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Episode 173: The Simple Formula for a HIGH CONVERTING Freebie
1.9k Plays2 years ago
We've either created or reviewed HUNDREDS of freebie lead generation offers, and we've identified four characteristics of a high converting lead generation offer. Nailing these four characteristics in your next lead generation offer can lead to a freebie that generates hundreds or thousands of emails.
How much do you enjoy sending cold emails or DMs to find clients or customers? If you’re like 99% of business owners, that answer is none.
However, you have to connect with potential clients somehow if you want your business to thrive.
Enter lead generation.
See more at https://daveyandkrista.com/lead-generation-formula/
SPONSOR: This podcast episode was made with Zencastr. Use my special link zen.ai/daveyandkrista and use daveyandkrista to save 30% off your first three months of Zencastr professional. #madeonzencastr
Find it quickly...
0:00 Intro
5:57 What is lead generation?
6:22 The FREE lead gen resources that we have available (see below).
8:20 What is a lead?
9:20 What is a marketing lead?
11:31 Why is lead generation critical to running a successful business?
13:02 The importance of understanding your customers' journeys.
14:00 A few lead generation examples.
17:15 What makes for a great lead generation campaign?
18:08 Tip #1: Actionable and manageable
19:10 Tip #2: Profitable for your audience
20:03 Tip #3: Urgent and critical
22:28 Tip #4: Relevant for your target audience and business
Recommended
Transcript
Importance of Lead Generation for Business Growth
00:00:06
Speaker
So lead generation is crucial to either scaling your business or even just maintaining consistent results over time. And it's really these four things that's going to separate a lead generation offer that results in a lot of emails or one that either flops or it just feels like such a hustle or grind to get any emails on your list.
Introduction to the Podcast and Host, Davy Jones
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:39
Speaker
Generating leads on a consistent basis is critical to running a healthy business. And today we're discussing my formula for what makes a lead generation offer successful.
Successful Lead Generation Offers
00:00:49
Speaker
In other words, what are the traits of that free download, training, ebook, whatever it is that you're offering in exchange for an email address? What are those things that you need to focus on to make sure that your free content results in lots and lots of email addresses? Chris who joins me today to help dive into this content.
00:01:08
Speaker
As always, be sure to check out the show notes at DavyandChrista.com for the resources that we mentioned during the episode. We have a ton of content around setting up lead generation on your website. So especially if the technical part overwhelms you, be sure to check out the YouTube tutorials that we'll link to in the show notes. And as always, we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands of Book podcast as we move forward. And to leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram at DavyandChrista.
00:01:36
Speaker
And can I ask a favor, if you enjoy the Brands That Book podcast and you find this episode helpful, would you mind heading on over to Apple Podcasts and leaving us a review? Reviews are helpful for so many reasons, but most importantly, they let us know that we're producing the kind of content that you want to hear. Thank you so much.
Using Zencaster for Podcasting
00:01:55
Speaker
Alright, so before we jump into this episode, I want to share with you the tool that we're using to record, host, and share this podcast because it has made our lives, honestly, so much easier. And that tool is Zencaster. Before switching to Zencaster, I have accrued a ridiculous amount of subscriptions to make this podcast happen.
00:02:15
Speaker
And I finally realized what a nightmare my podcasting workflow had become when I went to train another team member on it and had to walk them through all of these different apps that I use. So finally, I made the switch. I was pretty nervous about doing so, but it ended up being a seamless experience. And the best part, this one tools and caster has replaced almost every other app that I use for my podcast, which saves me so much money each month.
00:02:41
Speaker
A few things that I really like about Zencaster and more important to me. First, Zencaster has a video component. It's a lot easier to have a conversation with someone when you can see the person that you're chatting with. Plus, if you do have a video podcast, they make it easy to record and distribute the video. Separate tracks was a must. It eliminates chances of audio quality issues. You know, honestly, there are just too many features for me to cover here. So check out their website for a full list of features.
