The Abridged Consumer Direct Playbook
In the online lead generation business, we have been talking about the consumer-direct online experience for over two decades.
Switching to this business model was pushed into the mainstream by the pandemic and global lockdowns. But, the urgency of the need to make this dramatic shift - developing a lead-generating website and building an online audience - was moderated by the flood of customers chasing low rates.
Triggered mainly by Russia invading Ukraine, creating yet another shock to the tightening supply of consumer goods and commodities - interest rates began to shoot upward, killing historically low-interest rates in a couple of months.
Consumers expect to be able to do everything online. No one asks friends and family for referrals - Google is their referral source.
In the online lead generation business, we have been talking about the consumer-direct online experience for over two decades.
Switching to this business model was pushed into the mainstream by the pandemic and global lockdowns. But, the urgency of the need to make this dramatic shift - developing a lead-generating website and building an online audience - was moderated by the flood of customers chasing low rates.
Triggered mainly by Russia invading Ukraine, creating yet another shock to the tightening supply of consumer goods and commodities - interest rates began to shoot upward, killing historically low-interest rates in a couple of months.
Consumers expect to be able to do everything online. No one asks friends and family for referrals - Google is their referral source.
The urgency to create a consumer-direct experience is critical. Fortunately, switching to this new business model is getting easier.
Serving consumers online requires three essential elements:
Audience
Website
Lead generating user experience
Most people generally understand the first two, but the third often unknowingly snafus the whole business model. But let’s briefly cover all three.
Audience building requires you to systematically stack digital marketing channels and tactics to maximize your online impression share.
If you’re an individual contributor, this often starts with social media - tapping into those friends and family networks that already know and trust you.
If you’re a marketing department supporting an entire sales operation, you need to start with channels that offer more volume and scalability.
Here is my digital marketing stack and prioritization for most new clients:
Google Ads
SEO/Content
Email Marketing
Social Media
People often question this stacking and prioritization, especially why I leave social media as my last layer.
The answer is simple, my requirements for rapid and lead generating audience development are as follows:
Highest demand (volume)
Highest intent (lead quality)
Lowest effort (resource and economic efficiency)
If you have questions about this stacking, you can reply and ask more questions, or I’ll probably dig into this in future newsletters.
So, that’s how I get my audience.
Once I have people’s attention, I need a destination or storefront to begin the sales process. The modern storefront is your website.
There are lots of ways to get a website up and running. You probably already have one.
Typically, I find one of two types of websites with new clients.
A cheap, templated solution - The technology is often already dated and cumbersome for the consumer. There is nothing unique or differentiating about the design, copywriting, or experience. It’s lifeless.
A confusing mess that reflects all the needs wants, and politics of internal departments and business units - creating a direct and easy consumer buying experience was not a consideration.
Whether you opt for a more affordable templated solution or a custom design and build, make sure that you can create a differentiated and straightforward buying experience.
Check out my agency’s consumer-direct web platform solution for an example of an optimal solution.
“My website doesn’t generate leads.” This is the most repeated frustration on discovery calls. And honestly, it’s the easiest to fix, and then solving it results in an instant, low-cost leads.
First, when I hear this line, I can guarantee that one of a few things is happening.
(Let’s make this interactive. Go to your website and evaluate it against this checklist. Hit reply and tell me what is preventing your web visitors from becoming leads.)
Here’s my list of lead generation killers:
Your website is slow to load or has noticeably broken or incomplete features
Your website has an unprofessional or outdated design
No contact phone number or form anywhere on the page
No call to action encouraging them to contact your company
Loads of stock photos and meaningless imagery
No clear statement of what you do and how you do it better
No lead path - not a web form, but a survey style lead path
If you do have lead forms, you shyly put them at the bottom of the page
Phone numbers and web forms don’t work
Contact forms are difficult to fill out on a mobile device
No real people on the website
This email is already getting long, so I will cut to the chase and give you the shortest path to a test of consumer direct and fixing the issues above.
Assuming you have some web traffic, this is guaranteed to generate a 3-5x growth in leads from your website.
