Your Ultimate Guide to Lead Generation
This is one of the most important aspects of the sales department of a business and must be done right. It’s crucial for the survival of your company.
This ultimate 2020 guide on lead generation will help you to get all the insights on what covers lead generation and how you can get it done right. Read on:
So, what are ‘leads’?
It’s an interesting, competitive market out there.
Your company’s marketing department and sales team will spend heavy investment and dedicated time to acquire leads.
Now, when we talk about leads, let’s focus on those prospects which are in the market for the intent to buy; they aren’t just browsing around. They already have the intention to look out for what you are offering.
If your prospects are not ready to buy your service or product, your sales target will be drastically impacted.
What is Lead Generation?
There were times when emailing would get the job done. But not an effective job. They would draw in potential customers, however not necessarily from the target market and website visitors and it would take time in tracking and engaging with them.
To get the revenue to generate, a business needs to have a strong, active sales pipeline in focus. And to get the sales going, quality leads must be generated to capture leads. This method of quality lead generation is applicable for any type of business, including both B2C and B2B.
This is it. The word ‘quality’. It identifies and separates the random generation of large quantity of leads to quality prospects who have the intention to buy your product and are meeting the parameters set by you.
Because you hold a higher chance of converting these quality leads into sales, the higher conversion rate allows for an increase in the return on investment (ROI).
This is what quality leads are and this is what lead generation aims for.
Why Lead Generation Important?
It serves as the savior to your business- saving your valuable resources by getting the right customers to you effectively.
Lead Qualification is a process in which you can determine potential customers that are more likely to make actual purchase of your product or service.
Every company needs to adopt a lead generation system because:
Higher ROI
Since you are now targeting the right customers, your company will save money. It will get higher sales.
Brand Awareness
Since the targeted audience is coming to you now, you will get a chance to create brand promotion and talk yourself up. Give information on your business’s features and benefits to create a strong impression. This also leads to brand loyalty allowing companies to create like-minded communities.
Gain Intel
Companies also have the chance to get to know their customers well. Important marketing information from prospects can provide important intel like their needs and preferences and how tailor made products can be created.
Company Growth
Lead generation allows for your company to build strong relationships, and the increase in ROI will allow for the company to grow, increasing your mark and credibility, leading to higher market share.
The Rise of Digital Lead Generation
There was that time when lead generation was considered similar to ‘cold-calling’. However much thanks to the introduction of advanced technology, and the implementing of modern tactics and social media dynamics, online marketers have revolutionized the buying generation by separating high-quality lead generations from high-quantity.
These leads are carefully selected based on particular criteria and information framework.
Once a business manages to get some intel on prospects, they can then customize the sales pitches according to the buyer’s interests and needs. This is the ultimate advantage with lead generation strategy.
Using various digital channels and effective marketing techniques, it can lead to new and successful customer acquisition rates and numbers.
Goodbye Old Ways
Gone are the days when a traditional sales pitch would be made to a random target audience. It was wastage of resources and efforts for it wouldn’t produce hard core results as the interest level was low, or completely zero.
Customized pitches have lead to stronger, profitable and targeted lead generation.
The new era has allowed businesses to create a strong internet presence. They now understand the needs of the target market better.
Making use of tactics like search engine optimization and content marketing as well as other inbound marketing techniques, companies are now able to develop and nurture strong relationships with their prospects.
Getting Lead Generation Rolling
Once you’ve decided to have a lead generation program or lead generation services, in place, there are plenty of ways in which it can improve your marketing and sales, interlinking operations.
Let’s see the dynamics with which it optimizes your sales and ROI by giving quality leads that will go the long way.
*It will allow for you to look into the existing leads and how they stack up against a quality generation mechanism.
Work out how you can optimize and review your audience profiles, channels and tactics. Create a strong synchronization between your company goals and how lead generation will strive for it, keeping the challenges at bay.
* If you feel your leads are not returning anything. Then a lead generation will allow your sales and marketing team to come into agreement on what a quality lead should signify. This allows the solidification of lead identification which will start stacking up quality leads.
* Once your leads are in and you are confused on what to do next, the lead generation should allow you to adapt techniques for lead scoring and nurturing them.
* Lead generation allows for you to adapt strong metrics which will showcase your ROI status and how you can further adapt effectiveness measures including elevating your sales pipeline, and improving marketing tactics.
SEO-Generated Leads. Why they matter?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the most important tool you’ve got in your hands which can generate amazing results for you- even quality leads.
How you say what you want to say matters a lot.
SEO focused content makes Google happy and when it’s happy it will direct the targeted prospects towards your website.
