Generating leads is so frickin’ hard, isn’t it?!

One, you need to attract qualified traffic to the site.

Two, get visitors to notice your lead asset.

Then, you gotta make a strong case why they should get it.

And finally, convince them to fill in the email form. (A task often proving to be the greatest challenge of all, right?)

No wonder so many marketers consider lead generation a true field trial of their knowledge and expertise.

But what if you could skip a couple of steps? Initiate the process right there on Facebook…and even have the form prefilled for the user?

Well, it turns out you can, with Facebook’s Lead Ads. And in this weeks post I’ll show you how to use them to generate and nurture leads.

But Wait, What Are Lead Ads Actually?

In case if you haven’t heard of them yet, let me go over that really quickly.

Facebook Lead Ads allow users to sign up to receive information from businesses (like newsletters or offers) with just a couple of taps on their smartphone.

Lead Ads work like any other Facebook’s ad type. However, instead of being redirected to a landing page, a person clicking it sees a form they could fill without leaving the social network.

(Image courtesy of Facebook)

What’s more, the social network prepopulates a lot of information that people have already given on Facebook, i.e. their email address or phone number.

As Facebook points, the premise of launching Lead Ads is simple:

“To help avoid a lot of the pain points usually associated with filling out forms, like having to leave one app and start a form in another app, and having to enter all of their information from scratch.”

Certainly the reduced effort required by the person to complete the form should mean a greater chance for conversion.

K Pawel, all sounds good and dandy. But how do I know if Lead Ads are for me?

Good question. Because, you see:

At first I thought that Lead Ads could help only B2B companies.

But think about it, you could be a publisher offering a free chapter of an upcoming book. A restaurant giving out coupons to local customers. Or a car dealer offering a chance to schedule a test drive…

So I’d say, lead ads are ideal for any business who connects with people to promote their services or products.

You could use Lead Ads to offer:

Quote or estimate requests,

Newsletter or event signups,

Lead magnets,

Booking appointments, product demos, test drives and much much more.   

Creating a Lead Ad

To create a Lead Gen add, select “Lead Generation” from the list of ad Objectives:

Then continue creating the ad as you normally would.

When you get to ad level, you’ll see an option to create a lead form.

Click “Create new form”, give it a name and click Next.

As a next step, select information you want to collect from users:

You could also add up to 3 custom questions to help verify the quality of the lead.

As the final step, link to your privacy policy and enter website URL users will be able to visit after completing the form.

And… you’re done

A Couple of Tips for Collecting Leads

Keep your forms short

Oh I’m sure you know:

Most people scoff at having to fill in long forms.

Of course, a strong enough offer or a lead magnet might entice them to complete even the longest form but…

…for most part, they might happily skip it to save time.

In general, having a shorter form results in more leads and subscribers. A longer form however helps prequalify them, increasing the quality of your list.

When you’re running Lead Ads to generate a multitude of leads though, I recommend you keep the form simple. This way you’ll keep conversion rates up while minimizing the cost per lead at the same time.

Plan the Customer Journey

Even though you’re collecting information from a user on Facebook, their journey to becoming a qualified lead is far from over.

Once signed up, leads might be looking for more information about your offers. And so, you should create a relevant landing page to send them to after filling in a form.

For one, it would help reinforce their decision to sign up.

And prequalify them for any nurturing sequence you’ll be sending.

Immediately Respond to Each Signup

Timing is crucial in lead nurturing.

Your leads shouldn’t wait longer than a couple of minutes for a message welcoming them to your list.

The faster you respond to leads, the greater your chance for conversion. In fact, according to a research by Insidesales.com, 35-50% of sales go to businesses who respond first.

As Linda Richardson from The Wharton School points:

“If one salesperson calls or emails in 30 minutes or sooner and another responds two days later, it says volumes to the prospect. Quick response time sends [a message] about respect, urgency, and responsiveness,” she said. But “the worse situation is the large number of leads that simply get ignored.”

Nurturing Your Leads

Your ads are running, generating leads and filling in prospect lists.

So what’s next?

If your ad promised a test drive or a quote, the answer is simple – deliver what the person has singed up for and you’re done.

But what if they don’t convert after receiving it? Should you consider them a lost sale? Or is there anything else you could do to convert them later?

Well, it turns out there is. In fact, you have 3 options:

• Create a sequenced drip campaign,
• Send regular but individual email updates,
• Set a follow up cadence sequence.

Let’s look at each of them in turn:

Drip Campaigns

A drip campaign consists of a sequence of predefined emails sent on a specific schedule.

Usually the person receives the first email right after signup. Then the next one arrives the next day. The sequence then follows until all messages have been sent.

With drip campaigns you can ensure that every person signing up for your list receives the same set of messages and in the same order.

Thanks to that, drip campaigns help keep prospects engaged. They also help convince them of your expertise, authority and build a case for hiring you or buying from you.

A successful drip campaign should follow a predefined structure. Personally, I include the following mesages when writing my clients’ drip campaigns:

Email #1: Welcoming Email and Introduction,

Email #2: First practical advice,

Email #3: Theory behind the problem,

Email #4: Actionable tips,

Email #5: Case study + Call to Action,

Email #6: Follow up.

You could of course include more emails in the sequence. They should still follow a similar breakdown.

To find out more, check out my full guide to creating drip campaigns. 

Regular Updates

You know:

Sometimes you may just want to keep leads in the loop. Notify them about latest developments in your business and get your name in their inbox, so they don’t forget about you.

And for that you could use a regular newsletter, a weekly or monthly email including relevant advice, content you’ve discovered recently and your business’ news.

My colleague, Rachel Foster sends a weekly email to her list featuring content she’s published recently, a quick update about her business and noteworthy posts from around the web.

Follow-up Cadence

both methods I described above rely on providing a value until the person’s ready to buy.

But that approach doesn’t always work.

You see:

Sometimes to make the sale, you need to be blatantly selling. Full stop.

You need to keep following up until getting some sort of a response from a lead.

And it often takes more than a single interaction to achieve it.

In fact, only 2% of sales are made after the first contact. Most transactions require 5-12 interactions before closing the sale.

In other words, you need to keep approaching each lead, until they finally respond to your pitch.

In “The Complete Handbook of Cold Mailing”, Greg, Growbots’ CEO, suggests three types of cadences:

• Polite, consisting of 3 emails sent over 3 weeks span.
• Balanced, in which you send 3 emails over 2 weeks, and
• Aggressive, with 3 emails sent in just one week.

But of course, you may have to test different schedules to see what works best in your industry.

Conclusion

Many marketers consider lead generation as the true field test of their skills and expertise. And rightly so. It takes a lot to attract and convert someone into a lead.

Facebook’s Lead Ads offer a way to skip a couple of steps in the process and convert a smartphone user right there on the ad.