More Leads; How To Win The Hearts And Minds of Those Who Aren’t Ready To Buy Yet

97% of your prospects aren’t ready to buy yet. How can you make them ready? 

You start by providing value first. In my experience, content—whether written, video, or audio—works best. Not only does it guide them through the stages of awareness, from problem recognition to understanding the solution, but it also builds trust and affinity with your brand.

Offer value, nurture your prospects, and guide them through a sales funnel, ensuring your brand is top-of-mind when they’re ready to buy.

And how do we get them into that funnel?

You start with a strong opt-in offer. Whether you call it a lead magnet, a high-value-content-offer a freebie, or whatever, an opt-in offer is designed to do two things;

  1. Get people to raise their hand and show you they are interested in what you offer

  2. Give you their contact details so you can contact them

For most e-commerce brands, here’s the standard opt-in offer. It comes as a pop-up on the homepage about 5 seconds after you land, here it is:

“Get 10% off your first order” 

A discount code is a very common opt-in offer, but not the only one. There are a myriad of different e-commerce opt-in offers, and you need to test to find the most effective one for your business. As of writing this, I’m in the process of building a “FiSH” funnel as our opt-in offer. A “FiSH” funnel is the nickname for a free plus shipping and handling funnel. The opt-in offer is a “free” product. We’re developing a sample tester pack of coffee to take the hassle out of deciding which coffee new customers should buy. They get an opportunity to try some of our highest-selling beans. All we ask is that you cover shipping. 

But we’re not done here. This is where this opt-in offer has some magic in it. The cost of shipping has been slightly increased to cover the cost of shipping and the COGS of the product offer. As I said, this is currently untested for the business I am working with, but the free plus shipping and handling funnel is common for lead gen in various different industries. 

So you need to find a strong opt-in offer for your e-commerce channel. Remember, email flows will help turn these leads into customers. 

How do you know if your opt-in offer is strong enough? It should be getting at least a 12% opt-in rate. 

Double Your Lead Generation Growth Rate For Services And Wholesale Customers

For service-based businesses or those with a wholesale offering, your lead generation tool will likely come in the form of a lead magnet. In fact, discount codes and "free plus shipping" offers are both examples of lead magnets as well. 

As Alex Hormozi puts it, a lead magnet is essentially a complete solution to a specific problem. It’s a free offering you provide to potential customers as a way to begin establishing trust. This allows you to demonstrate the value you bring before asking them to make any kind of financial commitment.

Prior to working with a particular client, their main source of lead generation was in-person prospecting and an organic search to an enquiry form on their website. But when we used the strategy below, their lead flow doubled. 

In my experience, free or low-cost, high-value content offers—such as PDFs, cheat sheets, how-to guides, trainings, and courses—have proven to be highly effective for generating leads. These methods have also been the most cost-efficient to scale. I've successfully used this approach for wholesale customer lead generation, as well as in education and creative services businesses.

Can you offer potential customers a complete solution to a specific problem for free?

Here are some ideas of what you could provide:

  • A free trial or sample

  • A quiz

  • A webinar

  • An audiobook

  • A calculator

  • A template

Once they accept your offer, a welcome series should follow. After they sign up via a landing page, a lead form embedded in your ad campaign, or take a free quiz on your website, they should receive a series of emails that:

  • Deliver the lead magnet (if applicable).

  • Provide ongoing, valuable information and always lead with value first. Offer content that addresses the problems your customers face—problems your products or services also solve, but in a focused, specific way. Whilst also positioning your product or service as the complete solution. Additionally, provide information that addresses challenges adjacent to or upstream from the problem your product or service solves, further reinforcing your expertise and building trust with your leads.

  • Include calls-to-action encouraging them to take the next steps toward a sale, whether directly or through a multi-step sales process.

How do we increase awareness of these lead magnet offers, our products, and our brand as a whole? That’s what we’ll cover in the next section.

Your Business Growth Secret Weapon Without the Hefty Price Tag

Download your FREE copy of the Mindstream Marketing Playbook and learn the strategy I’ve used to help businesses increase their revenue by 25% (to a multi-seven-figure run rate) in the past 12 months, get over 200 marketing-qualified wholesale leads and scale to 3 locations.