Baby Steps

Recently, I was talking to a client about their online marketing. The client was looking to improve their online marketing and was exploring their options. Currently, they capture only a few pieces of information when prospects sign up to access a report: In order to read the report, the prospect needs to leave their first name and email address.

Fair enough. People are signing up. They get the report. They get a handful of autoresponders offering the full service. Pretty standard. So my client was talking to me because they were finding that many prospects were disappearing after the autoresponder publishing calendar was complete. What they were thinking about was asking for more information up front, like a phone number, so that they could call up the prospect and market to them over the phone.

My advice is that they don’t ask for that information up-front. Instead, they should ease more information out of the prospect by taking the prospect on a journey of trust. I know that if I were offered some information, I would weigh the amount of contact information I give about myself against the perceived value of the information being offered, as well as the likelihood that the company collecting my information would call me up and hassle me. Over time, I might come to trust the company and realize that talking with them would not be a hassle, but I don’t know that at first.

So, I suggested to my client that they give the initial report for a first name and email. Then, a month later, give away another incentive for the name of their state. Then, a month later, give away another incentive for their last name. Then, a month later, give away another incentive for their phone number. These incentives could be reports, downloadable tools, trial offers, or a book: Something that has value.

The same holds true for your business’ online marketing efforts. If you’re getting a lot of traffic to your site but no one is signing up for your free information, try asking for less information up front. Instead, build trust over time and demonstrate that the information you give is worth far more than the contact information they "paid" for it. Show that you aren’t spamming them or selling their name to a list. Show that you have their best interest at heart. And when you do that, you’ll be qualified (in their mind) to trade a little more information for a little more contact information.

And, over the course of a few weeks or months (depending on what you’re offering or what your publishing cycle is), you’ll have a complete contact sheet filled out on each prospect, and you’ll have enough trust and credibility in your relationship bank to pitch your product or service to your prospect.

Contemporary VA

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