You have a brand-new website for your business that you want to let the world know about you. You followed that up by creating your profiles on social networks. All you need to do now is get in touch with people interested to potentially buy your merchandise and/or services. The purpose of a lead generation strategy is everything. You won’t have clients if you don’t have leads. Leads are the lifeblood of every business. Still the question you ask yourself is “How do I generate high quality leads from my website?”
Let’s see what lead generation is, its components and how you go about setting up an effective lead generation strategy.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is an integral part of an inbound marketing strategy, the objective of which is to naturally attract a user to your site by offering them targeted and relevant offers.
First, let’s talk about the basics of leads and lead generation. A lead is a source from which you have effectively received information (could be email, phone or other data) and who has a particular interest in your business. The generation of leads corresponds to all the actions and marketing techniques put in place to obtain information from potential prospects.
These marketing actions and techniques will create a process that will attract the lead to your conversion funnel. For this, it will be necessary to rely on various web marketing techniques such as the production of premium content and resources, linking strategy, emailing, social networks, as well as your blog.
It should also be noted that there is a level of “test & learn” involved in developing an accurate and efficient lead generation process. Indeed, you can establish a conversion funnel by testing and retesting, which will allow you to generate leads systematically. The goal will then be to transform leads into customers.
How to generate leads?
To generate leads, you have to rely on various web-marketing techniques. The goal is to make you visible to prospects, offer quality content that meets their needs, demonstrates you are an expert in your niche and that resonate with your approach.
Begin by setting up a conversion path (often referred to as a funnel). The foundation can be your content but might start by providing what is called a “lead magnet”. A lead magnet is something of value that you are willing to provide for free in exchange for the prospect providing information (such as email address, phone number, etc)
The goal is to bring the lead into your funnel until their information is captured. If they provide their data to you, it is because the prospect is interested in what you sell/market. Lead magnets typically don’t “qualify” the prospect as a true buyer, but more of an “interested” nature. It is up to you to further qualify them by leading them through your funnel. This is done with subsequent emails and offerings that will help you determine exactly where their interest is and whether you have a “hot” lead or not.
Lead generation: the techniques and tools
- Generate leads with content: it is vital to have feature content to attract your target. Without content, you can’t do anything. This is why you must define a content strategy adapted to your target: computer graphics, video, white paper, e-book, blog articles… an editorial line and set up a publication calendar.
- SEO: making content is better, but it’s even best if it’s optimized. It must be referenced for the material to be available on the internet. SEO optimization is key. Your keywords, backlinks, meta title and description have to be worked on.
- Social networks: It is important to create a community on social networks in order to get more traffic. This will help you to distribute and enhance your reputation with your content.
- Online advertising: it’s an effective technique when you need to get traffic quickly. Using paid search or advertising on social networks will allow you to distribute your content.
- Emailing: When you know your target and your contact base is well segmented, the use of email is powerful for producing leads. The advantage is to be able to send personalized content.
By relying on these main techniques, not only do you generate traffic to your site, but you also gain visibility. And with the right content at every stage of your conversion funnel, you make sure you’re generating leads.
The main measures for a good strategy of lead generation
For a good lead generation approach, what are the key steps and essential points to consider? Here are the primary ones.
Step 1 – Review your target demographic
A good lead generation approach starts by identifying the target demographic/persona you are trying to attract. If you don’t know your target, you run the risk of targeting the wrong people, so they won’t qualify. To get good leads, you have to work on your buyers’ personas. It is by knowing their purchasing behavior and criteria, their purchasing process, their objections and objectives, etc. that you can provide appropriate content.
Stage 2-Identifying the goals of your conversion and lead generation campaign
You need to be specific on the objectives for conversion. Not all leads are designed to end up as a sale. You may want to attract people to a webinar, brand awareness, introduce a new product or service, or to be seen as a subject matter expert. You will need to determine when a visitor has turned into a lead. To be called a lead, what action must the visitor take on your site?
