Quality leads are hard to come by, especially if you are selling complex or high-ticket items. And they're not only hard to get, but expensive as well. Generating better leads can dramatically influence your close rate, sales cycle, customer-acquisition costs, and revenue. Companies that use e-mail, online advertising, or search engine marketing can generate higher quality leads by focusing on what happens after respondents' first click.

Earning the first click is the easy part. What happens next—what you do with such clicks—is what makes or breaks your conversion rate and determines your lead quality. Imagine your respondents falling into a giant funnel. Your post-click marketing should act as a filter that identifies and converts the best respondents: They're the ones you want to emerge from the funnel into your sales or remarketing loop.

To obtain highly qualified, warm prospects, focus more on preconversion segmentation than on conversion itself. Don't worry—focusing on segmentation will increase conversions, so you're not missing out. Preconversion segmentation takes place over a series of short, single-subject pages. It's like inserting smaller, more selective funnels between clicks. It's all about letting respondents self identify who they are by the choices that they make (directed behavioral segmentation). By offering respondents strategically significant choices, you can divide them into buckets representing their value to your organization. That means providing them with a guided path of choices, not just a single landing page.

Preconversion segmentation must serve both your respondent's interests and your own. Remember, according to MarketingSherpa, at least 95% of online marketing respondents abandon without converting. Properly designed preconversion segmentation can entice 40-80% of all respondents to venture beyond that initial click and give you valuable data in the process. Step by step, you'll engage your respondents, earn their trust, and obtain their profiles. It's a win-win situation.

On the surface, preconversion segmentation is deceptively simple. In fact, the simpler segmentation appears, the higher its success rate. Respondents make basic, A/B or A/B/C choices on extremely simple pages that usually include little text. These pages seldom include forms. Strategizing what you need from preconversion segmentation is often easier than devising the tactics to get it. Your segmentation efforts should provide a clear picture of which respondents are the most and the least desirable. You can put yourself in your desirable prospects’ shoes to decide what to offer them that will motivate their behavior.

Respondents will continue to click—many times—as long as they continue to get a reward for doing so. Each click must yield an escalation of the previous click's reward. You can use two, three, even four preconversion segmentation forks, as long as you reward each step. Make sure that your reward is something that respondents will immediately perceive as valuable. Keep in mind, what represents high value to you does not necessarily equal high value to them. Think externally.