Why Industry Reports as Lead Magnets for Agencies Are My Jam
As the CEO of The Campfire Circle, I’ve experimented with a ton of ways to generate qualified leads. Over the years, industry reports have been my strongest tactic for generating leads that convert.
As an agency owner, it’s no secret that you want a continuous supply of healthy leads. Leads fuel your agency’s fire. But, I see a lot of agencies make the mistake of relying on traditional advertisement avenues and cold calling and neglect the fact that organic leads are so much more fruitful.
The best way to generate leads that will convert is through thought leadership as it establishes credibility. Enter: An industry report. Let the leads come organically to you and with smart lead nurturing, you may just be surprised at how many new clients you obtain simply by producing an industry report.
I’m sure you have so many questions so let’s dive into the meat of this post.
Wait, What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is simply a landing page on your agency’s website that offers a valuable asset in exchange for someone filling out a lead capture form and supplying your agency with their email address.
A lead magnet can be an eBook, a webinar, a white paper, an industry report (which I’m about to dive into), etc.
I love lead magnets because they establish credibility. They also generate high-quality leads if your strategic in the topic you tackle. This is important because if you choose the right topic for your lead magnet, it will resonate with your target audience and they’ll be self-identifying as being a targeted lead simply by filling out your form.
What Exactly is an Industry Report?
An industry report is a lead magnet on steroids.
Publishing an industry report entails surveying the right audience, producing your own data, compiling your findings in a downloadable report, promoting it, and nurturing the people who download the asset.
Depending on the niche of your agency, you can go two ways with the theme of your industry report. Stay with me, it’s a little complicated to explain but I am going to share with you in just a moment an example of industry reports that I produced for an agency tackling both routes your industry report can go.
Gather Data and Publish an Industry Report About Your Target Audience
Depending on the niche of your agency, you can survey your agency’s target audience to gather insights from businesses similar to theirs. This is quite enticing to potential clients because they’re always looking for insights.
Create a Report on Your Target Audience’s Audience
Sometimes, your target audience may prefer insights from their own target audience. If you have a good grasp on the target audience of your target audience, there is a lot of room to gain the competitive edge. Not to mention, the thought leadership that gets credited to you by producing your own data quenches the thirst of so many publishers.
My Example of Creating Both Types of Industry Reports for The Same Client
I worked with Overit and did each type of reports.
The first report tackled the target audience of Overit. They specialize in home service clients, particularly pest control. So I surveyed pest control business owners on what they think worked when it came to their marketing strategies. You can view the report here.
After the report did so well, the agency wanted me to create another industry report. I thought surveying the agency’s target audience’s target audience would resonate well with potential prospects for Overit. So I surveyed 300 consumers who had purchased home services within the last year and asked questions like how they found the service provider, what marketing strategies resonated, etc. and you can view that report here. I do have a disclaimer though. This report got published after I left so I did not create the landing page and don’t want you to think I did because it’s awful.
Why I’m Obsessed With Creating Industry Reports For My Clients
So the thing about industry reports is that they tend to get more action than other types of lead magnets. I think it’s because a lot of people are data nerds and admire agencies that produce their own data.
And then there is the promotion of your report which I will tackle shortly. But the gist is that new data is easier to promote than anything else.
Not to mention, the thought leadership and credibility that comes with you publishing an industry report.
The last industry report I published resulted in $100,000 in new business in just a couple weeks if you need me to really drive my point home!
10 Steps to Create an Industry Report
I’m not going to lie, I hope you hire me to create your industry report. However, I admire agency owners who want to be self-sufficient so I will share my secret sauce…
For each industry report, you need to survey 200-300 people in order to make it credible. I use PollFish as their platform let’s you get niche-specific in terms of who fills out your survey so you can gather some really insightful data.
Think about publishing the actual report as you are setting up your questions. Make them multiple choice as these translate well in the report.
Once the survey has been completed, put all of your findings into a beautiful report. Use graphs for each question you polled and provide key takeaways pertaining to the data you uncovered.
Design or hire a designer to make your report look visually appealing. I’ve found quality designers on Fiverr to design my reports for as little as $50.
Create a nice landing page to house your report. It should look sleek and highlight a few key points from your report. And of course, you’ll include your lead capture form.
Optimize your lead capture form so that it doesn’t have too many fields and turn people off. But still has enough fields that you can segment your leads a bit.
Promote your report like crazy! More on this in a bit.
Nurture the people who downloaded your report with a strategic email sequence.
Once your lead magnet has been live for 8 weeks, calculate your ROI.
Analyze the data and effectiveness of your lead magnet and start planning your next lead magnet based on data-driven insights.
Using Your Report as a Lead Gen Hub AKA Promotion
Your industry report will bring in a lot of new leads if you promote it well. Honestly, it should act as a campaign hub for your lead gen at least for a few months. So that means part of your job, if you’re going to leverage an industry report, is to promote it like crazy.
How do you go about promoting it? I have a ton of strategies but let’s look at my top 5:
Pitch it to high-profile publications as they love data. My reports have been featured by publications like Forbes even though my agency isn’t big enough to let me become a contributor to their publication. These reports literally get picked up.
I get a monthly list of new businesses launching with funding. It has been a gold mine for me because new businesses don’t often have agency support yet and the fact that they have funding means they can afford agency services. I like Get Prospects but I’m sure there are other such lists to purchase.
Write guest posts for like-minded publications. Pitch a blog you want to write for, tell them about your report, and ask them if you can write a thought leadership post linking to the report. Tease the readers with some cool data points you gathered and entice them to download your report to learn more.
Of course, organic and paid social media support for your report is going to be a good friend. You can even incentivize your contacts to share your report on their own social channels.
Partner with thought leaders and influencers to share your report on their own social channels and any email lists they have. Sometimes they have newsletter spots available and those have always worked well for me.
Nurturing Your Newly Acquired Leads
You know the saying “If a tree falls in a forest, and no one can hear it, did it make a sound?” Well if you neglect to nurture the leads you acquire from your report, does it really count as lead gen? Probably not.
In order to get the most value out of your industry report efforts, you need to strategically nurture the leads who download your asset.
One thing to keep in mind is segmentation. The more segmented your leads are, the more personalized your emails will be, and this leads to a higher conversion rate.
My go-to lead nurturing program consists of 4 thought leadership emails followed by 1 email asking the contact if they would like to hop on a free consultation call. I then keep them in my general nurturing list because I kid you not, I’ve nurtured leads for up to 2 years before they come on. Look at it as an investment in your agency.
Final Thoughts: Start Creating an Industry Report Today!
I hope you’re as excited as I am about creating an industry report for your agency. Be sure to follow the steps and best practices that I laid out in this post. And have fun with it.
Every industry report that I’ve created for my agency clients brings in at least 200 qualified leads if you want a ballpark estimate of what to expect. Some have gotten substantially more. Trust me, after you release one industry report, this lead gen tactic will be your jam too.
If you don’t have time to create a lead magnet and promote it and nurture your new contacts, that’s exactly why I created The Campfire Circle. I do a ton of industry reports for my clients and have it down to a science when it comes to promoting it. I’d love to do a lead magnet for you and you can contact me here to discuss.
If you did an industry report for your agency, which angle do you think will be the most viable? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below and I will weigh in with the estimated strength of your idea.