00:03:08
Speaker
Go to zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my code DavyAndChrista. You'll get 30% off your first three months of Zencaster Professional. I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. You can also find more information about Zencaster in the show notes and our blog. And remember, we only ever recommend tools
00:03:34
Speaker
that we know and trust. Now, on to the episode. I'm excited for the podcast to get a little bit of an upgrade here. How is it getting an upgrade? I'm getting that mixer. Oh. Yeah, very fancy. So fancy. Do you even know how to use it? No, but Jesse does, and Jesse's... Are you going to call Tyler Harrington? Yeah, I'm going to probably end up calling Ty's Tech Line, and then, of course, Jesse's coming out to visit. Oh, so Ty's Tech Line is not a real thing, so do you?
00:04:02
Speaker
It is for me. So I'll have to get some input there. You know, I've already found a great YouTube channel that shows you how to use it. But yeah, I mean, like I think our audio already sounds pretty good. You have your Michael Jackson microphone over there. That's right. That's right. And it's the microphone that he used to record Thriller. Something like that. Not the actual one. That one's probably very valuable in the museum somewhere. But like the model, which is crazy that it's like, is it that old of a model?
00:04:26
Speaker
I guess, the SM7B, but this is actually a really popular podcasting mic, you know? But over the years now, having done this for, what do we, we started this like 2018. So over the years, you know, since then we've just accrued. Yeah, I'm thinking like before Jack arrived. Upgraded, good gear, you know? Yeah. Yeah, before Jack arrived. But we started with like the little snowball yetis, or maybe we were at the bigger yetis. Yeah, but it was, you know, very straightforward. So, you know, it's come a long way. It's fun, you know, getting a little better incrementally over time.
00:04:56
Speaker
uh-huh
00:04:57
Speaker
Anyways. I'm not as excited about gear as you. Yeah. Anyways, we're, it's getting cold here. I'm excited about the cold weather in that it makes me look forward to the holidays coming up. You know, like my family's Thanksgiving's always been like the biggest holiday of the year. You know, I love Advent. So I get excited, you know, about those things with the cold weather. You know, I'm excited to go trick or treating with Jack in like two weeks here. Yeah. So all of that is exciting. I just get depressed.
00:05:28
Speaker
After New Year's. You do. Cause then it's cold and there's not, you know, the next thing to look forward to is like summer. Yeah. I mean, there are things that happen in the spring. Like my birthday happens in late winter. I'm excited for those things, but I wish you, I wish like come, you know, January 15th, it was just warm again. Lacrosse season. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We gotta get you one of those happy lights.
00:05:49
Speaker
We do. I think we should. There's like lights, like light therapy. Yeah. Anyways, moving on to our topic of the day.
Technical Steps and Resources for Lead Generation
00:05:56
Speaker
We're talking about lead generation today. And we've talked a lot about lead generation over the years. And we focus largely on the technical aspects of lead generation. Cause we get a lot of questions about how do I put a newsletter sign up on my website?
00:06:09
Speaker
Or how do I send out a free guide, download? Do I embed it on my website? Exactly. The answer is no. The good news is we have a lot of resources. We have a lot of free resources that will teach you how to do those technical things. So if after listening to this, you have renewed motivation around tackling your lead generation efforts, but the technical stuff feels overwhelming.
00:06:32
Speaker
go to the show notes because we have all sorts of free stuff, including a free landing page template that would work for Show It and WordPress Elementor. Well, they're two different versions. They are two different versions, but point being, is that for this platform? I made it for both platforms. Yeah, so you don't have to put that together yourself. We have a tutorial that literally walks you through the steps of making a free PDF download, how to add it to, at least I did Flodesk because we typically recommend people start with Flodesk and how to embed the form on your website. It walks you through the entire process.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, so and all that's on YouTube too. So it's not only like there are tutorials on our blog, but they're also on YouTube. So there's videos that actually walk you through that. And as always, I mean, a lot of the, like when we record a new tutorial, it's often because someone asked us a question. So if you get stuck somewhere,
00:07:18
Speaker
Ask us a question. We'll either send you a video we've already recorded, or if it's a video that we don't have recorded, we'll probably create a tutorial around it. But today, really what I want to focus on is the offer, the lead generation offer. So I want to talk about, for instance, what makes a free ebook or a training session or what else?
