This more advanced article assumes you know what lead pages are, and know how to use them to generate sales-leads and build a large email list.

“How much information should I ask for on my lead pages?”

This was a question someone posed recently on a popular web marketing blog, and it was quite fascinating to see the crazy answers people submitted!

Most people had an opinion based on their ‘gut feeling’.

Some people opined that lead pages should never ask for more than a name and email address.

Others argued the ‘bare minimum’ was first name, surname, email address and telephone number.

They were right in the respect that if you want to immediately follow up new prospects with a phone call, as well as a sequence of automated email messages, then you will of course need to request telephone numbers as well as email addresses on your lead pages.

And if you also send direct mail to your prospects, then you’re going to need to ask for their postal address too.

And how about asking for information about the newsletter preferences?

And some information about what they are trying to achieve or the challenges they’re facing?

All of a sudden, your lead page’s web form has turned into gargantuan form filling exercise for anyone unlucky enough to land on it. Most won’t bother.

They’ll probably just bounce off your lead page like ‘hailstones off a tin roof.’

No, the only answer to the question of “how much information do you ask for” on your lead pages is this…

Ask for the information you need to take prospects to the next step in your lead nurturing sequence, and nothing more.

Because if you ask for the prospect’s postal address on a web page that is only offering a free download, most prospects will refuse to volunteer the unnecessary data which they are savvy enough to realise is not required in order to send the free download being offered.

So, how about just asking for the information you need to send them the free offer – i.e. their email address? And at a slight stretch you could also ask for their first name so you can personalise emails you send them?

Then on the page that appears after someone enters and submits the form on your lead page, you can have an extended form that asks for more information.

That way you’ll capture the majority of people who the offer is targeted at, without risking the knee jerk reaction caused by presenting strangers with huge forms that ask for everything in one go.

Then, the people who submit the extra information on that next page are effectively raising their arms, and are indirectly telling you they are the most interested and highly qualified prospects on your list (database).

That technique is how I offer my paperback books.

On my lead pages I offer them as a electronic book (e-book) download, in return for my prospect’s first name and email address.

Then on the next page have a long web form offering a free copy of the physical paperback in return for full postal details and telephone number.

And how well does that work for me?

Well, at the risk of sounding like I’m boasting, which I assure you is not intentional (well okay, maybe a bit!) my lead pages which offer e-books about email marketing and website traffic generation get conversion rates as high as 93% conversion rate.

On the second page that appears immediately after prospects enter their name and email address on those pages is usually an offer for the paperback version of the same book for just £2.36, to cover the cost of postage and packing.

And the amazing thing is that even though those pages also ask for credit card details, they still consistently achieves conversion rates in excess of 50%.

Finally, on subsequent pages that appear for everyone who pays the £2.36, there are additional buying opportunities, (called ’1-click upsells’) which offer increasingly more expensive products.

I can get anywhere from 7% to 20% or more on those subsequent pages, depending on the offer and price point, and those additional sales usually pay for the cost of driving traffic to my lead pages. (Which is called a ‘self-liquidating offer’, but more about that some other time.)

Of course, I’m ‘quite’ happy with all of those numbers. The system works for me.

So, in a nutshell, I’ve found that splitting up your data capture web forms — and asking for the bare minimum of information to start with — works rather well, and you may want to consider doing the same with your web forms too.

It’s one of the most highly effective ways of first capturing as many email addresses as possible and secondly of getting the full details of your hottest prospects, who will no doubt become your biggest source of sales, revenues and big profit.

My colleague Alexa is now enrolling book coaching clients for January 2012.

What does a book coach do? Well, in Alexa’s case she works one to one with her clients, helping them formulate a solid concept for their book, and then acts as a weekly coach to make sure they write it.

I hire Alexa as my book coach every time I write a book, and—in a very big way—she has been responsible for getting all three of my paperback books ‘out of my head and into print’, so to speak.

The way Alexa helped me most was as an accountability partner. She also made sure I didn’t allow too much ‘geek language’ to slip into any of my three books undetected, (which would otherwise have meant the majority of my target audience of non-technical business owners couldn’t understand my books.) She made sure that didn’t happen.

