Avoid Fall-Through-the-Crack Leads with effective email and website driven marketing

Effective email and website driven lead generation attract prospective customers to you in ways you might not realize!

Here are a few hints on how to spice up your digital marketing to get better responses and real live leads!

Hint #1: Grab them by the leg

Did you know that one of the most valuable pages on your website is the page that appears after the visitor has signed up for your email list, newsletter, or webinar? So…if you don’t have one of these yet, GET ONE. And if you have one, DO SOMETHING with it! Many marketers do absolutely nothing with this page!

This "Thank You" or "Success" page is incredibly valuable because your visitor has just expressed a high level of interest by having just taken action on your website. This person is much more likely to take more actions, if only asked. So ASK! Some sites redirect the visitor back to the home page, and some sites just leave the visitor hanging there until they hit the back button or bail out some other way.

Holy Cow, don’t let the opportunity to put another offer on your "Thank You" page, or link to more about your firm or services, at the very least.

Hint #2: Land Ho! Maintain Your Landing Pages long after your Campaign

Have you ever gotten an email offer that really interested you, but you didn’t have time for? Those single emails get clicks long after their original release date. Some of the customers you will send an email to will save the email (if it's a really good offer) so they can consider it at another time. Other subscribers pass them along to colleagues. (I do this all the time with my Barnes and Noble and Borders gift certificates).

So, if you send a solo email, remember to keep your landing pages up for a long time, and don't forget to check for new leads long after the campaign ran its course.

You can follow your click thru’s in your email service providers analytics…and you will see for yourself. There is definitely a cycle to the responses, but don’t be shocked if months later you receive a latent response. Why? With newsletters for example, it happens simply because many subscribers hold on to back issues in a separate email folder for future reference.

Hint #3: Short and Sweet!

Patience is a virtue but highly overrated when it comes to digital communication. You've probably noticed that you receive more and more messages every week. The frequency of the messages has increased, but the length of each gets shorter. Texting only allows for 160 characters while Twitter allows just 140.Every word has to work hard. Response rates tend to be higher for ads using bulleted, hardworking points that convince readers to jump from the newsletter to the landing page. It's always easy to write more; the hard part is writing less.

Hint #4: Consistency and Branding, Ever Important!

You always want to send someone from your email to a particular landing page on your website. Action! Action! Action! But, does your landing page reinforce that the user has come to the right place? Does the title bar match the message in the viewable HTML?

Let's say a visitor signs up for a newsletter on your site. The site often tells that user to expect an email with a link to their first issue. Does that email, which you subsequently send out, use the same type of language and have the same look-and-feel as the landing page where your visitor signed up? For continuity and branding purposes, it needs to, and it will help the recipient connect the dots back to how it was he/she came to your website and to want your newsletter.
Don’t assume that the recipient of that email containing the download link for your newsletter will take immediate action. The recipient may hold onto your email for days, weeks or months before actually downloading your newsletter. So, you want to reinforce the value of that download within the email containing that link.

Hint #5: Blogging for Lead Gen

Did you know that blogs can be lead generators? As you create content for your blog, be careful not to stray off topic and make sure to keep it updated to avoid the “ghost” label a blog gets when it is left unattended for too long.

If you offer consistent value in your blog, robust topics and dynamic content, your blog will draw a lot of attention, people will link to it and visitors will find you that may never have known you were there.