Tag Archives: lead generation

Best Practices for Lead Generation Using Sweepstakes

Best Practices for Lead Generation Using Sweepstakes

People like free stuff.  They do!

Whether it’s as simple as movie tickets to the latest blockbuster or as grand as an all-expense paid trip to the Caribbean. It’s for this reason why sweepstakes have always been a go-to method for marketers when it comes to generating buzz.

There’s nothing quite like a giveaway to get people engaged, make them click on like, write a comment, share a post, follow a page, subscribe to a newsletter, and sometimes even create their own content.

But it isn’t only a buzz that sweepstakes can generate. Contests generate leads as well, which isn’t a surprise considering the lengths people are willing to go to just nab an interesting prize.

Of course, the big question is whether you’ll get relevant leads that end in conversions — and not just casual passersby hoping to win (and with no intention of coming back again).

To make sure you get high-quality leads here are some best practices for lead generation using sweepstakes:

Give Away a Gift Certificate for your Products or Services

A cash prize will get lots of signups via your opt-in form. You can bet that most of them will unsubscribe once the contest is over. People are always interested in money even if they’re not interested in your business. By giving away a gift certificate for your products or services, those who’ll join are interested in what your business can offer.

Keep your Prizes Reasonable

If it’s too good to be true, then people will think your contest is a scam designed to harvest personal information for malicious purposes. Even if you can afford to give away a huge freebie, make your prizes tempting yet still believable. Like a $50 voucher to be used for your products or services.

Save the grand prizes for special occasions, like your business’s milestone anniversary.

Make Participants Work for it a Bit

Most sweepstakes just ask for a name and email address. Aside from being no fun at all, this can turn away great leads. They may think they don’t stand a chance to win (and can’t be bothered to join at all).

To get genuinely interested participants, make people exert a bit of effort before they can join. Ask them to fill out a survey or give a creative answer to a question. You’ll be able to filter out the non-relevant leads, and also get information from relevant leads. Just make sure your prize is worth the extra effort.

Allow Social Sharing for More Chances of Winning

People will be willing to share your sweepstakes with their networks if you give them referral incentives. Such as additional entries for every signup they get through their referral link.

Without this option, participants might not tell others about your contest in an attempt to keep the competition pool small. Fewer joiners mean higher chances of winning, after all. But with the assurance of added entries per share, they’ll have a reason to spread the word.

When it comes to sweepstakes for lead generation, everyone’s a winner — your business included. As long as you know how to do it right.  Plan your contests well and you may come out with the top prize of high-quality leads.

Using Google Ads to Drive Lead Generation

Using Google Ads to Drive Lead Generation

Using Google Ads to Drive Lead Generation

Entrepreneurs are embracing social media to promote their website content and generate sales leads.

Nevertheless, welcoming the new doesn’t have to mean saying goodbye to the old items that work. Online advertising in the form of pay-per-click (PPC) ads are still effective provided you know how to use them right.

There are a few PPC ad programs that you can choose from, but Google Ads remain a top choice for driving lead generation among the options. Google is still the go-to search engine, with around 65-70% of all monthly searches done on that search engine, so it makes sense why advertising on it is financially sound.

However, Google Ads are not necessarily cheap. To get a good ROI, here’s what you can do:

  • Design a Dedicated Landing Page for Each Campaign

    Aside from giving the impression of customized service, a dedicated landing page also cuts to the chase and gives your target market exactly what they want. Let’s say you’re a travel agency and you launched a campaign for luxury trips retirees can make. Retirees visiting your page wants to be directed right away to these trips, and not a generic homepage.  Yes, Waftio offers landing page options!

  • Think of Mobile Platforms

    According to Statista, 4.61 billion people are using mobile phones in 2016. That number will go up in the next few years, reaching 4.93 billion in 2018. This means more and more people will be surfing the internet on their handheld gadgets. If your site doesn’t display and respond well on a smaller screen, you’ll frustrate your potential customers.

  • Find Out What your Quality Score Is

    Before paying for keywords, are you sure they’re relevant to your landing page and ad? Or are there better (and maybe cheaper) keywords to use? The last thing you need is to pay for pricey keywords that won’t attract the right target market. Luckily, Google lets you check your quality score before you begin so you don’t waste money.

