Note: This post contains affiliate links. I wrote this post in affiliation with Interact, who provided many of the sources below, as well as a complimentary pro account.
Generating leads without targeting them will only lead to a waste of resources. If you get 100 leads at a 1% conversion rate, that means you’re spending time and money to sift through 100 potential customers, to get a single one.
To avoid this problem, there are a number of ways you can generate targeted leads. This includes;
- Content marketing; producing informative content that’s highly relevant to your specific audience.
- Referrals; asking contacts that you’ve worked with before for recommendations or introductions to their networks (that would find your product/service useful).
- PPC ads; paying to show ads in results for specific search terms, or on social media to specific demographics.
- Lead magnets; providing a free eBook, whitepaper, or quiz result in exchange for information (usually an email address).
In this article, I’ll focus on the last point, lead magnets in the form of quizzes.
Before we move on, let’s take a look at a quiz success story.
Branding Strategist Lindsay Scholz used a quiz on “What’s your ideal brand aesthetic?” as a tool to generate leads for her branding and social media business. While trying to grow her email list, she tried pop-up welcome boxes and opt-in freebies, among other things. By using her quiz instead, she was able to triple her email list and fill out her client calendar with a 48% conversion rate for everyone who took her quiz.
Tempting growth, right? Let’s move into the details and discuss how to use quizzes to generate targeted leads.
How to use quizzes to generate targeted leads
According to Jessmyn Solana of Interact, a quiz or survey has 3 main goals. You want your viewers to:
- Complete the quiz or survey
- Fulfill the CTA
- Move along to the post-completion steps
Here are a few best practices to getting your target audience through all three steps.
1) Get participants to complete your quiz
Keep it branded
Design your quiz with the colors and design elements you use in your website and other marketing materials. If your visitors got to that quiz from your website, they expect to see your brand throughout. If someone is new to your brand, you want to introduce your brand professionally.
Show a progress bar
Let them know where they are in your quiz and how close they are to completion. This is also an excellent way to activate gamification instincts.
Use simple question-and-answer formats
Don’t ask someone to write an essay on marketing to gauge their marketing prowess. It’ll take too much time from them and you. Since this is likely an early point of contact, your quizzes should have simple yes/no, or multiple choice questions.
Include no more than 7 questions
High converting quizzes typically take 2 minutes or less to complete, which is the time it takes to answer approximately 7 questions. More than that, you risk drop-off, fewer questions than that risk unqualified leads.
2) Get them to follow your CTA
Be clear about benefit and frequency
If you’re asking someone to subscribe to your newsletter, explain why they should (beyond just seeing their quiz results), and how often you intend to email them. Giving more information will help your leads self-qualify, and will help you get more conversions.
Only ask for information that’s absolutely necessary
Keep it easy for your leads to give you their information. The bare minimum is a simple text field for an email address, although I recommend adding a place for their first name so you can personalize communications.
Some forms ask for details down to a person’s company name and how many employees they manage. Unless your brand holds enough sway that leads will still fill in this information, you may end up losing relevant leads. Gauge your audience and measure results to find out where on the spectrum your brand lies.
Provide an opt-out
No one likes to feel forced into giving away their information, or tricked into spending time completing a quiz, only to find out their results are gated. Providing an opt-out and allowing participants to see their results without giving their email address is not only more ethical, it’s also better for getting targeted leads. It allows individuals to self-validate, which is great for weeding out subscribers that would put your emails into spam anyway.
3) Nurture the lead post-completion
After someone finishes your quiz, you want to send them somewhere that holds their interest. Here are a few ideas;
- Another useful resource related to your quiz topic (if you’re targeting correctly, you should have a lot of them)
- A community or forum where they can ask questions
- Somewhere else on your website with an offering they would find useful
This is a good idea because it gives you an opportunity to showcase your expertise in the industry. It’s also great for keeping your bounce rate low.
Want to create a quiz of your own? Check out Interact.