What’s the Point? Lead Generation Websites

Last week we explained the purpose behind having an Informational Website and what to include on one to get the most bang for your buck. This week: Lead Generation Websites. Leads are pouring in, night and day, weekends, holidays, more than you can handle, and it’s all thanks to your most reliable and hard-working employee – your lead-generating website. Well, that’s the dream at least right?

Who doesn’t want business to come to them asking for the services and products that you are offering?

That’s the goal of a website with the primary objective of generating leads for a business. Basically, your site needs to provide enough information that leads a potential customer to want to hear more from you. Whether it’s offering a free quote, an informational e-book, a free download, or a free hour of service. Lead generating sites usually offer some sort of a spiff in order to entice people to share their contact information.

Key Features of a Lead Generation Website

• Proof of your expertise. Why should they want a free quote from you? What makes your ebook worth reading? Why is an hour of your time worth anything to them? Answer these questions and you might just have them on the hook enough to get their information.
• A clear, bold, call to action (CTA). What do you want them to do? Calls to action are usually big, contrasting graphic buttons that tells you what a company wants you to do.
• The Spiff. It may seem gimmicky, it may be hard to imagine a good give-away for your business, but this is an important part to any lead generation website. As a whole, our society does not like to do something for nothing, especially when it comes to giving away our contact information. In a world filled to the brim with SPAM, telemarketers, and hoaxes, our email addresses and phone numbers are like personal gold – we don’t give them to just anyone for no reason!
• What makes a good spiff? Let’s start with this: FREE. That’s a good place to start. The only exceptions to the FREE requirement are companies who are marketing only to current customers or for a product that is well-known and can stand on its own merit. For those you can get away with a deep discount, for instance “Click here to save 50% on your next order of Green Widgets!”
• For the rest of us, FREE is the name of the game. That doesn’t mean you have to give away the store. It can simply mean that you’re giving away other valuable things, like sharing your knowledge. Some examples: “Click here for a FREE download of our Ebook: 7 Painting Tips from the Pros at Painting Pros”, “Click here for a Free Download of our Dragon Coloring Book from the TreeHouse”, or “Click here for a FREE phone consultation with one of our website developers (an $85 value)”. It can be simple, serious, fun, or completely unrelated to your business, as long as it appeals to a broad spectrum of your target market, and it’s FREE, it should work!

A great Lead Generation website should focus on the Call to Action, with support coming from the basic information every website needs. Include your contact information, hours of operation, services or products, and a general overview of your business so they can decide if they are interested in what you have to offer, and point all of that to your CTA.

Does your website have a well-defined call to action? Is it building and capturing leads? If not, well, you know who you can talk to about that… *hint*, US.