Anyway, if you are thinking of becoming an author and want help from an expert (she helped me get all three of my books into print and selling on Amazon) then get in touch with her as soon as possible – she gets booked up with clients well in advance. (I’ve already booked her to help me get my fourth book in print before Xmas.)

Note: The average time from someone becoming a client of Alexa’s to becoming a published author is just 3 months.

If you like the idea of having your book (finally!) out of your head and in print, selling on Amazon, before the end of March then I can’t think of anyone better than Alexa to help you achieve that.

Click here to visit her ‘Book Refinery’ web site for more information, and don’t forget to make an enquiry about her services while you’re there, to get to the front of the line for 2012.

Best regards,

Ed Rivis, author of The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy, E-Mail Marketing Dynamite, and Massive Traffic: 208 Ways to Get Hundreds or Thousands of Visitors to Your Website in the next 24 Hours… Guaranteed!

P.S. I’ve said it before, (and okay yes it does sound cliched, but it’s true), becoming an author changed my life. It could do the same for you too.

One of the most embarrassing technological breakdowns happened to me this week.

On Tuesday evening I hosted a live webinar in which expert copywriter Daniel Levis explained how to use the art of storytelling to increases online sales. That was a great event (although I didn’t have to do much other than interview Daniel!)

However, on Wednesday night – 8pm Eastern Time (New York time) – I was presenting a live webinar to one of my biggest ever live online audiences — but I had a disaster!

CUT OFF!

One hour into my presentation (just over half time) my office broadband stopped working. I was disconnected… literally cut off from the event, mid-presentation — leaving only the webinar host (Daniel Levis again) on his own.

To say I was embarrassed is an understatement!

About 50 people disconnected from the webinar, but most stayed online with the host Daniel Levis — and after a full 15 minutes of me frantically trying to get my broadband working (5 minutes of which was spent wasted sat ‘on old’ trying to get through to a British Telecom engineer – what a joke!) — I finally managed to reconnect and continue my presentation.

I then spent another hour going through the final content and by the end I think the attendees were more than happy with content Squeeze Pages tactics I shared with them – despite my broadband breakdown!

If you attended that webinar I’d love some feedback – hope you enjoyed the event and found it useful?

Also, if you registered to attend the Squeeze Page webinar on Wednesday night but haven’t seen the replay yet you should get an email from Daniel Levis soon — otherwise please email my support team and they’ll make sure you get it. Thanks.

Anyway today I’ve spent a lot of time today personally replying to emails from attendees who emailed asking if there was a replay (recording of the event). I’ve had to apologize to a few people who said they were upset about only getting half a presentation – because the 50 people who left early weren’t aware that I was able to get back online and finish off, and were understandably peeved about the event only being half-complete when they left.

Everyone I’ve responded to is now happy, (and one chap who was unhappy has since called me a ‘hero’. I wasn’t expecting that!)

Anyway three things I’ve learnt from this experience that I want to share with you…

1) The biggest thing I’ve learnt from this is to make sure you always record webinars (my recording means I can send that to everyone who attended so the 50 who left half-way through still get to see what was promised).

2) I’m always going to make sure I have a co-presenter (in this case it was Daniel Levis). with two presenters in separate locations it means someone can keep the event  ‘live’ while the other person tries to reconnect.

3) Webinars are amazingly effective ways of connecting with an audience. Even with the breakdown, I’ve connected with tonnes of new people in a ‘live environment’ and it’s generated a lot of interest in my squeeze page generation software and my advanced squeeze page video training programme (Lead Page Power) — and I’ve since had great comments and feedback.

I’m going to be doing a lot more webinars in future, as well as going to try and get B.T. to improve my currently-dreadful Yorkshire Wolds broadband connection!!

If you want to know anything about running your own webinars leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help (although I probably won’t be able to help you improve your broadband connection!

Have a great weekend and speak soon,

Ed Rivis.

P.S. If you registered for my Squeeze Page webinar on Wednesday night but haven’t seen the replay yet you should get an email from Daniel Levis shortly, otherwise please email my support team and they’ll make sure you get it. Thanks.

My brand new live video training programme called Lead Page Power has just launched, and for the next 24 hours (until 11am on 28th October 2011 – London time) you can grab it for 65% discount.

In this programme I explain how to create squeeze pages (or lead pages as I prefer to call them) — a special kind of web page that’s capable of ethically capturing the email addresses and other personal details of as many of 93 out of every 100 people who land on your website.

