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If you're not already thinking of social media as a channel for lead generation, then you need to start... today. Twitter, in particular, is a great place to promote special offers that turn followers into warm leads.
Earlier this week, I had a conversation with a relatively new addition to the HubSpot team, Laura "@Pistachio" Fitton, about best practices for creating compelling offers on Twitter.
What Makes a Great Offer on Twitter?
1. The offer has to be nice. By "nice," we mean something of actual value. This sounds obvious, but this can be a tricky thing to master because you need to understand what you're audience actually wants. Here are some general tips: People like things that are free, that are educational, that help them make purchasing decisions, and that make their lives easier. For example, if you sell swimming pools, a "First Time Pool Buyer's Guide," would probably be appealing to your target audience.
2. The offer has to be novel. A great Twitter offer needs to be something that you can't get anywhere else. It needs to be exclusive. For example, if you are a Yoga Studio and you tweet "come take a Yoga class," you're not offering anything or adding real value. Likewise, if you're currently offering a 20% discount on your homepage, then offering the same discount in a tweet isn't something new. On the other hand, if you say something like, "The next 10 people who retweet this will receive a free Yoga class," you're heading in the right direction.
3. The offer has to be time sensitive. The idea of "creating urgency" is necessary for any offer, but it's especially important on Twitter, since Twitter is such a fast-paced medium. If you want to get people clicking, you need to give them a reason to click now. On Twitter, where content in Twitter streams flies by fast, if followers don't click now, they probably never will.
4. Bonus Tip: Make the offer naughty. People like knowing that they're getting something they're not supposed to. If you can, make your offer a little surreptitious. For example, you might say something like, "Here's a trick to get an extended trial of Spotify," or "I just found a secret registration discount code for SXSW." Often times, these types of offers are best if they come from partners or individual Twitter accounts from employees within your organization.
Follow these tips to start driving leads from Twitter today!
