Summary: When we talk about capturing leads online, we're referring to lures and lead magazines. It could be a free report. It could be a cheat sheet. It could be some sort of checklist, something that they request, they download. It would be offered on your website. And ideally, you would have some sort of sequential autoresponder connected to the back end. So that the minute they enter their information, it's processed by the system, and the thing they requested is sent out to the email address they provided.<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of capturing leads online. Welcome back, Jay.<br> <br> <br> <br> Jay: Thank you so much, David. It's great to be here. And I think this is such an important topic especially when people just have a website that just talks about what their services are, but it's not designed to capture any information. And I think that's a huge, missed opportunity.<br> <br> David: I think so, too. And there are so many businesses who know they need to have a website and they generally do have websites. Very often they're brochure sites where it'll just have some information about the company. In some cases, they'll have catalog sites. If they have actual images of products that people can look at. Sometimes they'll have a full e-commerce site where people can actually buy products online.<br> <br> So lots of those types of things are generally thought of as being what's required in a website. But one of the things that seems to be missing from a lot of small business websites, is just some sort of engaging lead capture system. So that's really what I thought would be worthwhile discussing today.<br> Capturing Leads Online Starts with a Goal<br> Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I think that each website should have a goal, at least if you're selling online, and that is to get them through the funnel, into a purchase. Or to get them to sign up and give you their email. Because an email list today is one of the most powerful tools that you have to market your products.<br> <br> David: Yeah, it definitely is. And I think a lot of times, business people and salespeople can forget that in typical sales scenarios, you have to meet someone before you can sell to them. So the idea of having your website set up in a way where you can actually attract and get people to provide their information so that they will eventually interact with you is really key to that process.<br> <br> I think a lot of people still approach their website as something that when they're talking to someone, they can say, "oh, visit my website." Or they can put it at the bottom of their email signature and maybe people will go there. But the truth of the matter is that if a website is not set up properly, then people are going to bounce off it the way that a bug bounces off a windshield.<br> <br> You'll never even know who was there. And that's why I think this idea is so important. If you look at the fact that there are going to be people hitting your site. Now, that's not always the case.<br> <br> Sometimes people have websites, and nobody knows about them. Nobody's hitting the site. However, if you've been in business for any length of time, if you've been promoting your web address, then people are going to go there.<br> <br> And if they don't have something to do that will allow themselves to be made known to you like to say, "I'm here. This is who I am," then you're just never going to know about that business.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah, exactly. and I think that how you harvest that email is also very important. I get frustrated sometimes with this process. Because somebody will say "get a free estimate, instant estimate" and I'll go, "okay!"<br> <br> And I'll enter some information and then they're like, "give us your email and we'll send you the estimate." And I'm like,