  • Check out Successful Competitors

    Want to know what makes their ad campaigns tick? With Spyfu, you can find out easily. Spyfu lets you search for any domain and see all their Adword keywords including ad variations. These findings will help you decide what keywords your competitor dominates, and what keywords are underrated yet profitable.

  • Use Online Chat to Engage Visitors

    Getting people’s attention is a crucial step, converting them to buyers/subscribers is another one. After a visitor clicks an ad and is on your page, give them a reason to stay by offering support. Online chat is a good option because visitors don’t have to leave the page to contact you. If they have questions, they can quickly send you a message and get the answer they need right away.

  • Don’t Hesitate to Remarket

    A lot of people don’t take action when they first visit your site. They’re there to look around. They leave, with the intention to return (but forget to do so) or with no intention at all. It’s your task to remind them about you. Don’t be afraid to use a remarketing campaign and target your site visitors. Maybe 2nd or 3rd time’s the charm.

With these tips, you’ll help your leads turn into conversions when using Google Ads. Partner it with social media remarketing ads to get better results.

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Make Sure Your Content Attracts Your Target Market

Make Sure Your Content Attracts Your Target Market

The first step to attracting your target market with content is knowing what they want. If you can’t give them what they’re looking for, they have no reason to go to your site.

But how? Here’s how you can know what your target market is craving:

  • Create buyer personas.

    Before knowing what your target market wants, you’ve got to know what you want first and foremost. To identify your ideal buyer, create profiles and make them as detailed as you can. Let’s say you have a travel agency. Are you targeting millennials who want to spend on budget travel? Or do you want to attract retirees who are ready to splurge on cruises? You decide.

  • Go where they go.

    Visit the forums and online groups where your target market hang out. You’ll find what hot topics they’re talking about and what problems they’re experiencing. If you can offer a solution, then voila! Instant subject for your next content!

  • Check out the competition.

    Unless you’re in a unique niche, chances are there are more successful players in your chosen industry. So take a look at the content they post and figure out what’s popular and what isn’t. This isn’t about copying — it’s about determining trends.

  • Ask for input.

    The comments section of your blog or social media page is a place for engagement, so make use of it. Invite users to share their opinions, feedback, suggestions, and even criticism. When you listen to your target market, you’ll be better equipped to address their needs.

  • Make content interactive.

    Questionnaires, quizzes, and surveys are content in themselves if you present them well. At the same time, they serve as tools to collect information from your target market.

  • Explore more than text content.

    Many people are on their tablets or smartphones, so you’ve got to consider optimization for mobile devices when creating content. Make content suitable for mobile by using subheadings, photos, and other visual dividers. Better yet, present content in a visual format like infographics, posters, or even short video clips.  Video is getting great attention for good reason.  People DO watch short videos!

  • Share in strategic cycles.

    No matter how awesome your content is, it won’t get the attention it deserves without promoting it. Fortunately, there are many channels you can go through. You can share links to your content on your social media pages, ask family and friends to share it, tap influencers within your niche (and hope they like your content enough to share it with their many followers), or pay for sponsored posts. The great thing about advertising on social media is that you can work with a small budget, unlike with traditional media such as radio, print, or TV.

These steps won’t guarantee virality, but they can guarantee you a solid following — as long as you are consistent. People, regardless of their interests, want a regular source of reliable information. This is how loyalty forms. Once you create a relationship with your target, focus on sustaining the ties by always delivering content they enjoy.

How to Use Video for Lead Generation

How to Use Video for Lead Generation

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, you can imagine what a video is worth when relating an idea. And because of this, more and more businesses are using videos for marketing. Conversations are often overheard beginning with, “I saw the best video on YouTube…”

Businesses are taking full advantage of the medium. Either they’re creating videos themselves, or using them for opening a dialogue with potential clientele.

Video Lead Generation

The whole point is to lead your viewers from passively watching to actively engaging and ultimately purchasing. Some viewers become leads at the initial contact and some after they’ve viewed the video.

Free Videos

When your potential customers are able to watch a video that solves their problem or challenge, they’re more receptive to giving an email address to receive more info. You’ve given an enjoyable experience and something of value which helps them.

Video Gates

Requiring an email in exchange for the ability to view a resource video is very effective. If you use analytics, you’ll capture a viewing history which allows for more precise marketing. Carefully choose how many fields on your email form. The more fields, the less chance a viewer will fill out the form.

