Lead generation is not only a crucial part of the marketing process, it is also fundamental to the growth of your business! While mostly all business owners and advertising agencies understand how critical lead generation is to business, it still remains a challenge to form and execute a lead generation strategy that works.
In the digital age, there is a proliferation of multiple online channels and there is an overload of information. Consumers are often overwhelmed and actively seek to tune out as much information as they can. They are extremely picky about the content they consume and marketers hence have to work extra hard to reach them. This is where good lead generation practices come in.
In this blog, we will explore some fundamentals of lead generation and its place in digital marketing.
What is a lead and what is lead generation?
A lead is any person who indicates interest in a company’s product or service in some way, shape, or form. Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into leads. A lead generation strategy, then naturally, is the approach you use to optimize this process.
What are the different types of leads?
Not all leads are created equal. Leads are classified into different types based on the stage of the lead generation lifecycle that they are in.
Cold leads – A cold lead is a potential customer that you’re aware of but who isn’t necessarily aware of you and hasn’t yet expressed any inclination in your product or service.
Warm leads – A warm lead is aware of your product or service and has taken some kind of action to express interest in it. But they haven’t seriously considered a purchase yet.
Qualified leads – These are closer to the buying stage than a warm lead and have likely engaged in a telling action, like downloading your company brochure. Qualified leads fall into two subcategories:
• Marketing-qualified leads (MQL) – An MQL lead has shown that they’re receptive to your marketing efforts and are engaging with your content (perhaps they’ve visited your blog or social media pages multiple times), but they haven’t made a buying decision yet.
• Sales-qualified leads (SQL) – Sales leads are prospects that have indicated that they are ready to make a purchase and these leads are then ready for conversion.
What does the lead generation process involve?
Hubspot succinctly puts it as:
“A Visitor clicks a CTA that takes them to a landing page where they fill out a form to get an offer, at which point they become a lead”.
In essence, the 4 crucial elements of the lead generation process are:
• Offer, An offer should have a perceived high value. Offers include ebooks, free consultations and trials, coupons, product demonstrations, and so on.
• A Call-to-Action (CTA) is either text, an image or a button that links directly to a landing page where people can find your offer.
• A Landing page is a specialized page that contains information about one particular offer, and a form to download that offer. The page is tailored so that the offer is immediately visible.
• Forms that collect contact information in exchange for an offer are essential to capturing a lead.
What are the different channels/platforms for lead generation marketing?
The nature of your content is crucial to lead generation. Generally, content created for this purpose should provide prospects with useful and free information. The happier a visitor is with your content, the more likely they are to click your call-to-action and move onto your landing page.
Creative designing companies and digital marketing agencies can provide all kinds of content that are created for the purpose of lead generation. Content can take different forms and be placed on various different platforms. The key channels for disseminating lead generation content are:
Email is a good channel to reach people who are already familiar with your brand and product or service. It’s far easier to get these people to take action since they’ve previously subscribed to your list. However, the key to effective emails is catchy Subject lines, compelling copy and then eye-catching design. People’s inboxes tend to be cluttered so your email needs to stand out and grab attention.
Ads
Good ads have a compelling copy and eye-catching design. Moreover, the action that you want people to take should be crystal clear. Since the sole purpose of an ad is to get people to take action, great design and copy are essential. Secondly, be sure that your landing page and offer match exactly what is promised in the ad, or else you won’t get conversions.
Social Media
Social media platforms these days are perfectly poised for brands to get their followers to take action. From swipe up options on Instagram, links in bios, bitly URLs on Twitter, the options are endless. CTAs can also be included in captions of posts, leaving space in the poster for creative and appealing design.
Blog
Blogs are great for providing your consumers with free and useful information. Readers are engaged with the content and also view you as a trustworthy authority, making them more likely to be compelled by your CTA. CTAs can be positioned at the end of the blog post or in sidebars or pop-ups which would make your CTA highly relevant and easy to click while consuming the information. For example:
If your business is in need of fine-tuning a good lead generation strategy and executing it perfectly, feel free to reach out to us here at WebRickshaw for help!
