Getting And Converting Leads By Simplifying - Tim Paige - The SuccessLab Podcast Episode 20

Oct 2, 2014

In this episode of the SuccessLab Podcast I’m in The Lab with Tim Paige, the Conversion Educator at LeadPages and the Conversion Cast podcast. We talk about how to effectively use LeadPages to convert leads, build your email list, and lead potential customers into the sales funnel.

1. Can you tell us a bit more about LeadPages for those who may not know what it is?
   • LeadPages is a platform that allows people to implement the best marketing materials that work, based on the data that we have. We've collected over a billion points of data and with that, we’ve used that to create things like landing pages, click-up boxes or opt-in forms...tools that allow people not to have to hire a developer. You can simply put up a landing page in 5 minutes or put up a sales page in 5 minutes and be ready to go, and know that it’s going to convert

2. How are marketers/entrepreneurs using LeadPages?
   • Of the three most popular uses for LeadPages, one would be as email collection landing pages – using it as a general squeeze page/landing page kind of thing to get email addresses. The second most popular would be webinar registration pages. A lot of people are using it because it converts better than any other webinar registration pages I’ve ever seen. I’ve converted a lot of people who were using the general GoToWebinar registration pages, getting these 10% conversion rates. I’ve said for one webinar, just try LeadPages and see how that works out, and they get 60% to 70% and they're blown away. The third thing would be for sales pages. We have really, really beautiful highly optimized sales pages that people use, and again it’s so easy to deploy them that you don’t have to stress out about hiring somebody or going through all that hassle.

3. Does LeadPages only work for free webinars or does it work for paid webinars as well?
   • I think there's a place for paid webinars for sure. The beautiful thing, when you're doing something like selling software or information products, you can do a webinar and give 40 minutes or an hour of just insane value, have people fall in love with your brand, fall in love with you, fall in love with your company. Then when you offer something, and help them do what you just taught them to do, it's so much easier to get them to get out their credit card. So use the webinar to sell a paid webinar or series of webinars.

3. Ok, so you’ve got your LeadPage designed and ready to go, where do you go from there? How do you drive traffic to it?
   • There are a lot of ways to do this and I think we could do about 50 podcast episodes just on different ways to drive traffic. What we’ve been doing that’s really worked for us has been just focusing on lots of high-quality content. So, if you go to Leadpages.net, you’ll see we’re constantly posting really high-quality blog posts. We have all these different channels that we're creating lots of content for and in doing that, our SEO has gone crazy. If you're in a particular niche, and you create lots of content that's going to help your audience, that's going to work for getting lots of traffic. If you want to get traffic very quickly, something I'm learning a lot about is Facebook ads. It is a sweet science though and you should really learn it well. One way is to send traffic from a Facebook ad to a webinar registration page, but do it within Facebook (such as in a tab on Facebook). So, two big traffic generation strategies would be great content marketing and Facebook ads.

4. What are some of your top tips for building an effective LeadPage?
   • The first thing is, if you are not a conversion specialist or a marketing pro, I would say to start really simple. The big thing that people tend to do is they feel like they need to put all these things on a page to create engagement. So, for a landing page, we think that we need to have a bunch of bullet points that sell whatever it is that you're giving away or selling, but what we have actually found, the highest converting landing page that we’ve ever created was also the simplest. It gives away a 1-page PDF list of tools. And it has gotten us more opt-ins and more consistent business results and growth than a page that we created to giveaway a video course. At the end of the day something simple like a list of tools is the most valuable thing you can giveaway because it satisfies people's immediate gratification.

5. You talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and experts on your podcast, the Conversion Cast, is there an interview or strategy that really stuck out to you? 
   • Every week! One really strong example is an interview I did with Greg Hickman from Mobile Mix. Greg shared how to use mobile to improve your webinar attendance. Using text message reminders. The average person opens a text within 3 seconds of receiving it. You cannot get that kind of response from anything else.

6. Efficiency tips and tools you love or that are working for you?
   • I’m probably a really poor example of this, but I would say, I am pretty decent at being efficient but I do it in the most convoluted way of all time. Tt really comes down to a combination of my iPhone, Google Calendar, Gmail and ScheduleOnce. That is how I schedule all of my appointments and the podcast interviews, all of my podcast interviews, all that kind of stuff goes through ScheduleOnce. If you don’t have an assistant, use that. The most valuable tool that I've ever gotten, in terms of efficiency, is the word "no." As entrepreneurs, we have this tendency to want to help everybody. As you're growing your business, say "no" to a lot of things, which is counterintuitive.

7. Where can folks connect with you?
   • Conversioncastgift.com and the Conversion Cast.

This week’s Biz Hack: It’s all about media kits - whether or not you need one and if so, what to include in it. Media kits are great to have on hand, particularly online where they can easily be downloaded. The goal of the media kit or press kit is to provide the media with enough information that they might need to report about you and your company. Creating an online “Press Room” can really help the media to tell your story. Typically the contents of the media kit will include:

• About Us - This is an overview of your company similar to your About Page on your website, but more factual. Include background information, when your company was founded, where it is headquartered, why it exists, who it serves, and any notable achievements or awards. It can also include a quote from the company founder about the company’s vision, or purpose.
• Relevant Bios - This includes bios from company leaders or founders, which should consist the person’s role within the company, a brief overview of previous career experience, any degrees, certificates or licenses obtained, any awards or recognition received, any memberships or associations that they may be a part of, or leadership roles, such as serving on a board of directors or chairing a committee. You can also include a little bit of personal information as well including, hobbies, city where they live, marital status, children, pets, favorite food, or any other information to add a little human element to the biography.
• Fact Sheet - Fact sheets are quick overviews of your company by the numbers. It is not necessary for every organization, but would typically contain any pertinent facts about the company in a “quick glance” layout. An overview that could be divided into easy to read columns that might include company name, year founded, key leaders, a list of products or services, any notable or significant projects completed. Sometimes fact sheets include financial facts and stats, number of employees, number of people served, and any other details you wish to include.
• Latest Press Releases - Include anywhere from 1-3 of the latest press releases.
• Past Media Coverage - Select the best pieces from your media coverage and include them.
• FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions page should be included if it’s relevant to your organization.
• Photos - Photos are a very important part of any media kit. Be sure to have high resolution, professional images of any projects, products, leaders and/or founders of the company. Visuals are so important to the media and the more that you can offer, the better.

Action Item: This week's action item is to start pulling together the components of your media kit. Even if you don’t have an immediate need to reach out to media, it’s great to go through this process. It will sort of force you to polish your look - you might notice your bios or About page need refreshing, or you might realize you some professional photography. So work on getting your media kit or press kit together. Quote of the week: “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." - Napolean Hill Next week we’re in The Lab with Mignon Gould, the founder of The Chic Spy. We talk about how she grew the traffic on her website and created a great community around it. Be sure to tune! Until then, have prosperous week!