Call To Action

During your video use a pop-up or slider to capture the viewer’s information. In this instance, you’ll want only one field – the email address – as your viewer will want to finish the video.

Where To Place Your Lead Generation Video

Your videos should be placed on several sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Twitter. Once you have attracted a viewer, draw them in and send them to your landing page.

Embedding a video in the middle of a text page is very effective. This method entices a potential consumer using 2 forms of media, bringing in a larger audience. Younger crowds migrate toward videos, and older people prefer a more traditional way to consume information.

How To Share Your Videos

Be creative, and keep your brand and message in mind. For example, a site selling plants would offer tips on when to fertilize and how to fix a sick plant. The key is to capture the audience that will most likely purchase from your website.

Optimization

Text has keywords, use them for video as well. To the search engines, images can be a big hole. Use text descriptions and tags to help the search engines find your content.

Why Use Video for Lead Generation?

Studies have shown the benefit of using video. Businesses using video marketing grow quicker than their counterparts that don’t use video.

End Results

When video marketing is used to capture an audience your potential customers are engaged, and they’ll want more. They’ll move through the sales funnel and onto your landing page. They’ll become the lead you need and move on to purchase from you.  Waftio can be used as the “gate” to capture name and email before giving them access to the video landing page.  Give it a try today!

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Nurture Campaign

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Nurture Campaign

Leads are the life source for any business and nurturing them is vital to convert them to sales. These 5, easy to follow steps, will show you how to improve your email nurture campaigns.

1. Audience

Know your audience.

Your email marketing lists should be segmented in a strategic way that keeps in mind what your company needs to achieve and the messages you need to send. There is no point talking to a customer who’s just purchased your product, about the features the item. You wouldn’t want to bother a customer on the west coast about a service only available on the east coast.

These might be extreme examples, but they make the point. If you don’t plan your messages according to what readers want to see you risk losing that lead altogether.  This is called segmentation.  When someone purchases, move them off a prospect list to a upsell or nurture list with content relevant to them.

2. Plan

Timing is everything when it comes to talking to prospective customers. You need to know where the lead came from, why, and where they are in the buying cycle. Don’t try to close a sale if someone is still looking for answers and advice. Plan the message carefully depending on who you’re talking to, what they need, and how close they are to a buying decision.

It takes on average 7 points of contact for someone to trust your business enough to be ready to purchase.  So your email campaigns should not sell in round 1, but nurture and build trust a number of emails before a “buy offer” is made.

3. Automate

If you are a very small business, it might, and I emphasize the word “might” be possible to manually nurture your leads. If you have a large database of leads, however, it’s almost impossible to manually stay on top of which email went to which list, what various members of that list did (or did not do) after reading the email, and what you should do next. MailChimp is one of the many companies that offer the ability to create an email automation series to help nurture your lead.  Setup the sequence of emails once, then let it run on auto-pilot.

4. Help, Don’t Sell

The quickest way to lose a potential customer is to try and sell them something they don’t want. Instead, offer education and advice. They’re on your email list because they’re looking for a solution to a problem. When someone is looking for a plumber, what they need is to stop a leaky faucet from dripping all the time. The plumber is just the solution provider. Show them how you have helped other customers, point out how your product or service can help solve their problem, and become a valuable resource. Ask what they need and point them in the right direction.  Pushing someone to buy nowadays turns them off pretty quickly.

5. Analyze and improve

Look at email open rates, click thru rates, opt-outs, etc. to determine what is happening and how emails compare to each other.  As well, experiment with layout design, colors, images vs. text, calls to action, etc. Whatever you do always take some time to scrutinize the results and adjust any future campaigns accordingly.  Not reviewing performance is a key misstep to avoid!

The worst thing you can do is…nothing. A list of potential clients, if nurtured correctly via email, is a tremendous way to grow sales.

Want to create an email nurture series campaign but don’t know where to start? Feel free to contact our team. We’ll go over the strategy and your topic. We’ll even write your nurture series if you’d like.

