Tapping the Lead Vein: Step Two

What’s in it for them?

You’d be surprised at the number of marketers who expect leads to flow without considering that question. Seriously.

What’s in it for them? 

If you’re going to deliver qualified leads to a sales team, you’d better be prepared to make an offer to attract leads that will add value to their lives.

Think about it. You’re asking a virtual stranger to entrust you with their contact information, even if it’s simply their name and email address. I’ve found, especially from a B2B perspective, that information + insights are good trades for a lead.

I’m a big fan of:

• White papers – high-quality content, well presented. Five-to-eight page white papers should be dense, cerebral, and marketing-free. They’re great for establishing thought leadership, too.
•  Web seminars – again, high-quality content, well presented. I like to leverage associations’ production and marketing resources for web seminars. The AMA, for example, produces, markets and hosts web seminars that attract droves of marketers each month. I once drove 2,000+ leads through one of their web seminars. At less than $10 a lead, the price was right to simply be able to “show up and present.”
• Creating (and reporting) research results using your own data. If you’re lucky enough to have a data bank of information that you can aggregate and report on, consider systematically reporting on it for the greater good of the market / your own thought leadership.

Any relationship that starts with value-based trust has a pretty good opportunity to last.