Is your small business website missing a lead generator? When visitors come to your website they’re not always ready to make a purchase. They're often still in the decision-making phase and not ready to commit. That’s why you need something called a lead generator. 

A lead generator or transitional call to action is an essential tool to engage potential customers who aren't yet ready to buy but might be interested in the future. In this blog post, I'll walk you through creating a powerful lead generator that captures and nurtures leads effectively.

What is a Lead Generator?

A lead generator is essentially a tool on your website that gives your customers a quick win and captures the contact details of potential customers. These are people who might not be ready to buy immediately but show interest in your offerings. 

A lead generator can take many forms—a downloadable ebook, a free webinar, or even an interactive quiz. It acts as a transitional call to action that offers something valuable in exchange for contact details, which then allows you to create a funnel of potential leads you can nurture into customers when the time is right for them to buy.

Why Do You Need a Lead Generator?

The truth is, the majority of visitors to your website aren't ready to make a purchase on their first visit. A lead generator helps you capture contact information of those potential customers by providing them something of immediate value. 

This builds trust and keeps your brand top-of-mind for when they are ready to purchase. Without a lead generator, you're essentially letting warm leads slip through your fingers every day. It's about building a bridge from interest to purchase, making sure your business is there every step of the way.

Think of your business as a bucket where you're spending all of this time, effort and energy on finances, creating content, doing paid ads, running SEO campaigns. And you have to make sure that there aren’t any holes in your bucket. 

And having a lead generator in your website is a great way to make sure that you're plugging up another hole in our bucket. So as you’re filling it with potential leads and customers, they're not just pouring out of the bottom.

Different Formats of Lead Generators

There are different types of lead generator and each format appeals to different audience preferences and engagement styles. 

Here’s a breakdown of various types of lead generators you can implement, depending on your business goals and customer base:

• Ebooks and comprehensive guides are fantastic for audiences that need detailed information about a topic. They are particularly effective in industries where decision-making involves a lot of research, such as finance or health. For instance, an ebook titled "The Ultimate Guide to Refinancing Your Home" could capture leads interested in mortgage services.

• Checklists and cheat sheets offer quick, actionable steps that help users accomplish specific tasks. They’re super easy to create and people looking for immediate solutions love them. For example, a digital marketing agency might offer a "Social Media Setup Checklist" to help small businesses establish their social media presence efficiently.

• Webinars and online workshops are engaging ways to interact with your audience while providing valuable knowledge. They are great for building personal connections and demonstrating expertise but take a lot of time to set up/create. 

• Interactive quizzes provide personalized results based on the user's answers, making them highly engaging and shareable. They work well for businesses that offer customized solutions, such as fitness plans or educational courses.

• Free trials and demos allow potential customers to experience a product or service before committing financially. This type of lead generator is particularly effective for software companies or services where the product's value is best understood through direct interaction, like trying out a new project management tool.

• Videos and mini-courses deliver content in an easily digestible format, which is perfect for visual learners or when demonstrating processes that involve steps, like cooking tutorials or tech setups.

• Discount codes and special offers are perfect for businesses with an extremely short sales cycle like e-commerce sites. Most of those buyers are already interested in your product and will appreciate a discount way more than a PDF.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Lead Generator

Now that you understand why you need a transactional CTA and the different formats there are, here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to create a lead generator for your small business:

1. Identify Your Audience's Needs: 

The first step in creating an effective lead generator is understanding what your audience truly needs. What pain points does your product or service solve for them? Your lead generator should offer a primary solution to one of these pain points. 

Remember, you don’t want a solution that they could use INSTEAD of your product, it should be something that prepares them to buy the product/service. So let’s say you offer home inspection services then your lead generator could be 10 tips to prepare your home for an inspection.

1. Offer a Solution

Based on your audience's needs, craft a resource that addresses these. If your audience is looking to learn, an informative ebook or an instructional webinar might be the ticket. If they need quick tips, a checklist or a cheat sheet could provide immediate value.

1. Design the Capture Mechanism

This is where you design the form or method through which you'll collect visitor information. Keep it simple—ask for only essential information like name and email address to reduce barriers to completion.

1. Follow-Up

Having captured the information, the next step is to engage these leads with follow-up communications. 

This could be a nurturing email sequence that provides additional value, or an invitation to consult with you further, to deepen their engagement with your brand.

1. Optimize and Test

No lead generator is perfect on the first try. Use A/B testing to try different versions of your lead generator to see what converts best. Tweak the offer, the form, and even the follow-up sequence based on the data you collect.

Examples of Effective Lead Generators

Let's explore a few real-world examples that demonstrate the impact of well-crafted lead magnets:

1. Marketing Domination Checklist

This is our agency’s very own lead generator. It's the seven things that you have to have in your marketing in order to dominate your industry. It converts exceptionally well because it addresses common gaps in marketing strategies, offering immediate value.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go to https://www.seangarner.co/  and download our Marketing Domination checklist.

1. Hormone Balance Quiz

A more complex but highly engaging lead generator is a Hormone Balance Quiz developed for my wife’s functional medicine clinic. This quiz offers personalized results based on the person’s answers. It not only captures leads but also segments them according to their specific health concerns, allowing for targeted follow-up communications.

1. Commercial Real Estate Market Report

For a commercial real estate agent, we leveraged an existing quarterly market report produced by his brokerage firm. By adding his own insights and analysis as a video review accompanying the report, the agent provided added value while establishing his authority in the market. This approach not only helped in lead generation but also reinforced his expertise in commercial real estate, building trust with potential clients.

1. Business Cashflow Assessment

This is from Stag Business Coaching. One of our other clients who are Business Made Simple certified business coaches. They help clients with cashflow and business consulting. Their lead generation tool is a 12-minute questionnaire that gives them a detailed assessment which helps businesses understand their cash flow needs and identifies areas for improvement.

Each of these examples showcases different approaches to lead generation, tailored to specific industries and customer needs. What makes them effective is their focus on providing real value that addresses specific customer pain points or goals. 

By considering what your target audience needs and how best to address those needs, you can design lead generators that not only attract leads but also convert them into loyal customers.

If you want to see more examples from our clients check out my full podcast episode on How To Create A High-Converting Lead Generator.

Using Your Lead Generator to Test Market Ideas

A great part of lead generators is their ability to serve as a market research tool. I like to use them to test samples of different products. 

By analyzing which offers get the most engagement, you can gain insights into what your potential customers are most interested in. This information can guide product development, marketing strategies, and more, allowing you to better meet the needs of your market.

How We Can Help

Creating an effective lead generator can seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. At Sean Garner Consulting, we build, fill and optimize your sales funnel for you. And a small part of that includes crafting customized lead generators that not only attract leads but convert them into loyal customers. We manage everything from strategy formulation to the technical setup, allowing you to focus on running your business while we enhance your marketing efforts.

Every interaction on your website is an opportunity to grow your business. With the right lead generator, your site will do more than just inform—it will convert. Ready to turn your website into a lead-generating machine? Schedule a call now and let’s talk about how we can make that happen together.