Lead generation is the only activity that fetches revenue. Sales, marketing or lead generation should then be the engine that drives your company, literally. However, most entrepreneurs usually have one of the following two problems: no clients to speak off or too many clients to handle all by themselves alone. When you own a blog, however, it is somewhat possible to semi-automate the entire process of lead generation by following the process below:
- Set-up your blog up: The actual setting up of your wordpress blog (yes, use wordpress and don’t waste time with anything else — oh yes, we are more biased than you thought) is a very simple, 3-click affair with most of the hosting providers. There is plenty of information online to explain how this is done, in case you want to check it out. After the 5 minute, 3 click installation, set-up a theme for your blog and then add some great content to it. This should be, as some experts call it “Pillar Content”.
- Sign-up with aweber: The next thing you got to do is to sign-up with aweber – the Industry’s best auto-responder and email marketing software which will help you automate your marketing and lead generation. Go through their tutorials (if you are unfamiliar with the process of setting up auto-responders and follow-up messages apart from the usual settings) and get this step completed as soon as possible. You are now ready for the next step.
- Write a free report: This is the heart of your campaign – you must produce a PDF document which contains some really valuable information that the loan applicants are usually looking for. Give it an amazing, eye-catching and intriguing title like “20 Shocking Truths the Bank Will Never Revealed” or “10 heavily Guarded Secrets about Mortgages Unleashed” and set this file up on your server and simultaneously link it to your auto-responder message. It should be set-up such that when anyone puts-in their email address using the opt-in form (from aweber) on your blog, they should get a confirmation email (to check for spam) and then finally, your auto-responder software will deliver that report you made to your reader.
- Use aweber code and place it visibly on your blog: You did hear about that opt-in form in the point above. Using aweber, you can generate a form that is easy to create and then place it on your blog using two options:
- Option 1: Pick the HTML code your aweber allows you to copy (after you customize it the way you want) and then paste it on the “add post” area using the ‘HTML view”. Once you do that, click on “Make this post a sticky” box to the right side, before you hit “publish”.
- Option 2: Use a simple ‘Text Widget” that comes with wordpress and paste the HTML there. Only this form would now be shown wherever your theme allows widgets to be displayed.
- Write and keep a series of emails ready to be sent off to your subscribers: You now have to write out a series of emails (also known as follow-up messages for aweber) and upload them on to your aweber software. It will ask you for the frequency with which each of these emails will be sent out in sequence and you got to specify that. Remember that sending too many emails too quickly can hurt you. Make these emails personal and the best practice is to send out as many emails as you can without selling any of your services or products (just a line mentioning your credentials or experience will do). The idea is to keep providing value and nurturing them until they are ready to buy your services, talk to you or to do anything that leads to your profits.
All of the above steps are a one-time affair and once done and set-up your lead generation should be semi-automated. We call it semi-automated because you would want to send out sudden emails featuring your discounts or special offers; you would still have work to do with regards to writing more follow-up emails and much more.
Tags: aweber, How to set up autoresonder, Lead generation, Sales and marketing, Semi-automated Lead generation