Your campaign priorities for lead generation should also be established. How many visitors for conversion do you need? What is the number of new customers that are expected?
To define your goals, you can rely on SMART goals (specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and time-bound).
Step 3 – Have a content strategy
To generate leads, a content strategy is essential! As we saw above, content helps attract visitors to your site and respond to their issues. Certain “premium” content such as white papers for example helps to ensure your notoriety and expertise in your field.
Do not forget the distribution of your content via social networks, emailing, and advertising to gain visibility and make yourself known.
Step 4 – Work in collaboration with your sales teams
Leads come more naturally when there is an alignment between content and sales campaign efforts. Your results will not be as good if all of your content is on a different area of your business than the type of lead you desire.
Some people grade leads on a more granular level than cold or hot. This applies to the allocation of points during the implementation of lead scoring for example. This is best done by creating that funnel that naturally grades people to their level of interest and buying likelihood.
Step 5 – Performance Analysis
Finally, do not neglect the performance analysis of your lead generation campaign. If your goals aren’t living up to your expectations and aren’t being met, don’t worry. To generate leads effectively, you have to test and retest your conversion tunnel, set up the one that will generate more leads and refine your buyers’ personas according to the latest data collected.
To finalize the conversion, drive visitors to a dedicated Landing (“squeeze”) page
A clear landing page is a place in its own right, where the conversion of a lead takes place. The landing page is a page on your site where you present your lead magnet in exchange for their information. Your landing page should be focused on one thing only, getting the visitor to provide their info. So, you want to create a page that creates a positive experience for your reader by offering high added-value information such as a white paper, infographic or an expert report.
It has an essential role, which must be looked after.
A single purpose page
The first rule of an optimal landing page is its centralization/concentration on a single subject and a single action offered to your audience. In order not to scatter your future lead, it only establishes one clearly presented proposal that is linked to a coherent CTA (Call To Action).
Through its writing, the landing page must allow readers not to be distracted by facts other than that of discovering the interest of the offer proposed. Each of your campaigns brings traffic that the landing page will convert into Lead. It is advisable to create a landing page for each operation.
Landing pages are living and are subject to constant changes in order to optimize as high a conversion rate as possible. The more your landing page will be optimized, clear and relevant, the more likely you will be to generate qualified leads.
A page with strategic characteristics
A successful landing page is one that keeps the message consistent and that the offer delivers on its’ promise. Like the CTA guiding on the landing page, it must have several characteristics to maximize lead generation:
- The main title, a crucial element that clearly sets out the subject and the general benefit
- A subtitle, in reinforcement, which offers more information on the content offered
- A visual of the content, to have a clear idea of the gain
- A concise description of the benefits
- A form comprising only the fields that are necessary for you to qualify your prospects
After clicking on your CTA for more information on a topic they’re interested in, they will be taken to a landing page. It is designed to tell them about premium content, with clarity and simplicity, and to invite them to enter their contact details if they wish to download the content.
55% more leads are what companies observe when they go from 10 to 15 landing pages. (HubSpot)
Quite simply because companies that generate 60% of their leads online will grow 4 times faster than those that do not have a lead generation strategy. (HingeMarketing)
The action of generating Leads represents the desire to attract and convert anonymous visitors into qualified prospects. It’s a complex and strategic process that every good marketer must put in place.
Your Takeaway…
Leads are the lifeblood of any business. They are the foundation of your business’ success and growth. Creating compelling content that converts visitors into leads sounds simple, but in fact is a challenge. If creating content that is going to attract the right visitors to your site, check out our content generation service.
Creating content that is valuable to visitors is only part of the equation of generating leads. Consider it the supporting link. You will need a lead magnet that has so much value that visitors will want to provide you their information in order to have it. You will present your lead magnet offer on a landing page. Landing pages have one purpose. They tell the visitor you understand their issues and that your lead magnet provides a solution. It is of singular purpose only to get them to provide their data to get the value you are providing.
What are you doing to get your lead generation in swing for your business? Leave a comment below.