Any marketing agency will tell you that generating high-quality leads is one of the primary goals in a successful marketing strategy. Today’s online landscape is competitive, overcrowded, and in some cases, brutal – on average, 20% of businesses fail in their first year, with 60% folding within their first three. If this isn’t bad enough, we’ve just lived through an incredibly difficult time. Though restrictions are lifting and the future looks brighter, we can’t ignore the fact that COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on small businesses, with an estimated cost of £125.6 billion for SMEs.
Rebuilding can be hard, but there are certain tools and techniques business owners can utilise to increase interest in their brand and increase leads – regardless of their size or niche. Using a well-optimised lead generation strategy, savvy business owners can not only recover from the hit they have taken over the past couple of years, but reach new heights and overtake the competition by finding potential buyers and drawing them in with exceptional ads and web copy.
Offered primarily by digital marketing companies, lead generation is the marketing process of creating, encouraging and capturing interest in a product or service. The overall aim of lead generation is to develop a sales pipeline and nurture targets, getting these leads to a point where they’re ready to buy. Done right, lead generation will nurture trust in your company, reinforce your brand and encourage repeat business.
In short, lead generation involves attracting and engaging online users (in your target groups) until they have converted into a user who is actively interested in your service or product. But how do you achieve this in an efficient and cost-effective way?
Nowadays, a business simply cannot survive without the generation of high-quality leads. In order for a company to generate enough sales to make substantial profits, strategies need to be put in place for not only content marketing, but also online advertising, social media marketing and more. With these strategies comes the persona specifications, funnel marketing and of course the content and ad creation. Lead generation may seem like a lot of work, but it’s completely necessary for ambitious businesses of today. Besides which, as with any field, once you have the fundamentals in place and you understand the lead generation process, your business will have everything running like clockwork.
Creating a conversion funnel is all about understanding what your potential buyers are going to be looking for at each stage of their journey. A funnel typically begins at a basic ‘awareness’ stage, flowing all the way down through ‘consideration’ and ‘evaluation’ until they finally reach the bottom: ‘purchase’.
Optimising your funnel will involve conducting extensive research into each stage of the process and tweaking your overall approach accordingly.
A lead magnet, by its very definition, is a brilliant way to generate leads. Your digital marketing company should be able to suggest potential titles and other considerations for your lead magnets, but as a general rule they must offer a solution to a problem your potential buyer may be facing.
Lead magnets can come in the form of a whitepaper, e-book, a quiz or even a free consultation – anything that will encourage your potential customers to sign up and make use of your free materials or assets. Take the time to consider an offering your target audience just wouldn’t be able to say no to!
Once you have your funnel and have defined your target groups, you need to ensure that each user who lands on your website is not put off by unclear messaging or bad design. Experts take years studying user experience and website design in order to optimise, streamline and perfect the user’s onsite experience – while there is a lot to learn, there are plenty of articles outlining website design tips to help you on your way. Of course, you can also turn to an expert for a helping hand, if you would rather focus on your bottom line.
Pay particular attention to your key landing pages, ensuring the copy is on-point and your page is keyword-optimised. You want to ensure the pages are user-friendly and full of clear sales messaging and calls to action.
A good website will not only need to look the part, but also take your leads to their desired areas without difficulty. This means you’ll have to think about your navigation. For example – where you want your pages to appear and how easy it needs to be to find each one – a well-optimised homepage, services page and contact page are key!
Establishing healthy relationships with your prospects will not only keep you in their good books in the short-term, but also build a brilliant reputation for you in the long run. Be active across your social media channels and via email, respond to comments, invite new prospects to connect, offer solutions to their problems … the list could go on. In short, if you make active efforts to build relationships with your consumers, there’s a good chance you will be seen as a reliable and trustworthy brand – and once you have that in the bag, who wouldn’t want to work with you?
About the Author: Larry Kotch is the co-founder of The Brains, an award-winning digital marketing agency. Ranked #3 in B2B Marketing’s Global 30 under 30, Larry leads a dedicated, remote team of talented digital marketing professionals.
