How do you create lead generation funnels for local businesses?

If you are a local business looking to generate leads from the internet or a consultant to local businesses, then you may wish to follow the system that I outline below.

These are the components that you will need to assemble in order to get leads:

• a free report or a free gift to give away in return for the contact details of your prospect – the more enticing that this is the better.
• an ecover graphic of your free give away to make it more enticing
• a server to store your give away so that it can be downloaded
• a video to sell the idea of downloading your free give away
• a series of automated email messages to follow up with your prospect after download to increase the chances of them contacting you by ‘educating’ them about why it would be a good idea to do so.
• an autoresponder to enable you to operate the above system
• a website or web page to offer your give away
• a method for driving targeted traffic to your offer.

To give you an example of some of these components – in this case a Handyman – here is a video, the free report, the ecover graphic and the email messages.

You can probably produce something even better but at least it gives you a good steer on what you need to put together.

Most of this can easily be outsourced if you are thinking that this is a technical challenge:

Ecover:

Download example Report:

Download example Autoresponder Messages:

I do not pretend that this is a sophisticated sales funnel or that the example is something that you should necessarily follow but it is a lot more than the majority of local businesses currently have in place.

In case you are wondering why you need a system like this, then let me explain.  Most visitors to your website will never return.  Only a very small percentage of visitors will be ready to buy on their first visit.  Without a method for capturing their contact details and following up with them, most of your website traffic will be wasted.

By capturing their contact details and keeping your business in their mind through follow up communications, you increase the chances of converting them into a sale and thereby reducing the risks inherent in online marketing.

There are many strategies for increasing conversions – squeeze pages, exit popups to offer an alternative product, split-testing, increasing traffic, improving the offer, improving your copy, increasing the length of your sales funnel etc etc.

Lead generation funnels are an essential component of online marketing for local businesses and also for any other business – hopefully this gives you some ideas for your own business.