Make sure you are on premium web hosting (paying at least $25/month). Quality web hosting will fix 90% of your performance issues. My recommendation: WPengine.com
Focus only on the hero section (above the fold) of the home page
Kill the hero image or, worse, slider!
Write a clear and straightforward position statement - What you do and who you do it for
Insert a lead path, a survey-style lead form
Here are a few good examples:
My agency website: https://kaleidico.com/
Our mortgage lender demo site: https://velocitylending.com/
Our lead generation demo site: https://myperfectmortgage.com/
Hopefully, this helps get you moving in the right direction towards consumer-direct.
The urgency to create a consumer-direct experience is critical. Fortunately, switching to this new business model is getting easier.
Serving consumers online requires three essential elements:
Audience
Website
Lead generating user experience
Most people generally understand the first two, but the third often unknowingly snafus the whole business model. But let’s briefly cover all three.
Audience building requires you to systematically stack digital marketing channels and tactics to maximize your online impression share.
If you’re an individual contributor, this often starts with social media - tapping into those friends and family networks that already know and trust you.
If you’re a marketing department supporting an entire sales operation, you need to start with channels that offer more volume and scalability.
Here is my digital marketing stack and prioritization for most new clients:
Google Ads
SEO/Content
Email Marketing
Social Media
People often question this stacking and prioritization, especially why I leave social media as my last layer.
The answer is simple, my requirements for rapid and lead generating audience development are as follows:
Highest demand (volume)
Highest intent (lead quality)
Lowest effort (resource and economic efficiency)
If you have questions about this stacking, you can reply and ask more questions, or I’ll probably dig into this in future newsletters.
So, that’s how I get my audience.
Once I have people’s attention, I need a destination or storefront to begin the sales process. The modern storefront is your website.
There are lots of ways to get a website up and running. You probably already have one.
Typically, I find one of two types of websites with new clients.
A cheap, templated solution - The technology is often already dated and cumbersome for the consumer. There is nothing unique or differentiating about the design, copywriting, or experience. It’s lifeless.
A confusing mess that reflects all the needs wants, and politics of internal departments and business units - creating a direct and easy consumer buying experience was not a consideration.
Whether you opt for a more affordable templated solution or a custom design and build, make sure that you can create a differentiated and straightforward buying experience.
Check out my agency’s consumer-direct web platform solution for an example of an optimal solution.
“My website doesn’t generate leads.” This is the most repeated frustration on discovery calls. And honestly, it’s the easiest to fix, and then solving it results in an instant, low-cost leads.
First, when I hear this line, I can guarantee that one of a few things is happening.
(Let’s make this interactive. Go to your website and evaluate it against this checklist. Hit reply and tell me what is preventing your web visitors from becoming leads.)
Here’s my list of lead generation killers:
Your website is slow to load or has noticeably broken or incomplete features
Your website has an unprofessional or outdated design
No contact phone number or form anywhere on the page
No call to action encouraging them to contact your company
Loads of stock photos and meaningless imagery
No clear statement of what you do and how you do it better
No lead path - not a web form, but a survey style lead path
If you do have lead forms, you shyly put them at the bottom of the page
Phone numbers and web forms don’t work
Contact forms are difficult to fill out on a mobile device
No real people on the website
This email is already getting long, so I will cut to the chase and give you the shortest path to a test of consumer direct and fixing the issues above.
Assuming you have some web traffic, this is guaranteed to generate a 3-5x growth in leads from your website.
Make sure you are on premium web hosting (paying at least $25/month). Quality web hosting will fix 90% of your performance issues. My recommendation: WPengine.com
Focus only on the hero section (above the fold) of the home page
Kill the hero image or, worse, slider!
Write a clear and straightforward position statement - What you do and who you do it for
Insert a lead path, a survey-style lead form
Here are a few good examples:
My agency website: https://kaleidico.com/
Our mortgage lender demo site: https://velocitylending.com/
Our lead generation demo site: https://myperfectmortgage.com/
Hopefully, this helps get you moving in the right direction towards consumer-direct.