Lead Generation- Are You Getting in Your Own Way & Losing Money?

I’m going to do everything I can to stay away from ranting in this post.

In fact…

Let’s reframe this right now (this is how my brain works folks…. just bear with me).

Instead of ranting about why you should be focused on lead generation (like, everyday), let’s approach this from a more analytical perspective, shall we? (but I promise I’ll try to have some fun in the process).

How about we look at what Lead Generation CAN do for your business so you get excited about implementing some of what I want to teach you /share with you in this post?

Before we do that, here’s a wee bit of a story for you.

You may (or may not know), that I’ve been online, full time since 2008. I would definitely say the first 5 years were challenging (not that there haven’t been challenging moments since then… but I’ve accepted that as simply life. The days of being a new business and struggling to understand this industry are well behind me).

With my first version of The WPChick, I had a newsletter opt-in.

And did nothing to promote it.

With my second version of The WPChick, I had an e-book offer. It was how to use the Featured Content Gallery plugin with a StudioPress theme (at the time my site was built on the StudioPress Church theme… this was ALL pre-Genesis days).

It did O.K., but I also did nothing to promote it (seeing the pattern here?).

Next couple of versions (moved to the Magazine theme from StudioPress, then the Genesis Magazine theme…then onto Scribble) all had different opt-in offers, but none that was ever part of a bigger marketing plan. Which is O.K. when you’re just getting started, but at some point you need to have some solid plans in place.

Fast forward to today and I know that.

I have a plan and it’s constantly getting tweaked… much like a pilot does. They have their route but course correct along the way.

That being said, there are THREE things that you MUST have in order to succeed with any business. And yes, I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.

The three things any business needs to succeed are:

Offers

Leads

Sales

It’s really not rocket science.

Yet we make it SO much harder on ourselves.

We spend hours creating content and sharing it on social media. Ideally you share it with your list as well.

But then what?

And before I continue… hear my heart…

I am sharing this with you because I have learned all of this the HARD way. I created content for a long time before I ever made an offer. And even then I was afraid I was going to offend someone (can I just say “WTF”?????)… seriously. This tends to be way less common with men than it is with women (not being sexist here ladies, just stating the facts).

It’s ALL a matter of perception (something I’ve accepted covers pretty much every aspect of life).

O.K., let’s get into a very specific example of two lead generation methods that could have cost me money had I not implemented them (or… have cost me money since I didn’t implement them until recently).

Lead Generation Method #1

Welcome Mat

Also known as Welcome Gate or Scroll Mat, but in this instance I’m referring to the SumoMe Welcome Mat that I added to my site about 6 weeks ago. To say I’m pleased with the results would be an understatement.

I have a clear call to action at the top of the site (in my image that is above the fold) and used to have a pop-up on the site (for the same offer). If you’re not familiar with the Welcome Mat, and haven’t seen it on my site (although if this is your first time here you’ve probably seen it before reading this post). If not go to an incognito window and you’ll see it. It’s basically a full screen opt-in offer. It covers the full screen (pushing the homepage down out of the way) so your only choices are to opt-in or scroll down.

I’ve added 238 subscribers in about 6 weeks.

Which isn’t bad (because that’s simply one source of lead generation. There are a handful of other things I do to drive new subscribers).

If you go by the rule of thumb that every subscriber is worth at least $1… that’s $238 a month. I know… not anything to get rich over, right? But if those numbers stay consistent (or that’s the average over 6 weeks), that’s over 2ooo new subscribers (or $2k) a year, depending on how you look at it.

Keep in mind those are averages.

Lead Generation Method #2

The Exit Pop-up

I’m testing this on a site and project that has nothing to do with The WP Chick, but it’s been really powerful and a perfect example of how this can cost you money.

I’ve mentioned on the podcast that I’m dipping my toes into CPA marketing (cost per action) and have been getting some great results. I’m using a tool called ClickMagick and am tracking everything.

ClickMagick has something called ‘rotators’ that allows me to have a few offers rotate through one link. The first campaign I ran we didn’t have the exit pop-up set up (I wanted to simply get a campaign up and converting… and it did. We got about a 30% return and have put it all back into another campaign).

On this second campaign (which just started), the first 5 conversions (over $400) have ALL come from the exit pop-up.

And we still have 1800 clicks left to go.

So not only has the exit pop made me money already… I have no doubt it will continue to make money while the campaign runs.

Which means I’ll be testing exit pop-ups on this site too (probably on landing pages only OR I’ll test a multi-offer lightbox from Thrive Leads).

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What does this all mean?

Lead Generation Matters.

And this post doesn’t even get into offers and sales.

Because without leads, you have no one to make an offer to in order to get the sale.

Which is why you need to start with lead generation.

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Resources mentioned in this post:

SumoMe Welcome Mat

ClickMagick

Thrive Leads