Everyone likes getting something for free and now is the time to give it to them. Like we've talked about in many of our blog posts including How to Use Calls-to-Action in Your Lead Nurturing Campaign, 8 Ideas to Generate More Leads Online Today, and 5 Reasons Your Content Marketing Strategy Sucks, if you had the best website ever created, but didn't give your visitors a reason or a way to become a lead, you might as well not even have a website.
But, getting someone to become a lead isn't as easy as just having a form on your site. You've got to provide your visitors with an offer that they want to take advantage of.
We call that offer a high-value content (HVC) piece. And this my friends is the core of inbound marketing. THIS (high-value content) is what makes it all work, brings visitors to your website, and converts those visitors into leads.
In the inbound marketing world, these HVCs are used as an enticing offer that is only available once a form is completed (sometimes this is also called gated content). Info from that form fill then allows you to continue to communicate with the lead (otherwise known as lead nurturing) through follow-up emails, newsletters, and other marketing communication. HVCs can be a variety of items, usually bigger or longer and more in-depth than a blog or a single video.
During our time working with HubSpot as a Solutions Partner, we have seen tremendous success for ourselves (yes, we drink our own inbound marketing "Koolaid") as well as many clients and the key has been great high-value content offers.
Whether it's an eBook, white paper, checklist, infographic, tool, video, research paper, report, or master class, providing a resource that your target persona(s) will find useful is the key to growing your database with qualified leads.
For one of our clients, we've consistently had a 40-50% conversion rate month to month on landing pages for two eBooks, and one for a checklist. The average, across industries, is under 5%! [source]
The key to this success has been great content offers on focused landing pages that their target personas are excited to download. Creating a plan based on the needs and interests of your target personas is vitally important to the success of your content.
BUT how do you know what they want? It all starts with knowing who they are. No, I mean REALLY knowing who they are. Here are the steps to determining WHAT that HVC content should be
- You have to do the work to build the persona, preferably based on actual customer data.
- The persona, and some digging into your existing data, should help you understand what your customer's pain points are and why they need your product or service.
- Then you'll need to map the pain points to a buyer's stage, awareness, consideration, and decision stage of the journey.
- Now you should have the persona and the pain point for each buyer stage. So what assets do you have in place or what information do you have access to? I usually start with the easiest asset first and work harder. If you already have content that can be transformed into an HVC piece that can be a quick and easy way to get started. If you don't have content for an HVC ready to go, consider what content you're missing for each stage in the buyer's journey and get writing!
Ok, now you can create targeted pieces at a specific stage of the buyer's journey and THIS is when you'll see your conversion rates soar.
Other tips to take into account:
Match the value of your offer to the amount of information that you're requiring.
Example: Don't require a lot of information in your form for a piece of content that can be found elsewhere or for a piece of content that was easily created. If you see from data that people are on the landing page but you don't have good conversation rates, you can see how much of the form they are filling out with heat mapping software like HotJar.
Remove top navigation on your HVC landing page to eliminate distractions.
Landing page best practices include removing navigation to reduce distractions, including at least 300 words on the page, and making the form available in the right-hand column (versus the bottom of the page).
Highlight EXACTLY what the offer includes.
No one likes to feel ripped off. It's also easier to take the next step if you know what's ahead of you. So keep that in mind when you are building your landing page. Share what they'll get and maybe even the process of how they'll get it!
EXPERT TIP: Including a video near the form with a person explaining what they'll get to increase conversion rates! Try this out with your personas by creating an A/B test — one that includes a video and one that doesn't and see which one wins!
Deliver immediately.
Once the form is filled out, deliver on the content offer immediately by redirecting your new lead to a Thank You page that includes access to the asset. Then you can also send them an immediate follow-up email that also links back to the thank you page for access down the road.
Not sure you have the strategy in place or the customer data needed to create an HVC targeted properly for conversions, we understand. If you're tired of low converting landing pages or don't even have a lead capture strategy, chat with one of our Inbound Specialists today!
