How to generate email leads for your membership website

Turning your website traffic into qualified leads is a trick that successful membership website owners need to know how to do.

In some cases, future members will visit your membership website for the first time, be impressed by what they see and read, and then join your membership organisation there and then. However, in many, many cases, you will need to take a few more lead generation steps to convert cold traffic into members.

Email is one of the most powerful tools you can use for generating leads for your membership website. If email isn’t part of your lead generation strategy, then you will need to get started by including the following core elements into your email strategy.

Email marketing platform

Firstly, if you are going to be using email as part of your lead generation strategy, you are going to need an email marketing platform.

Your email platform will collect your leads for you and enable you to follow up by sending email campaigns to them.

There are many email platforms out there, such as MailChimp, Sendy, and ActiveCampaign. Each of them has different features and price plans, so you will need to take a look at your own requirements and work out which one is best suited to your membership website and goals.

Opt-in form on your membership website

Once you have your email platform in place, you then need to add an opt-in form on your membership website for users to submit their details.

Almost every email marketing platform will have a tool that will allow you to create a form, as well as tools and methods for adding it to your website.

Lead hook

People can be very precious about giving out their emails these days. To get people to give their email address to you, you need to incentivise them with a lead hook, or offering.

Simply telling your users to “sign up to our newsletter” just won’t do. You need to offer your users something of value to entice them to sign up to your email list. Simple downloads like eBooks can work well, as do more substantial offerings like mini-courses and free software.

Follow up emails

Once someone has joined your email list, you need to have a strategy for your next moves.

You should have a sequence of personalised automated emails in place. These emails need to be well-crafted and spread over a period of a few days or weeks in order to add further value and, most importantly, to make your new sign-up aware of your membership offering.

These types of email are commonly referred to as “autoresponders”, and most email marketing platforms have the functions so you can create these.

At his point, you are now ready to start collecting email leads through your membership website.

Publishing and promoting high-quality content will help to drive people towards your membership website. If your website users enjoyed what they have seen, then they will want more from you.

Now that you have these steps down, let’s look at some tips you can use to help increase the quantity and quality of the leads you are generating.

Multiple lead magnets

Instead of having just one lead magnet, consider having several, each tailored to your different customer personas.

By having multiple lead magnets you will increase the chances of you having something to attract a higher proportion on your website traffic. You can also use these as an indicator of the sort of content that people are interested in, and tailor your follow-up messages accordingly.

Upgraded content

Further to having multiple lead magnets, you should also consider having opt-in incentives for individual blog articles too. This upgraded content gives you a way of delivering additional value, information and resources in exchange for someone opting-in to your email list.

Free membership levels

Another great way for you to generate leads is to offer free entry-level membership levels.

Not only is this a good way of getting people to join your email list, but you are also getting them to sign up for an account on your membership website. This means that instead of sending out free content by emails, you are getting people to actually log in to your membership website to access them.

By bringing people in this way, you are in a very good position to start promoting your paid membership to those leads.

Now start using email to generate those leads!

If you are not focusing on using email to generate more lead for your membership website, then now is the time to get started. By using the tips we have looked at in this article you will be well on your way to raising your game and getting more membership sales.