If you’ve read any of my three paperback books, heard me talk live at seminars or workshops or been following my blog posts for any length of time then I’m pretty sure you’ll have heard me talk about these special kind of web pages – they’re one of the fundamental building blocks of effective and highly profitable Internet Marketing.

In this new 10-part live video training programme I reveal the best tactics and strategies I know to make these pages work at the very highest level of optimized conversion and performance, including detailed explanation of my proprietary ‘FOA’ copywriting technnique (which I’ve never revealed before.)

Here’s the link to a page which explains the programme in more details – plus how you can (for the next 24 hours only until 11am tomorrow morning) order the training for just £33.95+vat instead of £97.00+vat — a massive 65% discount!!

CLICK HERE for more information about LEAD PAGE POWER.

The graphics for my next product (online sales-lead generation training using lead pages) have just been finalised – the image on the right is a concept shot for a DVD Case.

Access to Lead Page Power will be online, but I always like to see physical versions of the packaging too, to put some ‘flesh on the bones’ of each project I work on. Helps me focus.

You may notice I’ve gone with a Russian theme for this one? That’s a play on the word ‘Power’ in the title. Design is subjective so this may not be to everyone’s taste, but hopefully you like it?

N.B. If you have any feedback or comments about it please use the comments facility below, thank you.

I’ve also now written a bullet-point summary of what the programme includes…

• 29 compelling offers that encourage opt-ins, generate sales-leads and build a big email subscriber list.
• A detailed explanation of what really gets people to opt-in (not what most people think!) Knowing this one thing alone can transform your success with lead pages (squeeze pages) and list building.
• Expert guidance on how to write near perfect lead pages that convert up to 93% (using my technique the lead page effectively writes itself – so I’m now able to outsource my lead page copywriting to people who don’t have any copywriting experience and still get high double-digit conversion rates.)
• An explanation of the 4 different lead page architectures – and which one to use depending on your back-end range of products and services to generate instant sales and maximise long-term profits.
• Plus, advice on the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to build, launch & promote professionally designed high-conversion lead sites.

Note: Anyone who bought my new lead page generation software (Lead Site Launcher) will have a head start — they’ll be able to take the detailed advice in this DVD and use it in conjunction with software to quickly build and launch better converting (and more profitable) lead pages.

However, this programme will still give a huge competitive advantage to anyone who wants to generate sales leads — even if they have a web developer or lead site consultant who creates lead pages for them. (It’s essential to know what to offer on your lead pages, and how they should be designed – before outsourcing the actual design and build to other people. Obvious really!)

If there’s anything YOU specifically want to know about online sales-lead generation using lead pages leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to answer it here (if I can give a short snappy answer), or if it requires a detailed answer I’ll do my best to build it into the programme. Thanks.

Anyway I’ve gotta dash — I’m recording the programme this week, and I’m expecting to announce the launch early next week – when for the first 24 hours it’ll be available at a 65% discount, so just £33.97 instead of £97.00 plus vat (join the private announcements list to make sure you don’t miss it.)

Warm regards,

Ed Rivis

P.S. This training programme will be made available (for free) to members of my Lead Site Specialists community.

Hot on the heels of my recent software launch, I’ve just started work on a brand new video training programme in which I reveal how to generate sales-leads from up to 93% of all your website visitors.

In the 90 minute video I’ll be revealing the best “covert-but-ethical” tricks of persuasion I’ve learnt since I paid £35,000.00 to attend a 5-day marketing seminar back in 2003. (What a bargain!)

N.B. If you’re a member of my Lead Site Specialists programme you’ll be getting this video programme for free as part of your monthly membership.

I’ll be launching it sometime the week after next, and for the first 24 hours it’ll be available at a huge 65% discount – so just £33.95 instead of £97.00!

If you’d like to be on the private announcements list for this new programme, and get behind-the-scenes updates over the next few weeks fill in the form below, and I’ll add you to the list. (And thanks in advance for your interest).

Bye for now,

Ed Rivis.

PS. If you’re not sure what lead pages are yet – you could be missing a big trick with your web marketing. Check out this article I wrote a while ago with gives a brief introduction to what I believe is the most powerful web page ever invented.