00:07:39
Speaker
coupon code for a shop? Yeah, not so much the coupon. This one applies so much to giving somebody a coupon code in exchange for their email, although that is an effective way to generate sales leads. A free booklet, free presets. Yeah, free whatever. People give away all sorts of things. Yeah, whatever it is that you're giving away. What elements does the offer have to have to hopefully generate a lot of leads? Okay. That's really where I want to focus today, but maybe we should give a quick overview of what lead
Understanding and Qualifying Leads
00:08:05
Speaker
generation is.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, cause I think it can be kind of confusing cause the word lead is used for so many different things. That's right. Yeah. So maybe we just start like really with what a lead is. I think that's a good place to start. All right, cool. So as far as a lead goes, it's really anyone who has expressed interest in your business. Okay. All right. Or not even in your business, but in your business's products or services. So maybe they're, maybe they're not specifically interested in your business, but you know, they're interested in the need that you fill.
00:08:34
Speaker
So is this somebody who is like filled out your contact form or is this more of like somebody who follows you on social media or can you elaborate on what you mean by lead?
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, all of those could be considered leads. And if we think about a funnel, like a marketing funnel, right? At the top of the funnel, you have people who are maybe more just generally aware of you, right? Whereas at the bottom of the funnel, you have people who are actually considering your specific business, right? So like a sales lead, for instance, would be somebody who has filled out your contact form.
00:09:05
Speaker
They've raised their hand and expressed interest, but not only general interest in your product or service, but in your business's product or service. So they're out of the research phase, and now they're in the consideration phase. Really, what we're talking about today is a marketing lead.
00:09:21
Speaker
And while it could be, you could consider a lead somebody who's following you on social media or following you on LinkedIn or whatever. Really, I count a lead as somebody who has given us their email address or their phone number. One of those two things. Really somebody that we can follow up with.
00:09:39
Speaker
And so by doing that, they're getting on like your mailing list, correct? Like you'd be building with like a flow desk, convert kit, et cetera. That's right. And then there's all sorts of like text messaging systems out there that allow you to do the same things you would do with an email marketing platform, but on text messages. So we've probably seen this, you know, I think a one trend that I see more and more these days is I'll be on a website. I'll be interested in purchasing that product. I'll see a pop-up that's like,
00:10:04
Speaker
get 10% off of this, you know, whatever, this gadget. And, you know, you put your email address in thinking you're gonna get the 10% off. But then once you hit submit, it brings you to a second step where it's like complete your registration to get your 10% off and they want your phone number, you know, because they want to send text updates to you.
00:10:24
Speaker
And I would consider, you know, the text updates to be sort of the gold standard here because text is going to have far higher open rates and probably far higher click rates as well. Whereas email is still great, but you're going to have probably lower open and click rates when compared to text messaging. I have a technical question. Can you collect both at the same time? Like is there a system that does both?
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah. So like a lot of these, like we use convert box for our popups and we create two step forms like that. If we wanted to, where we could get people's email addresses and phone numbers.
00:10:57
Speaker
But then you still need multiple third parties like Flowdesk or this other SMS platform, right, in order to actually send the messages? Yeah, there are platforms out there. There are email platforms out there that do both. Typically, they're the more expensive ones. Infusionsoft. I don't think at this point, yeah, Infusionsoft, which is now called Keep, Entreport, I think would do that as well. At this point, I don't think ConvertKit or Flowdesk have that feature.
00:11:22
Speaker
But there's all sorts of platforms out there, and I don't want to really get stuck in the weeds on the differences between those platforms. Okay. Cool. So why lead generation? What do you think it does for a business?
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a great question.
