The first step in an effective lead generation campaign is creating valuable offers to convince website visitors to entrust you with their contact information.

Welcome to part one of my series on effective lead generation.

In this four-part series, I’ll guide you through the four most crucial components of the creating an effective lead-generation and lead-nurturing campaign. And I’ll help you tailor your strategic marketing objectives to generate a high volume of quality leads.

Today, we’re looking at how to create valuable offers, the first step in converting a website visitor into a lead.

Offering value

To generate a lead, you need to convince visitors on your website to give you their contact information — and this takes work. You can’t simply expect them to generously hand over their personal information. (Don’t we all get enough emails?!) This means you need to tempt them with something they really want, which you give them in exchange for their contact info.

You may be asking, what will my audience find valuable? And this is where your content comes into play.

One of the fundamental principles of content marketing is that your expertise is just as valuable as your products and services. Well-written, high-quality content is always more effective at generating leads than an overt sales pitch.

Creating valuable offers

When designing your content, keep these three questions in mind:

1. What does my audience need?

It might seem like a basic consideration. But before you jump with both feet into creating an offer, take a step back and really consider the needs of your audience.

This is a good time to check out other industry blogs, social media, and online forums like Quora. What kinds of questions are your prospective buyers asking? What problems are they facing, and how can you help them?

2. How do I best serve the information I’m presenting?

Once you have a clear, well-researched idea of what your audience needs, think about what format best serves the content you’ll be offering them.

Depending on how your information should be structured, valuable content offers could be industry reports, guides, infographics, free consultations, product demonstrations, discounts, or webinars. You’ll often find that you can repurpose your existing content into an exclusive new, valuable offer.

3. How do I let my audience know that my offer is valuable?

So you’ve figured out what your audience needs, and created and structured a content offer to meet that need. Now it’s time to let your audience in on the secret.

The higher the perceived value of an offer, the more irresistible it becomes. And a big part of what we perceive to be valuable is about exclusivity and high demand.  

To create this feeling of exclusivity and demand, use elements like:

• Limited-time offers
• Limited quantities
• X number of people have seized this offer
• Content that matches current trending topics
• A title that hooks interest

When you create an offer that your target audience perceives as truly valuable, your lead-generation efforts will begin to grow exponentially.

What tips do you have for creating valuable offers? Want to learn more about the crucial components of the creating an effective lead-generation and lead-nurturing campaign? Here’s the rest of the posts in our series:

• Creating Calls-to-Action that Convert Leads: Part Two of Effective Lead Generation
• Landing Pages that Convert: Part Three of Effective Lead Generation
• Making Forms that Convert Leads: Part 4 of Effective Lead Generation

Related posts:

• Facebook Lead Ads: Why Your B2B Business Should Use Them
• 5 Tips to Generate More Leads on Your Website
• Lead Nurturing, like Dating, Requires Time and Trust