One Clever Way to Generate More Bottom-of-the-Funnel Conversions

When it comes to lead generation, bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) leads are the holy grail.

These are people who want to talk business. The serious stuff. No more fluffy blog posts, ebooks, or tweets: just dollars and sense.

They're also harder to come by than the average lead looking to leaf through your downloadable offers for tips. (Hence the whole Holy Grail reference.)

Most companies rely on landing pages and sexy calls-to-action to drive visitors to convert on a BOFU offer. But there's actually a smarter, more efficient way to get the eyeballs you actually want viewing the value of your bottom-of-the-funnel offers. 

And it involves giving away your assets. 

The Power of Free

The word free is still the most powerful word in marketing linguistics. You already know this, which is why you're probably already using the word to sell potential prospects on your consultation, demonstration, or other bottom-of-the-funnel type promotions. 

"Free 30-Day Trial!" 

"Register for Your Free Consultation!" 

"Sign Up for a Free Demo!"

The problem is, pages promoting BOFU opportunities like these will always have less page views than your average landing page. After all, your sales funnel doesn't widen toward the bottom, it narrows. 

Less page views means less conversions. (When compared to your more top-of-the-funnel offers.)

There's a lesson to be learned here from this correlation.  

Logic would dictate that increasing views would also increase bottom-of-the-funnel conversions. 

But how? 

By giving away your ebooks....for free. 

Compiling the List

Now before you go sending free assets to your entire database, pump the brakes and first consider the type of contact you want to nurture. 

By sending leads a free offer, you'll be emailing them a link to your 'Thank You' page, which not only allows them to view the ebook without a form fill, but if you're doing it right, should also feature a form that allows viewers to convert on your BOFU offers. (As seen below.) 

You don't want just any lead having direct access to an offer, and by default, a BOFU conversion opportunity. Doing so would only open the floodgates for a ton of unqualified requests. 

Using an automation software like HubSpot, compile a list of only sales and marketing qualified prospects to ensure a more productive and valuable interaction. 

As you can see here, I created a smart list in HubSpot consisting only of qualified prospects. I'll use this list to send my free offer or ebook to, as it ensures that should anyone fill out the BOFU request form, it'll definitely be someone sales would want to speak with. 

Sending the Email

From a business standpoint, you're trying to get more eyeballs to the value of your BOFU offers, and as a result, increase conversions. 

From a messaging standpoint however, it's all about the prospect. As you'll see from the email below, I used the opportunity to build rapport, brand equity, and trust in order to increase the likelihood of a bottom-of-the-funnel conversion on the 'Thank You' page. 

I provided recipients with two opportunities to click over directly to the corresponding 'Thank You' page to receive their free offer – no form fill required. I even specified this in order to increase click-throughs. 

Why? Because the more clicks generated, the more eyeballs are being diverted to a BOFU conversion opportunity. 

The Results

The real metric we're looking for here is conversions. I don't mind sending a free ebook out to a list of 4,000 qualified leads, as another form fill isn't what I'm looking for from these prospects. Instead, we're looking to nurture them to the bottom-of-the-funnel. 

First, however, they need to see the value of such an offer. That's the whole reason we're sending out a free offer. To attract more eyeballs to the value of our free consultation. 

As you can see, it worked. 

When you're sending out a free offer of any kind via email, you're almost guaranteed to see a high volume of click-throughs. 

There's no exception here, as over 4,000 qualified leads opened the email, and over 1,000 clicked through to the 'Thank You' page. 

That's over 1,000 people viewing a BOFU landing page. The value of this is immeasurable. 

This email generated over 40 BOFU conversions in one afternoon. To put this into perspective, we usually generate about 25-30 in any given month. We achieved this output in one afternoon. 

So if you're having a down month, or are simply looking to increase the number of bottom-of-the-funnel opportunities for sales, don't underestimate the power of simply giving something away.