Profitable Lead Gen Series: Creating Irresistible Offers

“Leads are the metric that, as marketers, we rely on. Because leads mean money.” This is a quote from Kip Bodnar of HubSpot. HubSpot knows lead generation, and this guy is thinking what we’re all thinking... but are we all doing? 

Many marketers know leads mean money (or they should), but only good, qualified leads turn to money. Just collecting contact information to boost your marketing ego and ramp up analytics doesn’t make your company money. You need GOOD leads. You need QUALIFIED leads. You need leads that can be nurtured by your sales team, and that, in turn, means money.  

Here’s the struggle—you want MORE leads, but you want BETTER leads. It’s a balancing act that takes a lot of focus, effort, and strategy.

Profitable Lead Generation

In this ‘Profitable Lead Gen’ series, we’re going to share some advice that’s been time tested to ensure you’re on the path to improving revenue through lead generation.  

Before we start, we want to point out that there are many factors, assets, and strategies that go into profitable lead gen efforts. It’s a big picture, and we’re going to share snippets in each post. LeadG2’s team of experts share tips related to lead generation often, and you can check out all of our blog posts on Lead Generation here. 

Mechanics of Lead Generation 

Before diving into how to create irresistible offers, we should first cover the mechanics of lead generation. The best lead generation campaigns contain most, if not all, of these components. From a tactical perspective, a marketer needs four crucial elements to make inbound lead generation happen, which include:

• The offer
• A call-to-action
• A landing page
• A form

Other assets can support lead generation, but these are the main, necessary elements.Sounds simple, right? Create a great offer that your people can’t resist, and they will come—we only wish it were that simple. I do lead generation for our company, and I’d love nothing more to push an offer out there and see our people come running to give me their contact information in exchange for this resistible offer.  

In reality, it might not be that simple. But it is most definitely attainable. Here are some tips and helpful hints to help you create irresistible offers for more profitable lead generation.  

1. Know What Your Target Persona Deems as Valuable 

As a smart marketer, you know this is your starting point. Knowing your target persona is a reminder that we all need to hear. At times, we wander off, thinking about the end goal, expectations, and what we need to be successful, when really, all of that lies in our target persona. If we start here, identifying pain points and seeking out their needs in that season, then the irresistible offers are easier to create. 

If you have never defined your target persona, we encourage you to do that. If you haven’t spent some time recently reminding yourself who your target persona is, and what they value as it relates to your services or products, do that before you start creating offers. An offer might be irresistible to you, but are you your target audience?  

2. Back to the Basics: Understanding Psychology 

I’m going to be honest; I was not very good at Psychology class in college. I signed up for it super excited because we talked about it a lot in my marketing and communications classes, but I didn’t do very well in that general Psych class. It was odd because in my marketing and communications classes, I always understood and excelled at this area of marketing. 

But understanding the science behind the mind and behavior of your target persona is a critical aspect of irresistible offers for your lead generation  strategy. 

The Element of Scarcity 

With principles like supply and demand, scarcity has a psychological influence on us, making us want something even more if there isn’t enough to go around. ‘Limited Time Offers’ or ‘Limited Quantity Offers’ create a sense of urgency.  

The Bandwagon Effect 

It’s natural for humans to copy one another without even realizing it—we like to be a part of groups, tribes, and communities. So, when we notice our social circle is doing one thing, we tend to follow suit.

One great way to make an offer more valuable is to show that other people who are similar to your target persona are participating in that offer. For example, a company promoting an online event could share that by registering, you’re joining with 4,000 others who have also signed up—showing proof in numbers. Just make sure your claims are not only true, but believable.  

3. Focus on the Content 

At this point, you understand the pain points of your target persona and why an offer is valuable to them, and you’ve drafted the idea based on the psychology that surrounds this. The last step is to ensure you have great content that drives action on the offer. Writing amazing call-to-action and landing page copy is key here.  

Kim Peek, Inbound Marketing Consultant at LeadG2, wrote in an informative blog post on writing great copy, “Capturing the attention of landing page visitors is a little like trying to sit down at the coffee shop with a friend while her toddler is quietly coloring. You have just small bits of time to cover the highlights before the toddler makes a break for the door, and your captive audience disperses."

If you’ve ever tried to converse with someone who is distracted, you understand the value of leading with the most important pieces of information. This idea also works when creating landing page copy since so many website visitors are multi-tasking as they search for the information they need.” 

Create Irresistible Offers for Lead Generation

Brian Halligan, HubSpot CEO and co-founder, once said that “you can have a great offer with a bad title, and no one will download it. But if you have an amazing title, suddenly everyone wants it.”

Yes—people do judge a book by its cover. Ensuring the title of your content as well as the call-to-action that drives people to that content is well written is so important to your lead generation efforts. Then, when you get them to the landing page, it’s critical that you’ve simply, yet eloquently, explained what you’re offering and why they need to give you their information in exchange for this valuable piece of content. 

Creating irresistible offers is important to driving revenue through lead generation. Knowing your target persona, focusing on the psychology behind who they are and what makes them act on an offer, and having quality content that’s well-written and drives them to an action, will help to make your lead generation efforts more profitable.  

For more on this topic as well as additional lead generation tips, check out our new ebook, The 30 Greatest Lead Gen Tips, Tricks and Ideas!