As marketers, we strive to find a way to consistently have new leads flowing into our pipeline. And in the professional services marketing world, what better tool exists to achieve this goal than a lead generating website?

By planning, designing, and building a lead generating website, your firm will be able to generate leads consistently. Even when you are on vacation, you will have a steady flow of new leads waiting for you when you return. So why aren’t all marketers developing lead generating websites?

In our most recent webinar, we set out to give marketers the tools they need to start planning their next website update. Check out the recording of How To Build A Lead Generating Webinar here.

Here are the key takeaways from the webinar:

  1. High growth professional services firms generate 50% of their leads online.

    Hinge conducted an online marketing research study and found a clear difference in the marketing techniques that high growth professional services firms and average growth firms use. High growth firms are making tremendous use of online marketing and are generating at least 50% of their leads online. What percentage of your leads are you generating online?
     

  2. The difference between late stage and early stage leads and how to convert each.

    Generally speaking, there are two types of leads in professional services: late stage leads and early stage leads.

    Early stage leads: These leads are people who have recently encountered a problem and are looking for ways to solve their problem, or find someone to help them solve it. They are often performing internet searches around their problem, such as , “how can I generate more leads online?” In order to attract early stage leads to your website, yourr content needs to be focused on the problems your prospects are facing.

    Once you have attracted those prospects to your website, you need to gain their trust. A good way to do this is by offering prospects free information such as an ebook or whitepaper. In order to download this email or whitepaper you should request web visitors exchange an email address. Once you have their email address continue to send them new content as it comes out to increase their level of trust and engagement with your firm.

    Late stage leads: These are prospects who already have studied up and understand the solutions available to them. They are looking to choose a service provider. They might be searching for something like “accounting service provider” or “fundraising consultant.” In order to attract late stage leads, the services pages of your website must be optimized. This means that when prospects search for an accounting firm, yours is the one that appears first in Google.

    Attracting late stage leads to your website through an offer, such as a free consultation, increases the likelihood that they are ready to take the next step in engaging with your firm.
     

  3. All professional services firms need a blog on their website.

    A blog is the best online marketing tool a company can have. It allows you to show a little personality while educating your prospects. More importantly, each blog post becomes an indexed page in Google. This allows your clients to find your content on issues that are important to them. Just make sure you are writing with your prospects needs in mind. They will find your blog posts and begin to trust you after reading your approach to their issues.
     

  4. Set up web forms and connect them to a CRM.
     

Some aspect of marketing automation will have to be in place in order to generate leads efficiently. Set up forms on your website that collect information from your visitors in exchange for downloading a piece of content. By making sure that these forms are plugged directly into a CRM, you can avoid manually collecting email addresses. Instead, they will go right into your system for when you are ready to nurture your leads, through email marketing.

For more information about nurturing leads, check out a recent post about the types of email offers. Look out for Hinge’s next guide “The Lead Nurturing Guide for Professional Services” as well.

  1. Hinge clients typically see a 367% average increase in leads over the first 12 months.
     

Hinge found that leads really do start to pour in shortly after launching a lead generating website. This is due to a large increase in qualified web traffic. Typically, 12 months after launching a lead generating website, Google search traffic is up by 528%. This is due to a combination of increased keyword rankings in Google and a large increase in traffic generated by blog posts.

The increase in traffic and leads isn’t only seen at the finish line, though. After just 3 months, Hinge clients tend to see an average increase of 92% in search traffic and 163% in leads.
 

If you are looking for more information on lead generating websites, check out The Lead Generating Website Guide. It will give you the information you need to start planning and implementing a lead generating machine for your firm. Some other resources you might find helpful are:

Online Marketing For Professional Services

B2B Content Marketing Guide