The Inbound Client Acquisition Machine: Free System for Growing Your Business
In a recent video, I spoke about how to pick the right marketing channel(s) for your B2B business. Now you might be wondering how to take that traffic from your marketing channels and turn it into leads for your business. That’s what we’re covering today.
Note: this assumes that you have product market fit (ie: something people want and a way of delivering it to them).
How To Generate Leads
We all want leads. It’s the first step to acquiring more customers and growing our business… but how do we get them?
It’s quite simple… give the people what they want (for free, usually)!
Although this isn’t a requirement, usually, you’ll give something away in exchange for contact information, and that contact information can be used for follow-ups and/or added to organic audiences (like an email newsletter).
It must be something that your target market really wants or they will not part with their contact information (or time/energy) in order to get it.
Word of warning: make sure your “lead magnet” is good! There is nothing worse than exchanging your contact information for something and then finding out it wasn’t worth your time and energy. This can have a negative effect on your brand and growth efforts.
I know all the Hubspot-certified marketers still recommend PDF downloads…
Question: has anyone ever downloaded a PDF lead magnet and thought it was worth the paper it was written on?!
If your lead magnet is really good, it will have the opposite effect. The people who get access will feel like they got value from your brand and may even feel indebted to you. This is especially true if you can teach people something or shift their perspective.
Give The Protocol Away For Free, Charge For Implementation
In my experience, the majority of B2B service providers have a unique approach, mechanism, or protocol that they use to deliver the outcome they are selling.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel but it’s likely you have a different angle or approach to the other options in the marketplace.
In these cases, I recommend giving this unique approach or protocol away (for free). You will then charge customers to help them to implement it into their business.
Many people are concerned about “giving away too much”. If that is how you’re feeling, then it’s usually a sign that you should be giving away the information! Do not worry. You will generate more leads and customers overall.
Let me explain.
Usually, people viewing it will fall into two camps:
Companies/customers who would never have worked with you anyway (budget, industry, etc.). Nothing lost here.
Companies/customers who might work with you either now or in the future. They will either:
Like what they see and need help with implementation right away
Like what they see and try to implement on their own
If this works, they will likely come to you for help taking things to the next level
If it doesn’t work, they will probably come to you to find out why it’s not working!
I really like doing this in video form. It’s called a Process Selling VSL (Video Sales Letter). This allows people to get to know you and you can build up rapport with your marketplace at scale.
Example from our business: we have a unique growth system called The Inbound Client Acquisition Machine™. It’s an end-to-end client acquisition system, designed to get your ideal customers coming to you. It’s based on our 30+ years of collective growth experience and we give the whole model away for free in a 30-minute-long presentation.
Guess who they contact if they would like a little help implementing the system into their business?
Opt-In Or No Opt-In?
You have two options with your “lead magnet”. You can require contact information (an “opt-in”) or you can share it without any barriers.
There are pros and cons to both.
Reasons to have an opt-in:
The conversion rate from viewers will be higher with fewer people getting access to the
(This is the best argument in my opinion) you can measure data across your whole funnel and therefore see where it is breaking down
Competitors are less likely to copy your stuff (this is particularly true in marketing…)
Without an opt-in, you have no ability to follow up with the leads. It’s likely they may get distracted and forget about it entirely!
Qualifies the people who are viewing the lead magnet
Reasons not to have an opt-in:
More people will see your lead magnet/content overall
Some of your customers are so jaded with opt-ins that they will never give away their information even if it could really help them and they’d be a perfect fit for your product/service
Ps: I talk a lot about “demand generating” and building your brand so people come to you. Using an opt-in does not mean you’re not building demand. You can still build demand, and capture it with a great lead magnet and an opt-in.
