Using a Lead-Generating Landing Page

Sending Facebook traffic from a Facebook Ad to a landing page optimized for lead generation is one of the best ways to find qualified leads that, if properly nurtured, are extremely likely to convert to a final sale.

There are two primary strategies for generating leads from a Facebook Ad and Landing Page combination.

#1. Contests

Contests are my favorite way to generate qualified leads likely to convert further down the sales funnel. However, it is essential that you optimize them intelligently and include the right kind of prize.

Here’s a five-step strategy for generating leads with a contest landing page and Facebook Ad:

1. Create a Facebook Ad where your contest’s prize is front-and-center (dollar values, percent signs, etc).
2. Target your ad exclusively at people likely to click on it (more on this later).
3. Make your prize valuable, but not so valuable the reward isn’t worth it. I recommend gift cards, as anyone interested in any of your products will engage, and only people interested in your products.
4. Create a contest-centered landing page, which requires Facebook users provide their email address (lead information) in order to enter.
5. Run your Facebook contest and ad for 2-4 weeks before randomly choosing a winner.

Note : You will get more results with a cash prize or totally unrelated product. However, I strongly recommend against this. These kinds of leads are going to unsubscribe from your marketing emails as soon as the contest is over, whereas people who engage with a product-related prize are far more likely to stay engaged.

Would you rather have a list of 500 leads, 50% of whom will result in a final sale, or 1000 leads, 10% of whom will result in a final sale? (Do the math!)

#2. Email-Gated Content

Ebooks and other email-gated pieces of content are one of the best ways to earn leads.

It’s likely that you already create valuable content, whether it’s an ebook, a white-paper, a case study or a how-to-guide on selling your home. This content can directly influence a person’s, or a business’, revenue. They’re worth something in the real world.

So why don’t you ‘email-gate’ them?

Email-gating is the simple practice of asking a visitor to your website (or, to be more precise, your optimized landing page) for their email address before allowing them to download your valuable piece of content.

Here’s a five-step strategy for generating leads with an email-gate, landing page and Facebook Ad:

1. Write four-six blog articles or case studies, with well-researched and valuable content
2. Compile this content into an awesome ebook (PDF format) and upload it to your website
3. Create an eye-catching image and Facebook Ad targeted at people who are likely to value your content (again, more on targeting in a second)
4. Drive traffic to your website’s landing page, which describes how valuable the piece of content is and asks for a simple email-address to access it
5. Segment the leads you generate from your email-gated landing page into people interested in that specific content, increasing the efficacy of your marketing emails in the future.

Note: Creating an ebook from existing content you’ve already published saves you time, energy, and increases your content marketing ROI.

Targeting an Audience of Awesome Leads

At last we’re into the real nitty-gritty!

Facebook Ad targeting (I’ve mentioned it as essential a couple times above) is simply the part of this whole marketing strategy that makes it worth doing.

Facebook Ad targeting is what makes the ad ROI feasible and a good investment. An ad without intelligent targeting is an ad burning money for your business.

Facebook Ads can be targeted incredibly specifically – to the point of users who have recently sold a truck, or parents of children aged 0-3 (but not 4-7, 8-11, or 12-19). You can target people recently engaged, recently out of a relationship, or making a specific amount of money.

With intelligent Facebook Ad targeting you can find click-through-rates of around .1% (about what you get with a Google Ad side-bar ad). Don’t target it, however, and don’t come running to me when you’re seeing .01%.

There are a bunch of strategies I’ve discussed in the past for targeting your Facebook Ad, but here are the two I recommend for lead generation:

#1. Target by lookalike audience

For those unfamiliar with the lookalike audience, let me give you a quick breakdown.

Lookalike audiences (only available with the Chrome plugin Power Editor or 3rd Party Facebook Ad Platforms) takes your imported list of previous customers, and finds Facebook users similar to them.

Let me repeat that in case you weren’t listening: Facebook Ads can be targeted not only at your existing customers (through “custom audience” targeting) but by Facebook users who are incredibly similar to them in terms of shared demographics, shared interests and shared categories.

Lookalike audiences take “Friends of Fans” to a whole new level.

Here’s how you can do it for yourself:

• Take a list of your business’ current customers, leads, or CRM and import it into your Facebook Ads tool. This creates a custom audience.
• Click “create similar audience” when you have this audience highlighted. This matches the characteristics of the original list with Facebook users who are unfamiliar with your business but very similar to people who bought from you – users ripe for lead generation.
• Target a Facebook Ad promoting a contest or ebook at this lookalike audience.

Lookalike audience targeting increases the return you get on Facebook Ads substantially, as A) You’re only targeting a small group of very specific users (meaning your Cost-per-Click or Cost-per-Impression is very low) and B) The high click-through-rates per 1000 views mean more conversions for every dollar spent.

Sold?

#2. Target by Precise and Broad Category Interest

Another strategy for Facebook Ad targeting is by Interest and Category. This works by segmenting Facebook users based on their stated Interests, Likes, and changes on their timeline or in their profile. You can then target these segments with a Facebook Ad.

Hopefully you now have a few ideas of how Facebook Ads can work to generate your business leads at an extremely affordable rate