Lead Generation

This type of offer is part of a two-step offer because its end goal is only step one in the e-mail marketing process—to bring in new leads. Step two, of course, would be to market to those leads in an effort to get them to buy, or become paid customers. There are numerous kinds of lead generation offers, many of which begin with the enticement of something that is of value to the prospect, but is being offered for free.

The appeal here, of course, is that the prospect will, if he responds, be re- warded with something that costs him absolutely nothing. The thing to keep in mind (and also be wary of) is that there are plenty of unqualified prospects who will respond to this type of offer. Prospects that fall in this category will almost certainly never make a purchase—they’re “freebie seekers” and are probably not even interested in your end products and services. They typically comb the Web for offers and cannot be counted on to ever become bona fide leads. Using only the most targeted opt-in e-mail lists and relating the gift to what you’re actually selling can help deter people in this category.

There are some other more obvious things to keep in mind when developing a free gift offer. First, make sure the gift is truly something you can afford, budget- wise, to give away. In this same vein, if the gift is too appealing, it may reduce the need for your new leads to make a future purchase.

5 / Brainstorming the Offer

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Free gift offers can appeal to both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business- to-business (B2B) offers alike. On that note, if new leads are gathered through the use of a B2B offer utilizing a free gift strategy, you should strive to follow up with them immediately with a phone call or an e-mail response. Within an hour is the ideal response; within three days is the maximum—the quicker, the better.

Following are some tried-and-true primary offers in the free gift category, split by business and consumer orientation (according to where your target audience falls).

Business-to-business.

• Free whitepapers, etc. This can be a valuable document to a businessper- son. It can include a normally expensive research report and/or industry analysis. Or it can be a set of business case studies to help your target au- dience learn from others. As long as the presentation of the information is presented objectively, this type of offer can have enormous appeal. An- other added benefit of this type of offer is it can be delivered to responders through fax or e-mail, so postal mailing costs don’t have to come into play.

• Business tools. This includes items you may already have on hand that also can be sent via e-mail or fax, such as “to do” lists and worksheets, online and/or software calculators, and industry-specific analysis software that can be downloaded from the Web.

• Specialized business books. This is particularly effective if the cost of the book (and its shipping) can be justified, and if the book is specialized enough to appeal to your target audience.

• Free seminars, online chats, or Webcasts. The seminar can be in person or online and the Webcast can be produced in advance and loaded onto your Web site for responders to download at their leisure. In either event, the presenter should have credibility within the target market’s industry and the content should be as fresh and as timely as possible.

• CD-ROM giveaway. This is similar to the downloadable software, only it is sent through regular mail. With this type of offer, you’ll collect not only e-mail addresses for future marketing, but “snail mail” addresses as well.

Therefore, you may be able to enhance your communications with new leads by reaching to them across mediums.

• Free registration. If your site normally requires a fee to use its services, then a limited-time (e.g., one month) free registration offer can be a worth- while perk.

Consumer.

• Free lower-priced product. Also known as a loss leader or “feeder” prod- uct, this is one of your products and services that you can afford to give

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Permission-Based E-Mail Marketing That Works

away. In the subscription business, it could be a magazine or newsletter on, say, stock trading for new-to-the-stock-market investors. The idea is to ed- ucate those subscribers and, in the process, upsell them to the more ad- vanced publications. In the retail arena, it can be a starter kit of some sort, with or without a purchase. Women have seen many a cosmetic company offer the “free makeup bag” with purchases of $45 or more. This same concept has been brought to the e-mail marketplace as well.

• Free report. Remember the emotional desires and appeals from earlier?

Think about how you can turn an answer to one of those appeals into a free report that is targeted to your market. For example, if you sell herbal vita- mins or some other health-oriented product, you could pull together (or purchase the reprint rights to) a report on how to treat obesity, or diabetes, or aging skin—using the natural way, meaning with your products.

Again, the free report can be faxed or e-mailed. This can happen all at once, or some marketers offer e-mail reports that have multiple parts that are delivered separately, one by one. This is an excellent method to es- tablish a regular communication with responders.

• Multiple gifts. More often than not, these are trinkets and don’t cost much;

yet these types of offers can be very compelling to the right audience.

Often, the idea is for the number of gifts to go up as the dollar amount of the actual purchases goes up. Fingerhut Corporation has used this strategy for years in their direct mail efforts, often giving away between two and four “gifts” for every single purchase.

• Mystery gift. The free gift, in this case, is an unknown to the recipients of this type of offer. Again, the proper audience is required, because this won’t nec- essarily cut it with people who absolutely and without doubt need to know what they’re getting. An offer such as this might, however, appeal to an en- tertainment site, or a site that sells Harry Potter books and related products.

• Free complementary products. These can be small token gifts that can be used with your end products. For example, film if you sell cameras, a nail file if you sell grooming kits, a jar of spice if you sell kitchen products, etc.

This offer can enhance the worth of your products and may strengthen your brand in the responders’ eyes.

• “Your choice” of gifts. This one is a bit of a tougher offer, logistically speaking, to pull off and fulfill. And sometimes giving people too many choices paralyzes them into inaction. It may be worth testing, however.

• Free catalog. Large volume, offline catalogers that normally charge con- sumers for their catalogs can offer to ship a free full color print catalog to e-mail responders. Oftentimes, these catalogs are already printed for other marketing efforts and for in-store use, so the biggest costs for fulfillment would be for shipping.

5 / Brainstorming the Offer

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• Free shipping. Everyone likes free shipping because it adds to the conven- ience of shopping online. Free shipping is offered with purchases of pre- designated orders. For example, Staples offers free shipping on orders of

$50 or more. Obviously, the products have to fit the target audience’s needs because, after all, what good is free shipping if you don’t really care about the products?

• Sweepstakes. The thrill of winning a high-dollar prize is the appeal here.

Many e-mail marketers have generated tons of leads by using this type of offer. A free trip, a car, and even thousands of dollars in cold hard cash have all been enticements with e-mail. Again, be careful, because a sweep- stakes offer without a monetary commitment will draw plenty of people who will never be qualified leads, let alone true paid customers.

Other “free” ideas, for both consumer and business-oriented offers, include free estimates, demonstrations, and lessons or educational material—either online or offline—of some kind. And keep in mind, even the best-planned lead genera- tion offers will only induce your prospects to “open the door” to you, so to speak, slightly. Responders here are wary, yet most of the time, they’re interested in what you have to ultimately offer, at least to a certain degree.

Of course, it’s also possible to generate leads in ways outside of offering something for free. Sales offers are the second type of lead generation offer.