Concept
Lead Generator
A lead generator is a free, genuinely useful resource, such as a short guide, a checklist or a video, that a business offers in exchange for an email address, so that a visitor who is not ready to buy can still take a next step.
Most visitors to a small business's website are not ready to buy today, and a page whose only button is 'Buy now' or 'Book a call' loses all of them. Marketing Made Simple treats the lead generator as the answer: a second, smaller offer for people who are still deciding. Many marketers call the same thing a lead magnet, and the idea is far older than the book. What Miller and Peterson add is the role it plays in the story. A good lead generator solves one small part of the customer's problem now, which shows the business as a competent guide before any money changes hands, and it gives the business permission to keep writing to that person. Its title matters as much as its content: it should name a problem the reader already feels and promise a specific result. The honest test is whether the resource would still be worth the reader's time if they never bought anything. A disguised brochure fails that test, and readers tend to notice.
A real-life example
Emre supplies drip-irrigation systems to farmers around Konya. His website had a price list and a phone number, and most visitors left without calling. He wrote a two-page PDF titled 'How much water does your field really need? A planner for ten decares', and offered it for an email address. Farmers who downloaded it arrived on the phone with their field size already measured.
How to use it
- 1Choose one small problem your customers have before they buy, and solve it in a resource that takes minutes to use.
- 2Title it with the problem and a specific result, in your customers' words.
- 3Ask whether it would still be worth the reader's time if they never bought; if not, cut the selling from it.