"To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the
only way that you will be truly rich."
--
Muhammad Ali
One of the keys to a successful long-term email campaign is the ability to build and
manage your audience lists. Of course you can buy or rent email
lists, but they are usually out of date and, since the recipient never really requested information from you, odds are you are not going to get a
good response rate. Your best bet is to employ a solid lead generation strategy.
The key to a lead generation strategy is to get people to give you their contact
information. A time-honored tradition for getting people to offer up
their contact information is to provide some value to the visitor in return for their information. This could be a free trial of the product, a free
appraisal, a free product demo, a "kit"of some sort, a white paper, or a case study. Whatever it is, it needs to be something that your visitors will
see as some value.
Your visitors' contact information is incredibly valuable. They know this and many
are not going to give it up easily. If you are going to have any
chance with this strategy, you will need to build up trust. Some people guard their privacy better than their money, so you have to help them feel
comfortable that they are doing the right thing. If, at every step along the way, they are getting something of value, it will be increasingly easier
for you to receive what you want.
Understanding this will help you build the proper marketing materials to support
this goal. Better yet, turn it around. Don't look at this from the
perspective of what are you willing to give prospects in exchange for their information. Do your best to discover what your target market would view
as valuable, and offer that in exchange for their information.
By getting the participant to participate in the process, you are building trust.
You are also getting them comfortable with saying "yes" to you. In
the sales processes, this is known as getting a succession of yeses. If you can get a prospect saying "yes" to even the smallest of questions, you
are building momentum towards a big final "yes" to the question "do you want to buy my product or services?" If you can start that succession of
yeses on the Web site, you will be setting your sales team up for success.
For example, if each step of your lead generation strategy provides value, your
visitor can assume that the next time you offer something, it too
will have value. When you offered a free product tour, your visitor gave up her time to look at it. She risked nothing, and invested only her time.
If she came away from it with a sense of value gained, then she will be more willing to sign up for the free product demo. You have laid a foundation
of trust with her and now she is comfortable giving up something else - her contact information - in return for something of equal or greater value.
This succession of yeses helps your lead generation efforts - not to mention the good will it creates during the sales cycle.
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