Necessity of Lead Generation for Business Sustainability
00:11:35
Speaker
And I am a big believer that all businesses need a pipeline of people who are potential customers, right? And you know, that's probably like an obvious statement, but I think so few people, or I think lead generation is just often overlooked. We're always thinking like, you know, when we're running ads, can we run ads straight to our products, right? You know, when we're selling people, like talking about our products in particular,
00:11:58
Speaker
But there's a step before that where we're trying to capture the interest of people who are searching for a solution that potentially our business offers but aren't ready to buy from us yet. I think that lead generation ultimately, like I said, it creates a pipeline of people who are potential customers.
00:12:16
Speaker
You know, I think that people who don't do lead generation, they're just in this constant cycle of hustle, you know, trying to find new projects when old projects end or new customers when, you know, their warmer group of leads, you know, buys or goes elsewhere.
00:12:31
Speaker
So really lead generation I think creates sustainability. It increases brand awareness, you know? Like a lot of the businesses I ultimately buy from, I bought from because I had questions about, I don't know, a given topic. And in my research, they kept on coming up with the best answers, right? And do you think that this is still true for like maybe businesses with a shorter sales cycle or like something that somebody can only buy once, like wedding photography. Do you think that they should still be focusing on lead generation?
00:13:00
Speaker
Another great question. Every business obviously has a customer journey. Some customer journeys might be shorter than others. So they have, you know, each customer journey, there's different constraints involved. So even a shorter customer journey like wedding photography, you know, if that's what you offer.
00:13:15
Speaker
somebody's only gonna be engaged for a certain amount of time, so you have a limited time actually, you know, really to get in front of them. But there's still things that you can do to get in front of people who are engaged or getting ready to get engaged. I mean, heck, there is definitely a group of people out there who, they're starting to look at wedding planning stuff. And they're not even dating anyway. Yeah, before they even start dating somebody, right?
00:13:38
Speaker
I feel like we all have those friends. Yeah. So, you know, there's probably different strategies involved there, but at the end of the day, you still want some sort of lead generation system in place. That is a good question because I think that it'd be easy to think, oh, well, the time is so short that, you know, how could I possibly get in front of somebody? Yeah. You know? So what are some ways that people can generate leads?
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, you know, you're just going back to the wedding industry. You want to make sure, and we're going to talk about this a little bit, that you're qualifying the people that you're getting in front of. So, you know, it might be with some sort of ebook on, you know, the best spots for engagement photos and things like that. You know, how to dress so that you get the best possible pictures. It's funny seeing you try to think of like look dressing stuff. Yeah, right. Well, I would need that guy.
00:14:25
Speaker
You would. You were in a sweatshirt that you wear quite frequently. It is one of my favorite, you know. You know it's bad when our intern says that you wear it a lot. It's comfortable.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen photographers, like specifically wedding photographers try to do free guides around like posing or lighting, which I think that I probably wouldn't go that route if you're trying to book couples and book weddings because you really don't want couples to think that they have to worry about posing themselves or weddings. I think that what you said focusing on engagement session locations, maybe getting ready, like how to make sure that they're getting ready room looks good or timeline tips or outfit tips, those are probably stronger
00:15:05
Speaker
for like wedding specifics. So you wanna make sure that the content you're creating is actually beneficial to the person that you wanna book.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's easy to look at the people, like kind of the influencers or the educators in a given industry and think, oh, I need to go and kind of replicate what they're doing. But remember those people who are offering education for other people in your industry, their target customer is you. So you have to make sure that you don't just look at what your competitors are doing.
00:15:37
Speaker
And this is why client avatar activities are so important, actually coming up with a very specific description of who your ideal clients are so that you can stay hyper focused on creating the best possible content for them, really understanding their needs and meeting their problems.
Valuable Lead Generation Offers
00:15:55
Speaker
Right. Think about what questions are they Googling? Like, how can you come up with the content, even if it's like a downloadable PDF that meets their needs? Yeah. I mean, that's the other thing. Like, a lot of the inspiration for a lot of what we create comes from people asking us the same question a thousand times. Right. You know? So for instance, like, we're going to be launching a free Canva Graph. No, I'm sorry.
00:16:22
Speaker
Maybe you just explain, words aren't coming to me. Free Canva launch graphics so that you can just put in pictures of your website or videos of your website and then have video clips for reels or Instagram. So it's easy to share about your new website or new project.
