Last updated on February 28th, 2025 at 12:23 am
Want to make more sales?
Then you need to figure out how to generate more leads.
And that’s why today we are going to discuss how you can become more effective at lead generation.
We will also share some valuable free resources that can help you with that.
Introduction to Lead Generation
Okay, so before we get into the nitty-gritty of lead generation, let’s make sure that we are on the same page when it comes to the terms that we are going to be using throughout this article.
What is a Lead?
A lead is a potential customer who has:
- Expressed an interest in your product
- Gave you their contact details
Note that a person has to meet both of these criteria in order to be considered a lead:
- Someone who has visited your website but hasn’t given you their contact details isn’t a lead.
- Someone whose contact details you have somehow obtained but who hasn’t expressed any interest in your product isn’t a lead either.
You need to be crystal clear on this if you want to become more effective at lead generation.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the process of converting potential customers into leads by persuading them to give you their contact details.
In practice, “contact details” typically mean an email address, so online lead generation is about building an email list.
However, the goal isn’t to collect a bunch of random email addresses, it’s to get the email addresses of your dream customers so that you could then sell them your products.
What is a Lead Generation Funnel
Online lead generation is typically done via lead generation funnels:
- You create a lead magnet
- You create a landing page for that lead magnet
- You drive traffic to that landing page
When a potential customer gives you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet, they become a lead and enter your sales funnel.
That’s where lead generation ends – the next step is to convert that lead into a paying customer.
Lead Quantity vs. Lead Quality
It’s important to understand that not all leads are made equal.
There’s a spectrum of lead quality that you need to be aware of:
- High-quality leads are the most likely to convert into paying customers
- Medium-quality leads are less likely to convert into paying customers
- Low-quality leads are the least likely to convert into paying customers
There’s a trade-off between lead quantity and lead quality:
If you focus more on quantity, you will end up with more leads, but a lower lead-to-customer conversion rate.
If you focus more on quality, you will end up with fewer leads, but a higher lead-to-customer conversion rate.
You need to strike the balance between the two because going too far in either direction will make it difficult to generate sales.
How to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Lead Generation Strategy
How can you know whether your lead generation strategy is effective?
You need to pick a specific period of time and then take a closer look at these metrics during that timeframe:
- The number of leads generated
- Cost per lead
- Lead-to-customer conversion rate
- Revenue
- Profit
You should look not only at each metric by itself, but also analyze the relationships between them if you want to get the full picture.
That being said, ultimately, profit is the only business metric that matters, so if you are generating more and more profit every month, then you are probably on the right track.
How to Build a Lead Generation Funnel
So how can you build a lead generation funnel for your business?
Before You Start: Customer Research
Before you start building your lead generation funnel, you need to conduct extensive customer research.
This might seem like a waste of time when you are eager to jump straight into generating leads, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The more time you spend on customer research, the better you will understand your potential customers.
And the better you understand your potential customers, the easier it will be to create a lead magnet that truly resonates with them.
So make sure that you can answer these three questions:
Who are Your Dream Customers?
Do you already have a profitable business?
Then identifying your dream customers is easy:
- Take a look at your sales data.
- Figure out what attributes leads that convert into paying customers tend to have in common.
- Create a definition of your dream customer based on those attributes.
As you go through this process, several distinct customer segments might emerge. That’s okay. You can build a separate lead generation funnel for each segment.
And if you haven’t made any sales yet, then you will need to simply take your best guess as to who would benefit the most from your product.
Note that as sales start coming in, you might realize that people actually buying your stuff aren’t the people that you assumed would be your dream customers.
Simply adjust your approach accordingly once you have that data.
Where do They Congregate?
You also need to figure out where your dream customers hang out online:
- What blogs do they read?
- What podcasts do they listen to?
- What YouTube channels do they watch?
- What subreddits do they follow?
- What online forums do they participate in?
What are They Struggling With?
Ask yourself:
What are your dream customers struggling with?
Then, instead of dreaming up the answer all by yourself, go out there and do actual research.
You want to learn what your dream customers complain about, what issues come up again and again, what language do they use to describe those issues, etc.
Step #1: Create a Super Valuable Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.
It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:
- A report
- An eBook
- A webinar
- A video course
- An email course
…etc.
What matters is that:
- Your lead magnet offers a solution to a problem that your potential customers are struggling with.
- That problem is either the same or related to the one that your frontend offer addresses (more on creating an irresistible frontend offer later).
This is where your customer research comes in.
Pick the most painful problem that your dream customers are struggling with, then offer a solution to it in a format that makes the most sense.
Of course, you need to deliver what you promised, so make sure that your solution is actually effective.
Keep in mind that your lead magnet isn’t just bait to get people’s email addresses, it’s your chance to impress them.
Exceed their expectations and they will be eager to learn more about your paid products.
Disappoint them and you won’t get a second chance.
Learn more:
How To Create a Lead Magnet That is Highly Effective [With Examples]
Step #2: Create a Landing Page for Your Lead Magnet
Your lead magnet needs a landing page.
That is the page that you will drive traffic to – it will serve as the entryway to your sales funnel.
You can start with a simple squeeze page that has these three key elements:
- A headline that explains what your lead magnet is all about.
