or helpful angle on a topic addressing challenges connected with your service.
For example, if you are a financial firm with a common financial product offered by other firms in the industry – write a post “around” the common product and address how your firm specifically adds value on top of this common product. This “extra-ness” can entice visitors to become leads by seeking more information– so be sure to include a contact form at the end of articles.
- An Educational Piece – Educational pieces make great offers across the board: From up-to-date whitepapers, to guides, eBooks, and explainer videos: learning = earning.
- Access to a Tool – Access to online automation tools like financial, options, retirement, or hedging calculators are effective offers that lend immediate usability value to the user.
- Premium (or Limited) Access to Specialized Content — daily market ideas, trade recommendations, news, and reports in your company blog can serve as the offer. This is often positioned as subscriber-only content, which is a common “give to get”.
- Your Time – a free no-obligation consultation is certainly worth something to leads. 15-minutes with an expert is not only valuable to the lead, but one-on-one conversations can be great catalysts for swiftly converting leads into clients.
Where Will You Reach Leads?
Through a well-planned-out content strategy focusing on your offer, you can successfully reach and discover new leads through a myriad of channels.
- Through your website blog – not only are blog posts excellent vehicles in which to embed calls-to-action for your offer, but blogs are a medium for having a monthly newsletter sign-up (an offer in and of itself).
- Banner ad on your website homepage – Your website is the hub where you should house the form for your offer. Develop a dedicated landing page for the offer with key information that will entice the lead to complete the form. By having a banner on the homepage, you are inviting potential leads in.
- Post your content on 3rd party industry sites – Again, if your target audience tend to be part of the readership of a 3rd party site, work to get your relevant content published on the site with the offer’s call-to-action natively built into it.
- Social Channels – With all great offers that live on a website, should come great social media posts pointing to that offer, with relevant hashtags built in to optimize search on Twitter.
- Conferences / Events – Attending, speaking at, and sponsoring industry conferences and events are great opportunities to get in front of a concentrated audience of leads, who are often open to sharing their information with a real person whose hand they can shake. Offer your conference presentation, pitchbook, or tip sheet in exchange for their information.
How Will You Promote to Leads?
Your offer can and should be promoted in multiple ways. It often takes a few “touches” or exposures across different mediums before a contact takes the leap to convert to a lead.
- Email Blasts to your pre-existing list of opted-in leads – conducting a well-timed email blast announcing your new offer to existing leads who may benefit may be just what they needed to keep your firm top of mind …or to re-engage an older lead.
- Email Newsletter – those who have signed up for the newsletter can receive promotional content on your offer to pull them further into the sales funnel
- Calls-to-Action in Blog Content – as mentioned earlier, blog posts and articles are excellent vehicles in which to natively integrate calls-to-action to promote your “get”.
- Social Media Posts – Promoting on social media is key. It’s free and, if done correctly, can help your firm, services, and promotional offering get discovered through retweets and relevant hashtags.
- Google AdWords / Retargeting Ads / Online Advertising – A Google AdWords and Retargeting campaign is one of the best ways to get the word out about your promotion. A campaign is set up based on targeted keywords, so the ads will be shown to those who have conducted a specific keyword search. Additionally, a retargeting ad is an effective method of promoting to those who have already visited your website and have an established familiarity with your business. These are the ads that “follow” you online and are triggered by cookies that initiate upon your first visit to a website.
Why Will It Work?
Having all the pieces in place will ensure that the efforts are optimized to produce the best results. We’ve developed, executed, and measured a great many campaigns and the formula underpinning the success of gathering digital currency (leads) remains the same. By having an offer of value, a campaign in which to situate your offer, and a plan for the execution and measurement of your campaign, you can set up the opportunity to turn digital currency into real currency.
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Looking to improve your lead gen strategy? Let’s discuss the possibilities.