Tips to Try When Creating a Lead Capture Strategy

Creating an effective and thoughtful lead capture strategy can be the difference between cultivating a revenue stream with longevity and having spiderwebs in your inbox.  

Lead capture can be a buzzword, but don’t overlook the benefits of the practice. Lead capture strategy is where you point your prospects in the right direction to get more information on what they are looking for. This can also be referred to as your sales funnel. At its core, it’s reaching out to the right customer, at the right time, with the right information. Sounds simple, right?   

Well, it is… and it’s not. If you start with a successful foundation and do your upfront research, you create a channel to gain new customers while you sit and wait for them to come in. If you don’t prioritize the initial setup, you risk wasting time and money trying to build on an unstable foundation.   

So, how do you create a solid foundation for a lead capture strategy?   

Understand your audience before creating your strategy  

Stop barking up the wrong tree.  

If you don’t have an insightful understanding of your audience, you’ll be stumbling at every additional step in creating your lead capture strategy. Spending time and money on creating a piece of content that you HOPE your audience will like, instead of knowing they will like it based on research, is wasting valuable resources without much to gain.   

A helpful practice can be to list out each of your buyer personas and everything you know about them. A Buyer persona is a general and fictional depiction of real customers. Creating a buyer persona could cover:  

• Demographics  
• Interests  
• Values  
• The problem they are experiencing that make your product a good candidate for a solution  
• The goals they want to achieve using your product  

For example, let’s say you own an at-home gym system. One of your buyer personas may be “Mother Maggie” Maggie is a mom with young children who wants to stay in shape, but can’t schedule gym sessions easily with her schedule. She lives in a two-income household and is fitness-focused but it’s not a core part of her identity. Maggie values her personal time but has a long to-do list. She needs a quick way to burn some calories without having to book a babysitter.   

Want to be walked through the buyer persona process? Download a template here!  

Connect your gated content to your buyer persona  

Now that you have your buyer personas lined up in front of you, it will become much clearer what types of content will entice your prospective customers to enter your sales funnel. One of the most successful ways to do this is through gated content.  

Gated content is any content that your visitors can access only after providing their information. This most commonly includes email addresses, but can also include position information, company information, and business priorities that you may be able to help with.  

Understanding your audience will guide you towards the content that they are most likely to engage with. Let’s go back to our “Mother Maggie” and at-home exercise equipment example. We know that Maggie values a productive schedule, doesn’t have much time, and is looking for a good workout. Maggie may be likely to engage with a guide that gives you at-home exercise routines that will kick your butt in 40 minutes or less.  

Always match your lead capture to the page theme  

The last thing you want to do is be sales-y. One of the ways you can look sales-y is by matching your gated content to the topic and theme of the page it’s found on.  

 When you try to push gated content covering topics that are irrelevant or unrelated to the page, it seems like it’s only there for selfish, email-earning purposes.   

But when you match the gated content to the topic and theme of the page, it seems like more of a helpful recommendation. A great way to do this is to offer gated content that is a more detailed, in-depth look at a topic that is only generally covered on the web page.   

Looking at our “Mother Maggie” buyer persona, let’s say you gated content piece that covers a breakdown of 40+ workouts you can do with your exercise system. This would look good on a specific product page. It wouldn’t fit as well on the “pricing” or “about us” page.  

Have a dedicated location on your website for gated content  

If you’re far along in your lead capture strategy, you may have tons of gated content and incentivized value already created. So, how can you maximize the views, engagement, and conversions coming from this content?  

Creating a “resources” page is a great way to house all of your valuable gated content so interested individuals can peruse everything you have and explore the ones that speak to them. The more eyes you get to your gated content, the more opportunity for leads!  

Don’t be a pest  

Nobody likes a pushy sales funnel.   

Using outdated and annoying lead capture tactics won’t help your strategy at all. If no one is clicking on your content, it’s your problem – so don’t make it theirs!  

Make sure the opt-out option is clear and available. Don’t show the same popup to the same person multiple times. Don’t have multiple popups live on the page. These sketchy practices don’t convince people; they drive them away.  

Being helpful and being pushy is astonishingly similar when it comes to a lead capture strategy. Make sure you don’t step into the latter!  

Keeping track of and leveraging an effective lead capture strategy can feel daunting. But when you plan, the goals become much more realistic. Looking for a little help with your lead capture strategy? Reach out to our team!