How to Use Contests to Generate Sales Leads

How to Use Contests to Generate Sales Leads

Marketing is important to every business. But its importance is more critical to start-ups and small businesses looking to increase sales. How do you get your company’s name out there and generate sales leads? Here’s a great way that utilizes the power of the web, incorporate contests into your marketing plan to spread your company name and help boost sales!

Where should your contest be held? Online using your website and Social Media!

Photo Contests

A picture is worth a thousand words and used properly can generate sales and reach more potential clients. Hold a social media photo contest. Ask your followers to post a picture of themselves with your product, and the image with the most votes wins. It’s a creative, easy, and fun way to get your customers engaged with your brand and get your name out to all of their friends.

It’s easy to run Facebook contests with Tabsite. TabSite allows you to easily create and manage custom apps and run promos on your website, blog and Facebook Pages. Users can add multiple custom apps and offer deals, contests, and more. TabSite offers both easy setup apps and a Drag N Build system for pixel perfect design without coding or programming. Powerful features include the ability to run Sweepstakes, showcase your YouTube Videos, add product slideshows, run Photo and Video Contests, share your Instagram feed on your Facebook Page, and more!

“Most Creative Idea”

This is a great way to get your creative juices flowing and incorporate your business’s individuality into your contests. The idea here is to encourage your Facebook fans to leave their own creative ideas in response to a question and the comment with the most “likes” winning a prize.

A good example for this (let’s say you are a pizza shop owner) is to post a status asking followers to come up with the most unique pizza topping combination. The person posting who gets the most “likes” wins and is then able to come get a free pizza. It keeps the winner happy and increases your brand name awareness. The end result? Hopefully a boost in sales. This is called a “Timeline Contest” that runs in the Facebook News Feed.

The Guessing Game

This can be custom tailored to fit your company, or whatever mood you’re in. Post a picture and ask followers to guess where it was taken. Something taken at odd angles or a different viewpoint will keep people’s interest to find out what it is. Send the winner a prize and enjoy the benefits of increased sales and word of mouth publicity from the lucky customer.

Like and Share

Another popular social media contest is the “like and share” game. The idea is to get your name out there to generate sales leads and increase brand awareness. Offer a free product to the customer whose shared post gets the most “likes”. It will result in contestants sharing your business page, and your company name will go out to all of their friends.

There are lots of ways to use contests to generate sales leads. It’s a wonderful marketing strategy to spread your business name, earn loyal customers, and bring in sales leads while your clients have fun. Incorporate one of these ideas into your business and watch your revenue grow. No matter what you choose to do, a contest is a good way to make sure your business stays relevant in today’s competitive environment.

The Importance of Cleaning Your Email List

The Importance of Cleaning Your Email List

Maintaining a clean email list is often overlooked but important.  After you’ve setup your email marketing with a list of addresses and a smooth unsubscribe and opt-out process, make sure you’re maintaining your email marketing. One of the most important steps to keep your email marketing strong is keeping your email list clean. You don’t need to waste your resources or injure your email reputation by sending to addresses that aren’t giving you an ROI!

Let’s take a closer look at the importance of cleaning your email list.

Managing Bounces

Even the best email lists will lose some quality over time, no matter how much you monitor them. Bad addresses can end up on your list because users close their email accounts, or they switch jobs. Sometimes email accounts are abandoned or fill up so they can’t accept messages.

Emails sent to these addresses register as “bounces.” Bounces have a negative impact on your sender reputation. The more bounces you get, the more likely your emails will be filtered out as spam. Spammers don’t usually clean their email lists, which is why email service providers monitor bounces as part of determining what spam is. This is one of the most important reasons to keep your email list clean. You don’t want your emails to be marked as spam!

The best practice for determining which addresses are bad is to set a threshold for the number of bounces each email address registers. You shouldn’t remove an address after just one bounce. The user might have been away on vacation, and his email filled up, or maybe his server was experiencing technical difficulties. A good threshold number for bounces is three to five.  Beyond that many bounces to one address, it’s best to clean your list of that address to maintain a good email reputation.

Inactive Users

There isn’t any extra cost for sending emails to users who don’t open them, but there is a good reason to clean the inactive users on your list. Many email service providers also monitor email activity. If emails aren’t opened over a long period of time, future emails might end up in the spam folder.

It takes a judgment call to determine who your “inactive users” might be. Because there isn’t any way of knowing what email providers consider “low activity.”

