Recently I’ve seen some shady advertising for lead generation systems that have generated hundreds or thousands of leads for clients... in weeks.
Their evidence? Screenshots of ads that have a number of comments. 150 comments, circled in red, followed by “150 leads”.
As someone who generates leads for clients on a day to day basis (phone numbers and all) - this is incredibly deceptive and misleading. Someone who comments on your post is not a lead. In any worthwhile definition of the term.
But Ben! Messenger bots can send them messages and they can become leads - I hear you thinking.
Except that is incredibly misleading thinking - for a couple of reasons.
Let’s say indeed that 150 people did respond to the ad with “interested” or whatever the keyword is to trigger the bot (unlikely).
Yes, those people can go to an audience for re-targeting.
Yes, you can send those people messages (up to 24 hrs with the current Terms Of Service).
You do not, however, have their information. You don’t even have their email address.
You can NOT email them or message them with marketing information after the 24 hr window.
So what you’re left with, is the people who respond to the message, go to your landing page and opt-in - which will be far less than the original 150 people. In my testing, that number is far less than 50% who will even click on your landing page.
Typical landing page conversions are 10-30% - leaving at BEST 45 leads, more typically you’d see 15.
This is why messenger bots really suck. People will tell you that you can create an audience of people that you can message. If your “messages” don’t fit into the pre-defined allowed categories like emergency updates or a news service.... you can NOT message them after the 24 hr window.
You might as well call “likes” on your page a lead.
They’ll also tell you that you can re-target these “engaged” people with other ads... and that’s correct, but you don’t need a messenger bot for that. You can do that with any type of post engagement.
In fact, using those same metrics I could claim I generated over 28,000 leads in 24 hrs for a client. Full disclosure: those 28,000 “leads” are video views, which can be re-targeted just like a messenger engagement.
Using those same metrics I could argue that everyone that hits my landing page is a “lead”.
Except they’re not.
They’re not leads at all.
But it gets worse.
Messenger bots really suck because you’re thinking about YOU. You’re not thinking about your client’s experience.
You’re effectively saying “hey prospect, I can’t really be bothered interacting with you in a meaningful way, but can you comment on my thread so I get social proof of how many people like this ad”.
The number of times I see people doing these ads and of the 14 people who respond, 5-10 are staff or family friends. They’re hardly real leads.
It’s all about the vanity of social proof and how many people want your stuff.
It’s all about looking like your successful and winning.
Do you think your prospect wants to jump through a bot quiz just to be sent to a landing page anyway? No! That’s a waste of their time. Also, if you’re letting your client CHOOSE what they think they need help with - there is zero chance you can sell high ticket on the back end. You’re giving away ALL your authority.
Do you think that prospects actually want to publicly need to raise their hand for needing help? No! They want to be able to register their interest, in private, without becoming a semi-testimonial before they’ve ever consumed any of your content.
You’d be far better off just doing a well-designed ad, that speaks to the prospect in a way that gets them to opt-in for your offer. But that’s WAY harder than just chucking up a basic ad where people can whimsically “engage” with a surface level vanity “like”.
...and when you “learn” this system - you’ll be also perpetuating the myths of this type of marketing, wondering why all the comments you’re getting on your threads don’t turn into what you really want - which is quality leads, leads you can sell to, to grow your business and hit your goals.
Remember:
Low-value people opt-in for low-value marketing.
They don’t spend their day liking and commenting “interested” on people’s posts. They’re too busy for that.
You’ve got to put something together that really grabs them - and there are no shortcuts to that.
If you wouldn't opt-in and register for your own information or your own advertising, do you think a high-value prospect would? Of course not.
It takes time to learn your niche and to write to them - and this is a core skill that every business owner needs, but few take the time to learn. So if you’ve been struggling with your leads, struggling to find quality people - it’s probably because your marketing isn’t standing up to the level required to find quality prospects.
Chances are that if you feel this way, your site isn’t filled with high-quality content for prospects to consume. In fact, in most cases, what I find is that you’re actually asking for the polar opposite clients to what you THINK you’re asking for.
It’s one of the things I’m known for helping my clients achieve - becoming more visible as the industry leaders they already are. Leveraging that leadership into prospects and actual leads through highly engaging content - to demonstrate their expertise, leadership and wisdom.
So to help you, I've created a case study on how to create high quality marketing for your prospects. I call it Lightbulb Marketing. It's all about positioning you as the authority and how to develop trust and authority through the marketing you put out to the world.
So enter your details below and we'll send you out the case study.
