No matter how unique your product is, you’ll need people to sell it to. That’s why lead generation is such a major concern for small businesses . It’s enables you to find people who might be interested in becoming customers.
These days, the world is more online than ever. Almost every stage of our interactions with companies, from first discovering their existence to finally clicking ‘purchase,’ happens online. Fittingly, lead generation websites are among the most popular — and effective — ways for businesses to connect with prospective customers.
As you might have guessed, lead generation websites collect the contact details of your prospects. But there’s much more to the story than that! This article explains what a lead generation website is, how it works, and tips to create an effective site.
What Is a Lead Generation Website?
A lead generation website serves two purposes. First, it provides prospects with valuable information that solves their problems. And, second, it captures visitors’ contact information so you can build up a directory of people interested in your product/service.
These two goals are inherently connected. By answering your audience’s questions, you’re building credibility and establishing yourself as an expert in your niche. By building up this trust, prospective customers will feel inclined to provide you with their contact, usually an email. In exchange, you’ll provide them with something of value. That could be a discount code, educational or informative content, free consultation/assessment, free estimate, or a downloadable product.
Once your customers know your business, they enter your sales funnel and become sales leads. Visitors move from being aware of your company to learn more about its products and services. And, finally, deciding to hire you and become paying customers!
Effective lead generation is all about providing value. That means you need to understand who your target audience is and what their needs, preferences, and pain points are. Knowing your customers enables you to answer their questions, offer them value, and add them to your prospective customer database.
How Does a Lead Generation Website Work?
You may wonder, how can a lead generation website help accomplish your goals? No worries, we’ll get to that in the following paragraphs.
Your website should educate visitors on who you are, how your products solve their needs, and how they can contact you.
Lead generation websites should include a call to action (CTA). This button will take visitors to a landing page where they’ll find both, your contact information and a contact form. Once they’ve submitted their contact information, they’ll land on a thank-you page.
Adapting Your Site To Different Stages of the Marketing Funnel
The brilliance of this strategy is how easily it can be adapted to different stages of the marketing funnel.
At the top of the funnel (ToFu), lead-generation efforts should focus on simply educating the customer. You should help them solve their problems with no explicit sales pitch or outright mention of the product. To illustrate, your website could include a FAQ section where you answer your customers’ concerns about your product/service.
Mid-funnel (MoFu) leads need to know what differentiates your products/services to make a purchasing decision. For example, a landscaping company could share a guide to choose the best lawn care provider. Other content ideas for mid-funnel leads include clients’ glowing reviews or pictures that showcase the value of your service.
Finally, at the bottom of the funnel (BoFu) is your sales pitch. Here, your CTA will be aimed at getting the reader to engage with your brand through sign-ups for a free trial, free estimates requests, or booking a phone call with your sales team.
The more tailored your lead generation strategy is, the more effective it will be. So, feel free to create multiple lead-gen pages for all different types products/services you offer!
Additionally, if you have a blog, you can analyze which entries generate the most traffic and convert them into lead generation pages by adding appropriate CTAs.
What Makes a Lead Generation Website Great
Creating a spectacular lead generation website is no easy task. It takes excellent copywriting, an eye for aesthetics, UX web design, a notable SEO campaign, and above all, a close awareness of your audience’s needs. Here are a few basic principles to create great lead generation websites:
- Easy to navigate: visitors will click away before seeing your CTA if your site isn’t effortlessly intuitive to use and responsive. Make sure you have a great UX web designer.
- Well-designed and on-brand: a website that looks great and aligns well with your company’s brand identity shows professionalism and helps build credibility with potential customers. Your website should be modern and aesthetically pleasing.
- Super-targeted: Make sure your CTAs and offers are appropriate for your customers’ journey. For example, someone just visiting your site for the first time might want to “Get a Free Estimate,” while at the bottom of your funnel, the user might be ready to “Schedule Meeting.”
- Tracked and analyzed: monitor your site performance with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Hotjar, or Google Tag Manager. You’ll never be able to improve your site’s performance — and boost revenue — if you don’t know what works and what doesn’t. You can also try testing different styles of CTAs, landing pages, offers, and thank-you pages to see which performs the best.
Lead Generation For Business Growth
While lead-generation websites might seem like a complex or technical subject, this sales technique is about building relationships and connecting with people. The process might take a slightly different form in the digital age, but the basic principles are the same — offer value, help your customers, and always stay honest and true to your word.
Suppose these golden rules inform your lead-generation strategy. In that case, you’ll find yourself cultivating long-lasting, valuable customer relationships that keep you on track to reaching — and surpassing — your goals.
Are you interested in learning more about lead generation and marketing for your small business? We’re always sharing tips, tricks, and wisdom. Subscribe to our newsletter, and for more personalized assistance, contact our team about creating or updating your lead generation website!
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Article by Genevieve Michaels
Genevieve Michaels is a freelance writer based in Vancouver, Canada, focusing on B2B marketing, tech, and software-related content. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from The University of British Columbia.