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah. So launch graphics that you can edit in Canva. Yeah. So your website goes in the little phone screen and it looks really cool. And it's because people like when we share about client projects we've been working on and our clients share the launch graphics we create for them, like people ask us all the time, like, how do I make those? How do I make this? And we've done a tutorial video that hasn't had a lot of views, but we figured, well, we could give away
00:17:00
Speaker
actual graphics that people could download. Exactly. And so that's an example of sort of a lead generation offer, right? So maybe we jump into now really talking about what makes a great lead gen offer. Okay. All right. So in other words, when you're giving away something for free in response for, or in exchange for an email, what really makes what you're giving away valuable to somebody? Got it. Are you asking me? Okay.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you can tell us, I'm sure. But I'm just sort of thrown in out there, that's what we're talking about. Okay. Framing the discussion. Okay. So when we talk about creating an offer, it really needs to have four parts, all right? And so we'll go, I think, one by one through these four parts. And side note, we tried to make this an acronym and we could not think of one.
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I was thinking like everybody loves a good acronym here. So what, how do we make this an acronym? You were like, well, we couldn't, we could call it MERP. That was not even a word. I was going to remember that. That was the only thing I could come up with. Yeah, I know. I didn't give you a lot of vowels here either. But anyways, so the very first characteristic I think of a good offer is that it is both actionable and manageable.
00:18:10
Speaker
So in other words, it's something that people can actually take action on. And it's manageable in that way as well. So sometimes I'll review lead generation or downloads that people have put together and they'll be like 50 pages long. And in theory, that sounds good, right? Because that content is super thorough. But who has time?
00:18:32
Speaker
to sit there and read 50 pages worth of content. And you have to ask yourself, basically, how can I solve this person's problem in the most efficient way possible? And so you very well might know 50 pages worth of stuff around a given problem, but really, how can you meet their need as efficiently as possible?
00:18:56
Speaker
Heck, it might not be through written content at all. It might be through a quick video or something like that. But you really wanna be asking yourself that. Because the other part of this too is that you wanna make sure that it's profitable. So that's the second thing I would say. And when you say profitable, profitable for you or profitable for the person?
00:19:16
Speaker
Ideally for both, but really I'm talking about profitable for the person who's downloading or signing up. And I don't necessarily mean monetarily profitable, but that they get some sort of win. I mean, there's no better feeling and no better way to build trust with people than to answer their question in a clear and concise way and for them to feel like, oh, this is exactly what I needed. And yeah, I mean, there's just no substitute for that. But I think when people download something and they don't get what they want,
00:19:44
Speaker
It might not necessarily be a negative experience, but it's a missed opportunity to build trust. So you want things to be actionable and manageable, but then you also want it to be profitable for that person as well. And I think those two things are very much connected. The next thing, you want to be able to make there be some sort of sense of urgency.
00:20:05
Speaker
All right, you wanna ask, okay, why is it critically important that somebody signs up or downloads right now? I think oftentimes, like what do you think of when we talk about urgency?
00:20:17
Speaker
you know, like timers, like an offer goes away, or they only have a few days to do it, or maybe it's part of a challenge that's happening at a certain time. Yeah, so I'd say the first things you mentioned are probably what most people think of, like, do I need to have a countdown timer? You know, like, will this offer go away in a certain amount of time? Right. Those are definitely ways to create a sense of urgency. But I think even more than that, or maybe even better than that, is more, you know, what you are getting at towards the end there. Like, for instance, if you're doing a five day challenge,
00:20:46
Speaker
That five-day challenge happens on a certain date, and so it's important for you to be there because it's happening on certain dates. And you want to be there because everybody else is going through it on those dates as well, so there's a community around it. But there's other ways to create a sense of urgency as well or to give people a sense of why it's critically important to download this now.
