Even if you are new in the marketing world, you have probably heard of leads. Leads are often talked about as the greatest treasure, while tactics for generating leads are a kind of alchemy. It remains to be determined whether leads are really that useful and valuable, does all the effort invested in generating them pays off, or is the whole story about leads just inflated.
What Are Leads?
Simply put, a lead is a person who has expressed an interest in our product or service. In fact, we are talking about contacts and the opportunity to establish communication about a brand, product or service through a website, email, social networks or a phone call.
A prerequisite for the survival of any company is the existence of customers or clients – people who are interested in our offer and ready to turn that interest into conversion. Generating and contacting leads practically increases our chance to turn an interested person into a customer or a client. The key characteristics of quality leads are that they are interested in our product / service and have an appropriate budget. On the other hand, we must be able to respond to a certain desire or need and thus wisely use the generated leads.
The client usually starts as a website’s visitor, then transforms into a lead and finally gets his final form – a loyal customer. So, each of our clients could have been a lead at one point, the only question is whether we recognized and reacted to it in time. If each of our clients in the past could have been a lead, the question arises as to how many potential leads we have never turned into clients. That is why timely and up-to-date generation of leads is very important.
Online Lead Generation – Strategies
If you have been in business for a long time, there will surely come a time when you will realize that your “potential customer base” has dried up and you are squirming like a fish out of water. If you look closer, there are the interested parties that you have already managed to turn into loyal customers, and interested parties that persistently resist your attempts to turn their interest into conversion.
Precisely because of such “checkmate” positions, it is important to constantly work on online lead generation, apply different strategies and periodically adjust the approach. Strategies you can use to successfully generate leads are: contact forms, SEO, content marketing, landing pages, email marketing, Social Media marketing…
Contact Forms
Contact forms can be easily integrated into your website. You can design the form to collect important information (e-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses…), but usually you have to offer something in return. In order to “force” someone to leave you their personal information, you must offer them a kind of gift, or lead magnet.
SEO
SEO is a key component for ranking your website when searching for important keywords. If a search engine finds your site relevant and valuable, it will rank better in searches. The better your site ranks in search, the more visits you get, which leads to more potential leads, which you can convert into conversions.
Content Marketing
Content marketing will make your job easier and give you the opportunity to introduce potential customers to your business and current offer. If you haven’t already started writing SEO custom blog posts, now is the time! Keywords, backlinks and calls to action become parts of your strategy and the advice is to use them wisely. If we haven’t convinced you to start a blog page, maybe the numbers will do it for us – sites that contain a blog page generate almost 70% more leads than those that don’t.
Landing Page
We already talked about the landing page and its main role – to collect leads and make conversions. Make sure your landing page is clear and informative, but never too dry. A complete landing page is actually a kind of call to action and therefore it should be used in the best possible way.
E-Mail Marketing
People think that email marketing is an outdated form of communication and they are wrong. When purchasing products or visiting the site, ask users to leave their email address. You can then use the appropriate software to analyze the data and automatically send special offers to the target audience.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media marketing does not need a special introduction. Clearly, this is the most popular form of interaction with existing and potential users of your products or services. Appearing on social media also allows you to do so-called “word of mouth” marketing – which in this advanced form could be called “share to share”. Existing followers share your posts and their online friends become potential users of your products or services. This form of digital marketing offers a lot of opportunities, but you have to take into account that leads are very important if you want to start successful online campaigns.
Tips for Successful Lead Generation
We’ve gone through strategies you can use to generate leads, but the question remains where to start.
Lead Magnet
At the very beginning, create a lead magnet visitors will simply not be able to resist. What can be used as a lead magnet? A lead magnet can be any form of free service or product that you offer in exchange for useful contact information. You can design an ebook, guide, checklist, quiz, template – anything that will help users to solve a problem is a potential lead magnet. It’s actually a fair exchange of goods – you offer useful information from your industry in exchange for contact information of potential customers.
The most important thing is that your lead magnet meets two basic criteria: usefulness and relevance. Therefore, the information you offer must be valuable to the target audience. Otherwise, your offer will not interest the potential client, he will not leave contact information and all your efforts will fail. An even worse scenario is if the potential client leaves his contact information and in return does not get what he expected from you. Believe us, your newsletter in the inbox will not make him happy. Relevance means that your lead magnet is directly related to the business you do and offers useful information or solves problems from that niche. If you generate a list of contact information of people who are not interested in your product – you are just wasting your time.
Promoting Lead Magnets
You have created a great lead magnet that your target group certainly can’t resist – it’s time for promotion! If your potential clients live in ignorance and have not heard of your offer, you will not generate any leads and all your effort and talent has been wasted.
The easiest way to promote your lead magnet is through Social Media campaigns. Promotion is also possible through Google ads by using important keywords. So, you will promote your lead magnet the same way you would promote a specific product or service. Promotion is possible through all distribution channels – if the lead magnet is of good quality and if your targeting is to the point.
Constantly Creating Quality Content
If you want to collect leads in an organic way, the solution lies in constantly creating quality content. In addition to ad quality, pay attention to optimization, as this will help your content reach your audience when searching for important keywords. Keep in mind that search engine optimization is no longer reserved for Google alone – all content you place in different distribution channels should be optimized. Wherever search is possible, optimization according to important keywords is also possible, which includes numerous Social Media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter…).
We conclude that generating leads is not really a matter of choice but a need of every company that wants to constantly improve and increase the “pool” of potential customers. Let’s be realistic – it’s every entrepreneur’s dream. The only remaining question is how to generate leads and whether you will be successful in it. If you do not follow the current trends, you risk being overwhelmed by the competition quickly and effortlessly. That is why the task of generating leads in digital marketing should always be left to experts. Experts will know how to approach the “problem” and how to best address the audience, while remaining a search engines’ favorite. Keep in mind that more quality leads mean more potential clients, and more potential clients leads to more conversions. Follow the rhythm of your target group and don’t let one wrong step hinder you from achieving business success.