The way most marketers acquire leads at the moment is to send all their traffic to a squeeze page. Here, they try to get their visitors to enter their contact details in exchange for a free gift. When you direct visitors to a page where they are presented with no options, other than enter in their details or leave the site this is a very effective way of collecting leads.

There are a few problems that have always existed with these methods which effect the number of conversions and the quality of the leads…

Fake details

If you tempt your visitors in with a free gift then it will be tempting for them just to enter in fake details if they aren’t interested in receiving emails off you. An email list full of fake details is useless.
Converted traffic not confirming their subscription

A way to stop people entering in fake details is to require them to confirm their subscription. This means they have to click a link in an email you send them to receive the free gift. This poses it’s own problem, this is often just too many hoops for a visitor to jump through. The visitors which were interested in you gift never make it onto your list because of this extra step. Emails get caught in spam filters, people forget to check their email, for whatever reason visitors don’t confirm and don’t make it onto your list.

Secondary email addresses

People are used to giving up personal information to receive free gifts and start up secondary email addresses just to sign up for freebies. This means they only check their email to confirm their subscription, other than that they never access it, so although the emails you send end up in an inbox, they never get read!

People don’t want to fill out forms

The trouble with traditional opt in forms is people simply don’t want to fill them out. Especially if you need more information than their email address. Multiple fields presented to a visitor can make them just press the back button and not bother opting in.

These are all reasons why I am a great fan of using a Facebook connect opt in button. Basically, using the Facebook API, Facebook allows you to pull details from users profiles. These details can be sent straight to your autoresponder account.

The advantages of using a Facebook connect opt in button is it negates pretty much all of the above. Facebook requires you to keep up to date information on your profile. This means there will be no fake emails or people using secondary email addresses.

Because we know these aren’t fake details we don’t need users to confirm their subscription so we won’t lose potential leads like that. And, there is no form to fill out. The details have already been entered into Facebook. Facebook did the hard work. All our visitors have to do is click the Facebook connect button.
Although there will be some people who aren’t on Facebook, conversions and quality of leads will still greatly improve because of all the advantages I have listed.

FB Lead Gen

I have previously covered how to set this up, but I have just found the perfect solution over at FB Lead Gen. These guys have set up a painless way for you to set this up yourself.

They offer you a simple way of setting up a Facebook connect button to collect visitor’s details. You can integrate FB Lead Gen directly with either Aweber or Mailchimp. All the details you collect are also stored in your own database on your web server.

In the past, if you wanted more than just an email address you would be forced to get your visitors to fill out more forms. The more you have to fill out the less people sign up.

FB Lead Gen removes this problem. You choose which details you require during the setup process, then your visitors only have to push one button and the required information comes straight off Facebook. After the installation you are free to place a Facebook connect button anywhere on your site, with a bit of code they provide.

If you look at the sidebar of my blog, you will notice a button to subscribe to my newsletter, this is an FB Lead Gen button.

Facebook opt in button wherever you want on your page.

At the moment, this is the easiest way to implement a Facebook connect opt in button on your website. Over the next few months I expect that these buttons to become ever more ubiquitous. The button greatly increases the number of conversions you will get and the quality of those conversions, so Facebook opt in is a must.

Check it out here FB Lead Gen

Update – The guys over at FB Lead Gen put this video together demonstrating their product, check it out…