A good way to test the waters is to email the inactive email accounts and ask them if they’re interested in getting emails from you. If the user remains inactive, hang on to their address and put it on a secondary list. Email this list occasionally.
Remind your subscribers that the best way to make sure your emails land in their inboxes is to add your email address to their contacts.

Quality Counts

Maintaining a clean email list is important for keeping a good sender reputation with email providers. It takes a bit of an effort to keep an email list clean, but it’s a good way to boost the ROI of your email marketing.

How about yours?  When was the last time you cleaned your email list?

Lead Generation Strategy

Lead Generation Strategy

What are the goals of your lead generation strategy? The answer to this question is a good place to start, but is that enough? It’s true that no two businesses are alike, and no cookie-cutter marketing solution can be applied to all businesses.However, when it comes to lead generation, there are a few strategies that can work quite broadly across many industries.

These timeless strategies can work for virtually any business, organization, person, or idea as long as it involves an online presence. Read on to find out the strategies you can use to maximize the results of your lead generation efforts.

How many leads do you need to fill the pipeline?

You’re probably saying, “as many as possible!” However, as logical as that seems it’s not really workable. Come up with a realistic number. An exact number could be challenging to determine especially if you don’t have past sales metrics for your products and services. Along the way, you’ll get a better idea of what metrics are important to track, as you calculate your desired number.  Break it down to a monthly basis.  Is it 50?  If you have 50 a 8% closure rate, is that enough good leads in a month?

Capture the attention of your target audience

Understand what your audience wants and view your content from their perspective. Keep in mind, some of your visitors will never return to your website if you fail to capture their attention. Although asking for an email address is essential, many people are not willing to give it away. Sign up buttons no longer work effectively, they’re too common and easily overlooked. In this case, you’ll need to use other ways to capture their information.

One of the best ways to know what your audience wants is to ask them. A survey works well for this. Your salespeople may provide valuable insights as they communicate with your customers on a daily basis. Once you know, you’re better equipped to generate content that captures their attention, and eventually more leads.

Maximize the rate of opt-ins

Getting the lead to a page on your site isn’t enough. You have to develop an effective opt-in strategy. Capturing attention is only part of the battle. You’ve probably noticed the gap between traffic generation and lead generation. Some one-time visitors will ignore any attempts to get information from them.

Your landing page and offerings should be compelling enough to seal this gap. Using lead magnets like subscriptions, webinars, eBooks, bonus tips, free trials, email opt-ins, and training videos can effectively capture the interest of your audience. Your focus should be getting their permission to market to them.

Optimize your landing pages

These are used for single marketing campaigns. Landing pages essentially capture leads and tempt potential clients. They’re important stepping-stones before going further into your sales program. Don’t overwhelm your visitors with promotions or information about your business, but focus on one specific goal. Confirm the promise made by your landing page click source, and deliver the same.

Don’t focus on one method of lead generation, as it may limit the effectiveness of your overall marketing program. Multi-faceted approaches tend to create more buzz in the market, save time, and improve your results.

That’s a wrap on some time-tested tactics to grow leads on your website.  What’s the next step you need to take now to improve your website lead capture?  Needing a tool to make it easy?  You’re on the right website!

Capturing Leads and Potential Customers with Webinars

Capturing Leads and Potential Customers with Webinars

A marketer’s primary goal is to find and attract leads. But not just any lead. The best kind of lead is a potential customer who’s in your target audience, heavily interested in your product, and could potentially be not just a customer, but a repeat user of your product/service.

So how do you capture these? One essential weapon in the digital marketer’s toolbox is the webinar. A webinar can be an extremely successful tool in capturing great leads that turn into valuable customers. Here are some of the secrets to the different ways you can go about capturing those valuable leads with a live webinar.

1. Pick an Inviting, Relevant Topic

There are probably a number of subjects you could present during a webinar. But the secret to attracting the leads you want is to consider your target audience carefully and choose the topic that would be most interesting to them. If you haven’t already, develop an audience persona for the type of customer you’re hoping to attract. What are their fears and worries? What problems do they have that you can help solve? Use your frequently asked questions from current customers as webinar topics.

