As a B2B marketer, what’s the one thing you’re always trying to grow?
Your lead count, right?
Of course. All profitable organizations require a steady stream of leads that their marketing and sales teams can nurture and close into new business – translating into revenue gains for the company.
As an agency, we discuss this critical lead gen goal with new clients on a regular basis. Just about everyone we talk to is looking for an effective way to bring in more leads. Better leads. Right now.
Well, this just in. Literally JUST in.
While you’re reading this post, our PMG crew is attending HubSpot’s INBOUND 2016 Marketing & Sales Conference – an awesome (and gigantic) annual event during which the HS team consistently reveals new product releases, feature updates and long-term projects that have come to fruition. And this year is no exception.
There are a number of product and platform updates being officially launched today, but specifically, to give you a taste of the awesome power of inbound marketing, as well as its intuitive and commanding tools, HubSpot has released HubSpot Marketing Free as part of their new Growth Stack package (which also includes HubSpot Sales Free and their CRM). And yes, you heard me right. The operative word there is free.
Marketing Free comes complete with a simplified analytics dashboard, a centralized contact database, kick-back (a catchier word for follow-up) emails, a tool to collect data from all your current website and landing page forms, integration with MailChimp and your CMS of choice, and the capabilities to seamlessly sync with the rest of the HubSpot Growth Stack package. Plus…
…the updated and fully integrated version of Leadin! – now known as Lead Flows within the portal.
And wouldn’t you know, HubSpot Lead Flows is the solution to your immediate lead generation problem that you’ve been looking for. Did I mention that it’s free?
Moreover, the “in minutes” piece of this headline isn’t a stretch either. With a little strategic thinking and additional site page promotion efforts, you’ll be raking in new contacts in no time. All you have to do to build your first Lead Flow is follow these 5 easy steps.
First things first, pick the type of Call-Out you'd like to create and the offer that you want to market to your website visitors. Perhaps it’s a helpful white paper you wrote to address a hot button industry issue, or a simple subscription to your monthly eNewsletter. Regardless of the content, like any other article or post, including an image in your Call-Out is going to substantially increase your click-through rate. Don’t ignore this option! Leverage an image of your eBook’s cover, or a screenshot of your newsletter header – whatever visually represents your offer best. Or you can even use a simple, creative vector image or icon. Just make sure you’ve got something to make your pop-up… well… pop!
What to consider: What is this offer worth in terms of information you’d like to gather from your lead? With Lead Flows, there are limits to how many / which form fields you can include (First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Phone Number), so don’t serve up a bottom-of-the-funnel offer for which you’d like to gather a lot more information to qualify your lead. Lead Flows are great for introductory TOFU offers or subscriptions where you're simply seeking to capture some basic data.
As previously mentioned, the offer is accompanied by the form (4 fields max) through which you’ll exchange information with the contact. You can custom-colorize your form to match your company’s branding guidelines, and you can select one of four options for where this Call-Out will appear on your visitor's screen.
What to consider: If you start using Lead Flows (and to be frank, there is no reason why you shouldn’t), and you start seeing the leads roll in (again, with enough traffic and relevant content, there is no reason why you shouldn’t), you may want to consider upgrading to HubSpot Starter. It’s only $50 per month, it circumvents the HubSpot branding of your Call-Out, and allows for custom fields. That way, you can ask for whatever information you want to, as long as it's an open-text field.
Plain and simple. Once the user makes the decision to download your offer and clicks on the form’s submission button (which also features customizable text), they receive a thank you message. This is where the contact receives his or her end of the bargain. You can hyperlink text to provide the lead with the material they’ve requested, as well as a nice snippet of copy to make them smile about it.
What to consider: Up until recently, you could only include an in-line thank you message into your Lead Flow once a visitor downloaded your content, which certainly will suffice under most circumstances. However, with Marketing Free, Lead Flows incorporates the option to send an automated thank you email, in which you can send them the offer, as well as any other content your little marketing heart desires. With a follow-up email, you can keep the contact engaged with your website, and continue to nurture them along in the sales cycle.
After setting up your Call-Out, you’ll then be prompted to select the corresponding URLs to pages on which you’d like the Call-Out to show up. There is no limit to the number of pages you can use. Next, you’ll specify WHEN you want the pop-up to show up (for example, after the user spends 7 seconds on the page, after the user scrolls half way down the page, etc.)
What to consider: Which pages are your most popular (a.k.a. which ones receive the most traffic?) These pages serve as great real estate for a Lead Flow Call-Out. Try placing Call-Outs for content that are relevant to the content on the page (of course, it’s no secret that a solid message match leads to increases in conversions). For example, we’ve seen great results from including a Call-Out for our 7 Signs You’re Ready to Outsource Your Marketing eGuide on blog posts that have to do with outsourced marketing tips and best practices. Makes perfect sense! When it’s easy for the user to make the connection in real time, they’re much more inclined to download your offer.
What’s extra great about Lead Flows is that when it sends you a notification (you can select which email address(es) receive one in Settings) about a new lead, it provides you with additional information about the contact, as well as the contact’s company or organization. This information is then funneled into the contact’s auto-generated record in your database so you have it all in one convenient location.
What to consider: Think about the people on your team who would find this information valuable. *Hint* Your sales reps! Sure, as the in-house marketing pro, you’ll want to be placed on the notification list. But if your sales reps have the “get ‘em while they’re hot” mentality, and they’re good at capitalizing on timing, give them the option to shoot a quick email over to the lead while they’re active on your site. Your sales team will find notifications particularly valuable if the contact is a returning visitor who is RE-converting.
Ready to rock HubSpot Marketing Free? We're really psyched to let all of our readers know about this great opportunity to experience the power of HubSpot first-hand at no cost at all. So don’t be afraid to take advantage of it! Interested in learning about the other new product launch additions? Click here for details – you won’t be disappointed.