Aim to get valuable content, content which ranks high. This content makes your quality leads interested, especially if they are leading their search on targeted keywords.
When writing your content, check if it’s:
*industry focused
*offering something which is in demand
*the language is relatable and convincing
*does it signify your authentic and trust-worthy nature?
Whoever visits your site should feel they have got what they are looking for or at the very least they are intrigued by what you have to say.
Either way, get brushing on your SEO skills or keep your SEO expert at bay to adapt the best content-creating skills in generating quality leads.
How to Qualify a Lead:
Now that we’ve already talked about the importance of leads, let’s look into how does a company qualify a lead.
This is the process of evaluation where the prospects are all set to buy your services and products.
But the question arises: ‘Is it really important to qualify a lead?’
In word: Yes, it is.
In order to see if a lead qualifies as a prospective customer, you need to check for:
*Is the lead really engaging with the content on your site including downloading information, checking out the prices and leaving their information?
*Is the lead matching up to your created buyer persona?
*Is the lead the actual decision maker who will move into the sales channel and make a purchase?
*Is your lead high on engagement- checking their emails and clicking on links?
*Is the information filled in by your lead seems authentic or spam?
Generate Leads with Leading Strategies
Now that we have discussed in detail what leads are and why lead generation is so wonderful for the whole of business, let’s talk about the various strategies you can implement to reach the optimal target of your lead generation plan.
Getting the most out of lead generation can also be done through targeting different types of strategies for gaining the best advantage. You will see the main types to play around with:
*Inbound Marketing-Blogs, SEO, Social Media
This is considered as a key lead generation strategy that aims to get your interest about your company increased through highlighting content creation and promotion.
When it comes to content creation, your content writers need to sync and write ‘wonderfully’ through blogs, ebooks and other formats, using visuals to grab attention too.
Promotion will involve dynamics like SEO, as well as other social media tactics.
Outbound Marketing- Email, Events, Display Ads
This consists of an interesting accumulation of various elements which allow you to reach out to various leads, effectively.
Email Marketing is an old, yet popular method which is used to share news, share new content and keep in contact with your prospects. Events may serve as an expensive tool but it still focuses on building relationships and engaging with event’s attendees. Display ads meanwhile emphasize prospects in certain demographics.
Lead Filtering- CRM, Customer Demographics, Sales-Focused
This is the ultimate step which will allow you to determine if a lead is ready to be passed on as sales-focused. Based on customer demographics, and other tools and stats, leads are filtered through what stage they exist.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is one of the most popular systems in use, which identifies and tracks leads- whether they can be pushed into sales or no.
Lead Generation Trends 2020
While we have looked into some solid lead generation strategies to run a marketing campaign, that has been in use for a long time and do provide great results, there are some highly advanced and evolved tactics you can adapt that will bring you ‘wow’ results in 2020. Let’s dig into lead generation tools:
Chatbots
These have been all the craze this year. Media platforms have been adapting them for a long time and it’s time for you to use them as great lead generators. Engage with your site’s visitors to gain insight on what they are doing and want to know.
CTA-Charged Videos
Visuals of any kind are great but videos for lead generations are awesome. Especially when you want to give a demo for your product. Adding a Call to Action (CTA) to your video will direct the viewers to your landing page. This will definitely move things forward.
Hit the Influencer’s Market
You can’t deny how big the influencers’ platform has become. It has definitely been helping B2C market to reach a huge audience and now even B2B operations can gain benefits. There is nothing better than someone popular giving your brand the limelight. Do your research to determine the influencers in your industry.
A Personalized Touch
This tactic, while time-consuming is always effective. It aims to give your prospects a personalized reach- a special segmented touch.
You basically subdivide and categorize your contact information further according to their similar interests and needs.
This plays an important role in the sales funnel, as you invest into more in-depth knowledge plan to showcase your focus and commitment to your prospective clients.
And while we are at it, it’s important to talk about another important topic:
Lead Magnets and Why They Work Well
This is again an interesting marketing tool which focuses on providing exclusive content which actually acts up as a reward or an incentive when an action is taken up. This action can be in the form of signing up for a newsletter, subscribing to the group email, or any marketing gimmick which will allow your company to stay connected with your prospect.
So to Sum Up…
Lead Generation is a mighty exciting marketing tactic that will surely give you plenty of sales when done right. In this post, we have talked about how its origins, the best lead strategies to adapt, some interesting new trends the year 2020 has brought and how quality leads are so much more benefitting than quanity-led leads.
Get your prospects into the marketing channel. There’s lots you can do!