How to Win at Email Lead Generation On Any Budget
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How to Win at Email Lead Generation On Any Budget

11th December 2013

Email, the once forgotten digital medium, has been making a supreme resurgence over the last couple of years. Gone are the days where unsophisticated, and often unsolicited, bulk emails are sent out in their millions, with no desire to segment or target their recipients. Combined with increased interaction (social Media) and understanding (analytics) of your customers, email now operates as a very grown up and hugely rewarding digital exploit when used correctly.

So Is Email Such a Big Deal?

One issue that is common among those pursuing email or eCRM activities though is the struggle to get users to actually sign-up in the first place. Consumers have grown up a lot in the last few years, people are very careful about how and where they interact with brands. For some, this is more difficult than others, however one tactic that has been of particular success in my experience is incorporating an incentivised sign-up to a well thought out email welcome program.

The figures don’t lie either:

US cross channel marketing company StrongView announced that in 2013 56% of respondents planned to increase investment in email marketing  leading investment over social media (52%), mobile (43%) and search (40%)! Coupled with the continued rise of content marketing (arguably the biggest marketing buzzword of 2013, much to many people’s annoyance) many would agree that email is an essential, and unignorable marketing channel.

Maximising Your Email Potential

Based on how intelligent you are about attributing value to email marketing this can come in many forms, but assigning value to an email subscriber is the very minimum calculation that you should be making… Those embracing Universal Analytics, and particularly those lucky enough to be playing with Google Analytics Premium will have seen this feature rolled out a couple of months ago taking this to a very different level. But before I meander too far from the topic of the post, below I have scoured the web and found 5 plugins (both paid and free) that can help you:

  • Engage more with your customers
  • Increase conversion rates on your website
  • Develop strong ROI
  • And to help to generate loads more leads.

5 Top Lead Generation Plugins

1. PopUpDomination [Paid – $96 (One Off)]

popupdomination logo

Somewhat more aggressively named than some of the other options, PopUpDomination is fairly more stripped down and focuses purely on using lightboxes to acquire users email addresses.

popupdomination example

PopUpDomination’s features:

  • Pre-Designed Pop-Ups
  • Fully Customisable Pop-Up Content
  • Page-Level Targeting
  • A/B Split Testing
  • Analytics Integration

It handily plugs straight in to WordPress, but can equally be used as a stand-alone. Usefully it also works with the following mailing list providers:

  • aWeber
  • iContact
  • ConstantContact
  • MailChimp
  • Get Response

See it in Action:

searchenginejournal logo

 

 

2. BounceExchange – [Paid – from $2995 Per Month]

bounceexchange logo

An interesting proposition that is quite different to some of the other tools on the market, in both price and in functionality. BounceExchange uses what is dubs as ‘exit intent’ technology (pictured, right) to help engage with your users based on their site usage habits. Especially if it’s for capturing potentially lost visitors (and subsequently lost budget), by offering them something to entice them to stay like a whitepaper or time-limited offer perhaps?

bounce exchange exit intent technology

BounceExchange can be used for:

  • Email capture (lead generation)
  • Instant Cart Recovery
  • Diverting traffic to high converting ‘money’ pages
  • Referral
  • Promotional Reinforcement/Support
  • Increasing Social Media Following/Interaction

See it in Action:

KISSMetrics logo

 

 

Whoishostingthis logo

 

 

3. Sleeknote – [Free – Currently in beta]

Sleeknote Logo

A very new kid on the proverbial block is Danish company Sleeknote. Currently in beta, Sleeknote offers a stupidly simple and straightforward approach to integrating a lead generation layer. Whether it’s to assist with:

  • Sleeknote.ioRunning promotional campaigns and competitions
  • Boosting social following on:
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Snapchat
  • Or directly engaging with your customers in your email campaigns, on:
    • MailChimp
    • Campaign Monitor

Sleeknote offers a similar functionality to Olark (to those that have seen/used it before), allowing users to decide where on the page that the layover is located, and also the functionality to create their own Sleeknote’s.

Sleeknote

Hear it from the Creators:

Rather than describing the features myself, I actually got in contact with Emil, Daniel and Heine (all great guys!) and asked them if they could explain what Sleeknote offers, and answer ‘why should people choose them’? See their answer below:

What Sleeknote offers: 
Sleeknote provides a slide-in product that will help you increase your customer database in your favorite marketing channel. You can choose between a number of marketing channels like Newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and many more to come. We have made Sleeknote as an intelligent slide-in product that won’t affect your conversion or bounce rate on your website. 
 
Why people should choose it: 

Our first beta-tester went from 1400 fans on facebook to more than 4500 in just two months.

Another beta tester got 325 new newsletter sign-ups in just a single week. These are absolutely incredible numbers, taking into consideration that they are all relevant customers as they already come from within your website. 
 
What’s next for Sleeknote: 
With our upcoming dashboard you can easily modify your own Sleeknote with the exact marketing channel you want to increase.

See it in Action:

Miinto.dk-logo

 

 

podspeakers logo

 

 

4. Optinmonster – [Paid – From $49 (One Off)]

optinmonster logoThe rather more friendly named Optinmonster, offers a number of simple options and comes as one of the cheaper solutions. It flaunts a number of cool features like:

  • Page-level targeting
  • Exit-intent technology
  • A/B Testing
  • Analyticsoptinmonster various formats

It also provides the flexibility of multiple opt-in variations, such as:

  • Lightbox
  • Floating footer bars
  • Slide-in
  • Full page takeovers
  • And more

See it in Action:

wpbeginner

 

 

5. Drip -[Free for 21 days, then from $49 per month]

drip logo

Last, but by no means least is Drip offers a super simple yet seemingly very effective way on engaging with visitors to your site. Unlike some of the alternatives, Drip offers the ability to send customised emails based on users interaction with the selected opt-in layover.

drip example

It appears to be one of the easiest to set up, simply by:

  1. Installing the code
  2. Selecting an opt-in
  3. Customise your email sequence
  4. Site back and watch it take effect!

See it in Action:

hittail logo

 

 

Any Recommendations?

I’d love to hear back from the State of Digital readers regarding their best lead generation tactics and technology. Have you:

  • Experienced any of the technologies listed above?
    • Did you like/dislike them?
    • If so, why/why not?
  • Or, have I missed any other lead generation plugins/add-ons that you would recommend?

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Written By
Ned Poulter is CEO & Founder of Pole Star Digital, a Digital Marketing Consultancy he runs alongside a number of entrepreneurial ventures. He spends his time developing and overseeing digital strategy for a number of well reputed international clients, developing creative approaches to achieving organic search results, increasing inbound traffic,...
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