No matter what type of business you run, the price of your offer is always a factor in the buyer’s decision. There are plenty of pricing theories for e-commerce sellers to lean into online, but when the first touchpoint doesn’t reflect the price, these theories can be a bit useless.
With lead generation campaigns, most initial calls-to-action don’t have a monetary price. Although we’re not asking for direct purchase, that doesn’t mean that it’s free.
There is still a price to be paid, but it’s a lead generation price.
There are three components to lead generation prices and each of these should factor into how you determine what conversion actions you use in your campaigns. Let’s walk through each of them.
Time
When someone makes a purchase online, the time investment it takes for them to receive that item is the time it takes to check out plus the time it takes for shipping. For lead generation, it’s not that simple.
In most lead generation scenarios, a user clicks on an ad with the promise of receiving something in return. For example, common lead generation offers are content, the promise of speaking with a representative, or the use of an online tool.
Although each of these is free of cost to the buyer, the person still has to use their time to get what they came for. This means reading the content to find the information they were seeking, talking on the phone with a representative or the time it takes to fill out the tool to get their results.
When choosing a call-to-action, think about the time investment the user will have to make to get what they want. Although it might seem like a small amount, it will factor into their decision of whether to engage with you or not.
Attention
The second aspect of lead generation price lies in the attention users pay to whatever we’re giving them. Whether for the content, call, or tool mentioned above, it requires the user to actually pay attention, otherwise it’s a waste of their time. No bueno. Here are some of the questions you should answer:
How difficult is it to complete the calls-to-action you’re offering?
Do they require lots of focus or can they be done somewhat mindlessly?
How clearly are you laying out the benefits users will get in return?
Are they easy to digest or do they require further attention to get what they wanted?
Each of these things factors into whether the user wants to convert. If the processes are too difficult, then they may decide to skip it; but if the processes are easier, then they’re more likely to convert.
Information/Privacy
This last piece is the biggest difference maker. When filling out a lead form, the user is making a conscious decision to give their information to another party.
For some users, this is easy and doesn’t matter much.
For others, it’s like pulling teeth.
When putting together your lead form, it’s important to always balance how much information you ask for against what you really need. For you as an advertiser, that means that you’re also going to be balancing lead quality and quantity.
The more information you ask for, the lower the number of form fills you’ll likely get. And vice versa.
If you’re interested in as many leads as possible, keep your field count low. But, if you’re struggling to get good lead quality, think about increasing the number of questions you ask, keeping them relevant of course, and see how that adjustment impacts leads.
Buyers are willing to give up their information and privacy for the right solution, but it is also the highest priced item asked of them before actually paying for a product or service.
Blending Them Together & Price Composition
Now that we’ve covered the main price components, it’s time to think about how they work together for each of our different calls-to-action.
Unfortunately, most calls-to-action in lead generation don’t rely on just one of these factors. They tend to use at least two if not all three.
For lighter calls-to-action that typically find themselves at the top of the funnel, like a blog post or video view, you’re likely asking only for Time and Attention. Usually, these items don’t require an exchange of information for the user to reap the benefits.
As we go further down the buyer journey, however, we start to see a blend of all three come into play. Gated content or test results, demo requests, personalized consultations, etc., all require the user to give up their Time, Attention, and Information, which is a higher price for them than something further up the funnel.
Additionally, most conversion actions ask for a different degree of each of these factors. Here’s a high-level sample chart showing the Time, Attention, and Information investment you’re asking users to give on different calls-to-action.
In this chart, you can see that each call-to-action has a different price composition.
Some calls-to-action, like Industry Report and Whitepaper, have the same total value at 6, but the composition of that price is different. The Industry Report requires more time for them to fully digest, whereas the Whitepaper requires more form fields to be filled out before sharing.
When choosing which calls to leverage in your campaigns, think about the composition of the price and how that will factor into the user’s decision. If one asset isn’t working in a campaign, like the Whitepaper, maybe asking for a little less information with the Industry Report which will give the same effect and help you generate more leads at the same cost to the user.
Conclusion
Not all prices come down to monetary value. With lead generation campaigns, it’s important to think about what the user is giving up in hopes of a good return from your offer. Be sure you’re respecting and not wasting their time, attention, and information or you could end up with an empty CRM list.