- An opt-in form where the potential customer can type in their email address. It can either be displayed immediately or shown after they click the call-to-action button.
- A call-to-action button that encourages the potential customer to get the lead magnet.
You might also want to experiment with additional elements such as subheadlines, social proof, relevant images, etc. Just make sure to A/B test everything!
Here’s an example of a simple, yet high-converting squeeze page that we are using for one of our lead magnets:
Learn more:
- How To Create a Squeeze Page That Converts [With Examples!]
- 10 Tips For Killer Lead Generation Landing Pages
- Split Testing – What It Is & Why You Should Be Doing It
Step #3: Start Driving Traffic to Your Lead Magnet Landing Page
Okay, so now that you have your lead generation funnel set up, how can you start driving traffic to it?
Here are some traffic generation ideas
- Paid advertising
- Influencer marketing
- YouTube marketing
- Social media marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Affiliate marketing
We recommend you to start with paid advertising because it’s the quickest way to put your lead magnet in front of your target audience – you can immediately see whether or not your offer resonates with your dream customers.
That being said, you don’t want to be completely reliant on paid advertising forever, which is why you should also invest in building traffic-generating assets such as a social media following, a YouTube channel, and a company blog.
Just keep in mind that building these assets takes time – be prepared to invest at least 12-18 months into them before they become significant sources of traffic.
How to Convert Leads Into Paying Customers
Generating leads is not enough.
You need a system for converting them into paying customers and then into repeat customers.
And that’s where the Value Ladder sales funnel comes in…
What is the Value Ladder Sales Funnel?
We believe that the Value Ladder sales funnel is the best way to sell anything online.
Physical products, info products, software, services, memberships, you name it, it works for everything.
This sales funnel has four stages:
- Bait – You offer the potential customer a lead magnet in exchange for their email address. That’s your lead generation funnel that we’ve just discussed.
- Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product.
- Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product.
- Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product.
Ideally, you should also offer some sort of a continuity program, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue.
The reason why the Value Ladder sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:
- Start the relationship with that person by offering free value
- Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email
- Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage
Here’s how Russell explains it:
How to Create an Irresistible Frontend Offer
You already have your lead generation funnel, so the Bait stage of your Value Ladder sales funnel is covered.
What you need to understand about the Frontend stage is that the purpose of the frontend offer isn’t to make you loads of money, it’s to convert leads into paying customers.
That’s why we advise you to create a special frontend offer that is designed specifically for that.
Here are three tips for making it irresistible:
Create a Logical Progression From the Lead Magnet to the Frontend Product
Your lead magnet should serve as a free sample of the value that the potential customer can expect from your frontend product.
For Example:
Matthew Hussey, a world-renowned dating coach, has a lead magnet called “9 Magic Texts No Man Can Resist” that provides nine text message scrips that women can copy-paste when texting guys they like.
And then there’s his frontend product called “The Momentum Texts” which offers 67 more text message scripts.
So if a woman tries the nine free texts and gets great results, she can then go and buy the paid scripts.
See the logical progression?
You want the same in your sales funnel.
Go Above and Beyond in Terms of Value
There should be a massive jump in value as the potential customer progresses from the lead magnet to the frontend product.
Continuing with the previous example, Matthew Hussey’s lead magnet features 9 text message scripts, meanwhile, his frontend product provides 67.
That’s more than a 7x increase in value!
Price Your Frontend Offer At $7
We recommend you to price your frontend offer at $7.
That way, its price:
- Isn’t high enough to make the potential customer stop and think twice before making a purchase.
- Isn’t low enough to make the potential customer doubt the value of that product.
And how much does Matthew Hussey charge for his “The Momentum Texts” guide?
You’ve guessed it.
Just $7.
Simple Formula for Creating an Irresistible Frontend Offer
Here’s a simple formula for creating an irresistible frontend offer:
Low Price + High Value = Irresistible Offer
Makes sense, right?
How to Sell Your Frontend Offer Via Email
We don’t recommend hitting the potential customer with a sales pitch for your frontend offer the moment they give you their email address.
Just because they have downloaded your lead magnet, doesn’t mean that they are ready to give you their hard-earned money. They don’t know you yet!
That’s why you should send them this “indoctrination” email sequence instead:
- Email #1: Who are you? Introduce yourself.
- Email #2: Where did you come from? Tell them a story about how you came to do what you do now.
- Email #3: What do you do? Provide more information about what it is that you do.
- Email #4: How did you gain this expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to do what you do.
- Email #5: Who do you do this for? Explain who are your ideal customers + share a case study on how you helped such a person.
- Email #6: How can you do it for me? Pitch your frontend offer
You should end emails 1-5 with a call to action where you ask the new subscriber a question and then encourage them to respond to that email.
And the final email should end with a call to action where you encourage them to click-through to your sales page and buy your frontend product.
We recommend you to use the Hook, Story, Offer framework for all emails in this sequence:
Want Russell to Show You How to Build Your First Sales Funnel?
Let’s keep it real:
Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.
That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.
You will learn how to:
- Generate unlimited leads
- Create your first lead magnet
- Build your first sales funnel
- Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
- And launch your funnel
…in just five days!
So don’t hesitate.