00:21:07
Speaker
just going back to one of our favorite industries to talk about, sleep training. If you have kids, right, and you're trying to teach them how to sleep well. I feel like not an episode goes by where we don't mention Becca of Little Z. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
00:21:21
Speaker
Well, I mean, and that's the thing, though, is that, you know, people can get into a rut, I think, in certain industries, this is true, where they think, like, the problem is, it's hard to convince people that there is a solution to their problem, right? So really painting that picture in your copywriting, both on the landing page and if you're promoting this via social media or an ad, really getting at why is it important that somebody pay attention to right now?
00:21:44
Speaker
So like my eye could be sleeping through the night again in two weeks because my baby's sleeping through the night. Like something like that. Exactly. I mean, you know, you can just kind of paint this picture of like, how could things be different? You know, really show off what the transformation could be. Lose 10 pounds in 30 days. Like I feel like fitness does that a lot too.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, are you sick of being tired, you know, all the time? You know, that kind of language, we're talking about the fitness industry, you know, and really getting at, you know, kind of that agitation of the problem of, you know, yeah, that's right, this is a problem. I am sick of feeling tired all the time, right? Anyways, so creating a sense of urgency, really answering that question, why is it critically important that somebody sign up for this right now? And the last piece, all right, it needs to be relevant.
00:22:30
Speaker
All right, and maybe this is the first thing that we should have talked about. And maybe this is somewhat obvious to people, but it needs to be relevant to the person downloading. They're going to, of course, they won't download if it's not relevant to them. But really, this is for the business itself. Like it needs to be relevant to what the business is doing. All right.
Relevance in Lead Generation and Listener Engagement
00:22:49
Speaker
We could give away an iPad and get a ton of leads, but not all of those people would necessarily need websites or brands. Yeah, exactly. A person who's interested in an iPad isn't necessarily interested in website design. We're purchasing a new website or hiring a website designer. You want to make sure it's relevant so that you can qualify your leads. I think this is a problem too.
00:23:12
Speaker
there's something cool that a business can give away and so they do this big giveaway, but then they notice that nobody's actually opening the emails afterwards because it turns out they're not actually interested in the services that you provide. So doing something like an iPad giveaway can probably generate a lot of leads, but you want to combine it with something that is a little bit more relevant to what you do.
00:23:35
Speaker
So those are really the, I think the four keys to creating a great lead generation offer. All right. Great offer for leads. Maybe it's a better way to put it. And just to review, you want things to be actionable and manageable.
00:23:51
Speaker
You want people to feel like, oh, this is easy to consume. People actually have time to go through the content and implement it. Along those lines, you want people to feel like it's profitable for them, provide some sort of quick win. That's the second piece. Third piece is that you have to answer that question, especially in promoting the lead generation offer. Why is it critically important that somebody sign up or download now?
00:24:17
Speaker
And then of course for you, you want to make sure it's relevant in that it actually qualifies your leads. Got it. Cool. Anything else that we should cover?
00:24:28
Speaker
No, I don't think so. I think that if that sounds like a lot, make sure you head to the show notes because we'll have it all written out and we'll have some links to some resources for actually like how to put it together. Exactly. So we'll have a corresponding blog post that pairs well with this podcast episode. In addition to that, we'll make sure that we list out all the resources that we have around lead generation so that you can easily access those. And then beyond the lookout, we have a guest coming on talking about email sequences in the near term. So I'm excited to record and share that.
00:24:57
Speaker
episode with y'all and that would be probably a little later in November by the time that one's released. So lots of great and free resources. You know, something else that you all can do for us is if you have questions about this kind of stuff, send us an email, all right? So if you go to the show notes and you're like, yeah, you know, I didn't find quite what I was looking for, send us an email because those are the emails that I think make it for the best podcast episodes. So we're always looking for feedback like that. Yeah.
00:25:25
Speaker
Last thing that you can do for us as well is if you can go, if you found this podcast helpful, if you can go to iTunes, I don't know, it's just Apple Podcasts now. It's just like me circa 2018 asking for a review. You can tell we're getting old. On Apple Podcasts, you can leave a review. We find those reviews both helpful and encouraging. So if you wouldn't mind doing that when you have a minute, we greatly appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for joining us, guys.
00:25:54
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.