2. Promote Your Webinar to Your Target Audience

Of course, the best content in the world isn’t going to do much without promotion. Make sure to notify your email list about the webinar, share it on social media, use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn advertising to spread your message. Make your registration form easy to fill and shareable. Use images and intriguing headlines in your advertising. Consider doing radio or podcast interviews to reach new audiences who may be interested in your product.
Consider other fun ways to attract more leads, including giveaways or contests.

3. Pick the Right Platform

No one is going to be impressed with a webinar that is glitchy, or a lead form that doesn’t work. Chose your webinar software carefully and do a trial run before the live presentation. GotoWebinar is one of the major players in the webinar industry. Consider additional apps or software can customize your lead forms like Waftio.

4. Give Away Your Secrets

The secret to a great webinar is to give your audience something really valuable that they can use immediately, or continue to think about for the next few weeks. If you genuinely help your audience solve a problem, or improve their lives, you have them hooked. Why wouldn’t they want to consider becoming your customer?

5. Follow-Up Promptly

You’ve captured your lead, and you’ve wowed them with your secrets. Now make sure you follow-up with everyone who attended your webinar. Make sure what you’re offering is clear and it’s easy for them to take the next step, whether that’s to download a paper, purchase an e-book, or sign up for a class. Make your email content as valuable as your webinar, and you’ll have more sign-ups.

Waftio has custom forms that have proven to be effective. Waftio even integrates with GoToWebinar for an eye-catching form with the convenience of GoToWebinar automation. Sign up for a FREE 7-day trial!

The Art of Using Coupons and Discounts to Boost Your Email List

The Art of Using Coupons and Discounts to Boost Your Email List

Like a love letter sent to a special someone, you really want your subscribers to open your email. If it gets trashed or just floats to the bottom of their inbox, you haven’t reached them with your message and the value of your brand fades. An increasingly popular way to drive engagement with your email marketing is to include a coupon or discount.

Consider the following two headlines:

  • “It’s Springtime, so order our services and enjoy this great weather in style.”
  • “This Spring, take advantage of our 25% off deal and be prepared for Summer.”

The second one has more appeal doesn’t it? The first one is telling your customer what to do and asking for a sale. The second option is more suggestive and demonstrates a willingness on the part of your brand to offer value.

If you can put yourself in your customer’s shoes, you have to admit that you’re far more likely to open an email that is offering you something for nothing, rather than one that is asking you for something. If you’re ready to try coupons as part of your email marketing, get creative on different ways to incorporate the offer.

Clever ways to use coupons as part of your regular email marketing

  • Take advantage of seasons and holidays. Add seasonally relevant coupons to your regular email marketing schedule. Think of how your customers can use your services in the context of Springtime, Valentine’s Day and other relevant cultural events.
  • Get repeat business. Once you’ve sold a customer, offer a special “thank you” coupon 30, 60 or 90 days after the conclusion of their first purchase encouraging them to return by sweetening the pot with a special discount.
  • Tie-in coupons with social media. You can offer a progressive discount for using a coupon while also taking some action regarding your brand’s social media platforms. For example, 10% off for simply using the coupon alone but 15% off if the customer is a Facebook fan and 20% off if they are a fan and share one or more of your Facebook posts in the week prior to redeeming the coupon.

Email marketing has a long-standing track record of driving value for brands by creating a captured audience of individuals who have expressed loyalty or affiliation with your brand. If you fail to deliver value to your list, you’ll see a decline in subscribers. You want to make sure that your subscribers stick around, and you attract more subscribers.

You can use coupons or email list exclusive discounts as a means of driving signups.

In the call-to-action on your site or social channels, encourage your audience to sign-up for your list in exchange for an immediate discount. Make sure to continuously seed your list with new coupons and discounts, so they don’t lose track of the value in their original choice to sign up.

Coupons are an excellent way to provide value to email subscribers, but they shouldn’t be the only method you employ. Ultimately, selling is about conveying value, not discounting price. While everyone loves to save a buck, you should also always be looking for new and creative ways to provide value to your audience by the way of engaging and informative content creation relevant to your brand’s value proposition.

It’s easy to offer coupons with Waftio!

Simply create a simple form web visitors must complete to get the discount and be added to your list, and then either offer the coupon as a discount code or link to a printable coupon. Integrate your Waftio form with Mailchimp, Aweber, and more to have them added to your lists automatically!

Are you using coupons in your email marketing?