5 Tactics for Improving Lead Generation
If you are in business, you are always generating leads. You want customer interest, customer inquiries, and customer information. The more people interested in your service or product, the more closely you can target your messages, the more quickly you can get people into your pipeline, and the more sales and sign-ups you can complete.
Here are a five steps for beginning to improve your lead generation system.
Determine what constitutes a quality lead
Though technology has helped to increase the ability to capture a high quantity of leads online, quality sometimes suffers when you cast too wide a net. The best way to begin refining the process is by creating a strong scoring or lead ranking system. Work with your marketing team to determine the top characteristics of your best-converting leads, and set up systems for segregating and marketing to those potential customers in a highly focused way.
Use the right mix of technologies and methods
There are many marketing tools to help you generate leads. You might build or purchase email and snailmail lists and send out web and direct communication. You can buy leads from search engines such as Google with a pay-per-click campaign. Banner ads, landing pages, video, press releases, and display ads are all standard online marketing lead generation techniques. And traditional advertising methods – from billboards to magazine coverage – are still very much relied-upon for lead generation. Setting up an online referrals or coupon campaign is a common tactic (hello, Groupon!) in many markets as well. The trick is to experiment, refine, and constantly add to your lead generation toolset.
Become an expert problem solver in your industry
When companies are looking for information about issues that concern them, you can attract attention by positioning yourself as the right person or company to solve their need or problem. Place relevant content online using blogs, white papers, and e-reports, and create an array of positive web presences where your target customers are likely to go for focused advice. Answer questions on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and related sites. Your information should be relevant, authoritative and knowledgeable, with a clear emphasis on show your product or service can provide exactly the solution people are looking for. In this way, brand awareness will be created in a low key way that your customers find valuable.
Nurture leads all the way through the pipeline
How many times will you connect with a potential client before they purchase? Of course every industry will produce a slightly different number, but recently we heard that it generally takes 27 encounters before a person will make the decision to purchase. Twenty-seven! Take a close look at your existing lead-generation process and make sure there plenty of ways for potential customers to interact with your brand once they enter your pipeline. Find out where they bail out of the system and patch holes!
Monitor, measure, and modify
Measuring the effectiveness of your lead generation system is fairly straightforward with online marketing. Analytics are a standard part of nearly every tool you will ever employ. The secret is not so much in having analytics, but in taking a careful look at them on a regular basis. Click patterns, link acquisition, pageviews, email opens, and sign-ups may not be equally important in your lead generation system. Determine your key performance indicators and track them over time. Modify and expand, and watch your leads grow!
Need help getting your lead generation machine moving? Contact Calvert Creative today and start getting results.
