Lead Generation Web Site - How To Build It

In four days John has to pay a number of bills for his business including payroll and rent. He has already drained his lines of credit and maxed out his credit cards. While sales have been ok his problem isnt in closing deals, but getting new prospects to talk to. It takes approximately 2 months from getting a new prospect until he can close them and without a steady supply of prospects coming in he simply isnt closing enough sales to keep cash flow coming in. His situation is growing more desperate every day

Anyone that owns a business or must produce sales to live has been or can relate to John. If you are in real estate, financial planning, building contractor, insurance, mortgage lending, or any other number of businesses that require a constant supply of interested and qualified leads then you could benefit from building a direct response lead generation web site. A lead generation web site is just what it sounds like. It is a web site that works 24/7 generating interested and qualified leads for you. There are not a lot of lead generation programs out there that can boost that type of power. The key words here are interested and qualified prospects.

A prospect that has no interest in what you are selling is a poor lead. A prospect that has an interest but cannot afford your product or isnt really qualified to be a customer for any other reason is also a poor lead. Quality prospects must have both attributes to be worth spending your very short and critical sales time pursuing. To create a successful direct response lead generation web site you need to do a little homework.

First, you need to know what your ideal prospect looks like. What industry do they work in? What position do they hold in a company? How big is the company? Here is a key question, what problems do they face everyday that really causes them to lose sleep? You really have to understand your prospect, how to reach them, and what their hot buttons and issues are. You must be able to walk in his/her shoes and really understand the problems they face and how you can solve them. For example, if you are in real estate and your target market is first time home buyers then the strength of their credit and how much money they have to put down may be the two issues that really plague them in buying their first home. If you are a contractor your clients largest concern might be all the horror stories they have heard about bad contractors so they are really concerned about how to pick the right contractor. Once you know who your target market is and what the key problems they face are now you are ready to build your direct response web site. The web site has several key ingredients to be successful

1. Focused Customer Centric Web Site:

The obvious item is a web site, what is not so obvious is that this site needs to be very tightly focused on your target market and it must be centered on the customers needs, not you. So many web sites out there are company focused. They discuss the history of the company, the management team, and an overview of products or services. Essentially it is a large brochure about you, not them. By doing the home work above you should be able to use the elements of your site to immediately communicate with your customers.

a. Copy:

This is the big one. Make sure the copy (text) on the web site speaks to the client and to their problems. To do this effectively you must get their attention. Every page should have a powerful headline that simply causes the person to immediately stop, read it, and immediately dive into the first line of copy after the headline because they are so interested. The first line of copy should get them to read the second line, and that line should get them to read the third line and so on. For your copy to do this you must literally reach out and slap your prospect in the face with problem they face and indicate that you have the solution to that problem. Effective copy (see below) has several important elements by itself.

b. Graphics:

Your graphics should support the copy and the sales goal. These graphics can be pictures of products, diagrams of how the product works, or very well chosen marketing pictures that illustrate visually what the copy is already saying to the prospect. Remember the sole purpose of the graphics is not to add aesthetic value to the page, but support the sales message. If it doesnt do that it is fluff and a distraction, cut it.

c. Intuitive Navigation:

Your site must have intuitive navigation, the buttons have to not only tell the prospect very clearly what they will find if they click that button, but also create a desire in them to click on it. To do that your buttons have to strategically placed and have appropriate labels. This is not the place to get cute and artistic. Plain, simple, limited navigation that is easy to see and act on is what is required. You may need to do some usability testing on this navigation with prospective users to determine if you have it right.

d. No Clutter:

Dont clutter your pages with all kinds of extraneous copy, useless graphics, ads for other sites, dancing Flash based ads or decorations, and other nonsense. With all the neat things webmasters can do with Flash and JavaScript you might be tempted to let them create little effects on a page that look cool but at the end of the day only distract and confuse the user. For a much more detailed discussion of this please read my position paper on how Flash can kill your web site. It can be found at www.web2gold.com/Position.htm

2. Effective Copy: For copy to be effective it must do more than simply list what you offer or details about your products. These types of things are called features and contrary to popular belief features dont cause people to buy. The elements of effective copy include

a. Powerful Headline:

Again the headline must literally reach out and grab your prospects attention. It must have a powerful benefit statement that tells them by reading further they will discover a solution to one of their problems that keeps them awake at night.

b. Benefits:

Your copy must clearly show benefits to your prospect of doing business with you. For example, a feature of a computer is a fast processor, but the benefit is the ability to do work faster or process data faster and do more stuff in less time. In short, your copy must stand on its own and sell when you cant be there. This is especially important on the web since you never know when people are reading your site. To learn more about effective copy please visit www.web2gold.com/Copywriting.htm Effective copy should follow the AIDA principle in marketing, which gets attention, develops interest, creates desire, and causes the prospect to take action, which brings me to my final item a direct response web site must have

3. An Offer: An offer is the item you are giving away to get the person to respond. In direct response advertising whether it is display ads or direct mail must have a trigger or an offer that causes the prospect to take some type of action. It can be a free gift, a booklet, a special bonus if they order by a certain time frame, etc. Offers come in two basic flavors, hard and soft

a. Hard Offers:

is the prospect must make a buy decision or at least a serious step in that direction immediately.These types of offers are designed to elicit a buy decision immediately. This might come in the form of a 25% discount on all purchases made before a certain date. It might be a bonus they get if they call and schedule an appointment with a sales agent today. Regardless of what it is, the basic requirement

b. Soft Offer:

A soft offer is designed to allow a prospect to express interest in your product or service without necessarily having to make a buying decision today or allowing a sales person to meet or talk with them immediately. It gives them an opportunity to express some interest without going all the way. In essence, it creates a warm lead. A soft offer can be a free booklet or information kit. Perhaps a free DVD that explains the product in greater detail, it might be a free sample with some information.

Regardless if the offer is hard or soft it must first be something that interests the prospect. It doesnt do any good to present an offer if the prospect doesnt really care what you are giving them. The prospect must attach value to the offer for it to work properly as a direct response mechanism. That is why it is so important to understand the prospects mind set and what problems really keep them awake at night and what hot buttons will cause them to buy and what types of things they attach value to

By understanding these triggers you can create offers that really get at the heart of what motivates a prospect to action. Some direct response marketers will say that hard offers are good for small purchases that dont require a large risk on the buyers part and soft offers are good for products or services that require more risk or have a longer sales cycle. Some marketers believe you can have both offers at the same time. Your site can present both and generate both types of leads for you, both urgent prospects more ready to buy and warm leads that will require a bit more work to close.

The effective direct response web site is built around these principles. It is a niche market to a clearly defined and specific prospect. It works by utilizing effective copy, page layout, graphics, and the rules of effective design. It attracts both willing and qualified prospects and leads them through a pre-defined set of steps to an offer which is designed to capture their information.

The mechanism that captures their information can be a form they complete, a phone number they call, or even an online customer service agent they initiate conversation with by clicking on a button and essentially have an instant message discussion with someone live. Building an effective direct response web site is like building any effective piece of marketing. You must clearly understand your goal, what your ideal prospect looks like and then use effective direct marketing principles and effective web design to rake in all the prospects you can.

In future articles I will discuss how to get more qualified traffic to this web site and other elements that can be added to a site to make it even more powerful. If you would like to know what those items are today then take a moment to either call me directly at toll free anywhere in the U.S. 877-844-5829 to schedule a consultation or visit http://www.web2gold.com/Offer and request my free special report The 10 Biggest Web Site Mistakes and How to Avoid Them"

Michael Temple is the President of Temple Development Corporation. He is a consultant, speaker, and author in the areas of Internet Marketing, eCommerce, Customer Relationship Management, Copywriting, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing, Internet Branding, and Direct Response Marketing.

Michael consults and speaks to companies and associations of all sizes. He develops outcome based solutions that assist companies in increasing sales, generating more leads, boosting profits, and creating efficient Internet communication strategies. He is also on appointment as an adjunct professor at Lourdes College, a private four year college in Sylvania Ohio teaching Internet marketing and advertising.