Coffee offers in lead generation: quality vs quantity

I wrote about coffee offers and how they can be integrated into a launch strategy. This time, I suggest how they can work wonders in lead generation as well.

Note. This is a continuation of my previous article “The coffee offer strategy: minimize price resistance and qualify the potential customer“.

Lead generation and micro-commitments

Every business on earth wants and needs new customers. Crucial in customer acquisition is getting new leads and nurturing them into prospects.

Micro-commitments are a great way to qualify leads and prospects. Nurturing mostly means to give, give and give more value to potential customers. If among all the giving you also ask to get a little something, those who comply give a signal of commitment and are evidently much more interested in what you offer.

The coffee offer strategy can be used in these stages as a micro-commitment to greatly qualify potential customers, in particular regarding their willingness to pay. 

Note. There are many different definitions of leads and prospects. In general, think of leads as potential customers “at the top of the funnel”, while prospects are at the “middle to end part of the funnel” (a great read about this is at hipb2b). 

Coffee offers as micro-commitments

Take web forms, for example, a very common tool for generating new leads. They allow visitors to ask a question or access some content, a lead magnet, while the company gets their contact information and is able to send them further messages to nurture their interest. 

Web forms are a micro-commitment themselves, although a very tiny one. Indeed, the content or information you can access by completing them is not completely free, as you give away your contact information, which has value.

The problem is that just about anyone can complete such a form, and those who submit the forms are considered leads even though they may not have the intent to purchase.

A coffee offer can be used to qualify the leads who are actually considering purchasing.

After all the giving during the nurturing process, you can offer one last “something” of great value. This can be anything (a sample, a free trial, a first consultation meeting, further content, access to the first few lessons of a course…), the important thing is that it is of great value.

The trick is, this time you don’t give it for free, but for an insignificant amount. The amount might vary but, as “coffee offer” suggests, a great deal is 1€, the cost of a coffee.

How does it affect your generation of leads?

As a result, your list of leads and prospects will likely size down. However, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, you just identified all those who are not interested or not ready to buy, and you can decide to further nurture them.

More importantly, those who accepted the micro-commitment are likely very interested in your products and services. They have proven to be willing to pay for them and are more likely to convert.

Additionally, a small purchase is still a purchase: those people can actually be considered proper customers now.

The first sale is usually the hardest to close; if your offer is of high-perceived quality, subsequent sales to the same customer are likely easier to bring home.

In a way, when upselling your full-price products or service, you are doing customer retention rather than acquisition.

(Some interesting articles about retention and returning customers at smallbiztrends, shopify, annexcloud, constantcontact, fivestars).