PPS. If you bought Lead Site Launcher and haven’t used it yet – I urge you to follow publishing expert Edd Peppitt’s lead — because this weekend Edd used Lead Site Launcher to launch an awesome sales-lead capture web site, and it only took him 90 minutes. You could do the same — your first lead site could be live and gathering high-quality sales-leads by the end of today!

Okay, so what I want to talk about today is on topic closely related to the above announcement.

A client emailed me today, asking for my advice about an idea he’s had for a new service, which he was thinking of offering to his email subscribers…

“I’m thinking of sending out an email offering << … >>> … do you think it’s a good idea?”

My answer was…MAYBE!

I suggested that instead of guessing what his list wants, that he instead runs a survey and asks them what they need help with.

I suggested he could at the very least create a list of ideas, and ask them to choose their favourite.

That way he can find the specific thing the majority want, then create and deliver it to them.

It’s much better than guessing.

Earlier this year I was at the same point. I was unsure what project to work on next. In fact, I had been working on a major programme for quite some time — but I’d started to worry that no one wanted it.

Unfortunately, I was right!

I ran a survey and gave people 12 ideas for products I was thinking of launching, including the programme I had been laboring on up to that point.

It turned out to be one of the least popular choices.

The most popular choice was for software that automatically generates sales-lead generation websites, and it was based on that invaluable feedback that I was able to instead invest my time and money developing something people actually wanted, rather than something I thought people wanted.

There’s a huge difference.

As an aside, guessing what people want seems to be the #1 mistake on Dragon’s Den, where said Dragon’s make the inventor realise he’s just wasted ten years — and hundreds of thousands of pounds of his own money — creating a cure for a non-existent problem.

It makes for fascinating but often quite painful viewing – when I think of all the times I’ve attempted to second guess what people want, rather than simply asking them!

Luckily I got it right with Lead Site Launcher. There are a lot of people waiting for my new software at the moment, all thanks to the survey. (And of course it also helps to have a large email list of active subscribers too, which coincidentally you can build up using lead pages!)

All I’ve got to do now is finish it off and launch.

Nothing’s ever definite, but things look very healthy for this launch. I already have a rough idea of the people who are going to buy a launch copy of the software. And from my customers perspective, I know it’s going to fix one of their biggest and most common headaches... not because I’m a mind-reader, but simply because they told me so!

Take Action.

Before you start work on your next marketing campaign, product development or service innovation, first find out what the majority of people on your email list really want. What are their biggest ‘pains and challenges’?

Then, create a product that directly addresses the most common issues.

Taking it a step further, consider running a survey that asks your potential customers to choose from a list of product ideas, like I did in my my last survey – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V55NSYW)

It sure as hell beats guessing! 

Happy surveying,

Ed Rivis.

P.S. I use SurveyMonkey, but there are lots of survey tools out there, some of which are built directly into email marketing software like GetResponse.

After much hair-pulling and near “foot through computer monitor” moments I’m pleased (aka relieved) to announce my brand new software is finally launching next week!

At the click of a mouse, Lead Site Launcher automatically builds sales-lead generation websites, and it is ‘super cool’ — according to not just my own totally biased opinion, but also based on feedback from people who watched the preview video too.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create lead pages (squeeze pages) and also the hidden thank you and download pages that can be used to build a large email list of hot sales-leads and opt-in email subscribers… this is it!

It’s also going to be incredibly inexpensive and anyone can use it – no technical skills required.

If you like the sound of that and are interested in finding out more about Lead Site Launcher, let us know and I’ll make a note to keep in touch with you more often than my other subscribers.

Bye for now,

Ed Rivis

P.S. If you attended one of my £3,500 three day private workshops or have ever been a private client then it’ll be my pleasure to send you the software as a gift with my compliments.

A survey I ran last month revealed the #1 thing people want is software that generates sales leads.

Since the survey, I’ve been working flat out on developing the lead generation software – and I’m happy to say it’s almost ready for release.

The video below is the first time I’ve demo’d it to anyone — it’s about 13 minutes long, and shows what the software does and how it works.

If you get chance to watch the video, please leave a comment below (at the bottom of this page) and let me know what you think, and also if you have any questions about what the software does etc.?

Hope you like the look of this!

Thanks in advance for leaving any feedback or questions below.

Ed.