Marketing is the lifeblood of any successful business. More specifically, proper lead generation is essential when it comes to maximizing your sales numbers.
Not everybody understands what the lead generation process looks like, though. Let’s take a look at the key factors that you need to keep in mind to better understand them.
Setting Your Goals
As you might guess, the first step of the lead generation process involves establishing your goals. Otherwise, you will find it difficult to keep your strategy on track as time goes on.
It’s also important to note that your goals should always be realistic. Falling short of your metrics is never a pleasant experience, but doing so due to oversight is even worse.
This is also the stage in which you should begin to outline your budget. The amount of money you allocate toward your lead generation strategy will lay the framework for the methods you implement.
Research
This will be the bulk of the research you conduct in this stage. You will mainly be looking for leads and their contact information.
You can then compile this information into a database (such as a spreadsheet) in order to keep it organized and accessible. Depending on the size of your organization, the research phase will vary.
Smaller businesses may conclude research in less than two weeks. Others may take months.
Regardless, research should always be ongoing whether or not you are actively developing a lead generation campaign. This will allow you to have constant access to useful customer information.
Creating Your Message
You can’t simply throw products or services in someone’s face and expect them to pay for it. You’ll need to develop a message that illustrates the benefits your company can provide.
In general, you’ll want to answer three questions as quickly as possible through your message:
- Why should your audience choose your company?
- How does your product or service stand out?
- Why do they need to make the decision now?
It should come as no surprise that the message you create must align with your average customer. This means that it should speak to them in a way they are familiar with while also expressing values with which they resonate.
For instance, let’s assume that your company’s audience consists of older, male, blue-collar workers. This means there is a strong chance they value diligence, loyalty, and self-sufficiency.
As a result, you need to speak to them in a way that conveys these values. This will help optimize the responsiveness of your campaign.
Pre-Targeting Your Audience
For those who are unfamiliar, the term pre-targeting refers to building brand awareness before you attempt to make a conversion. This allows your lead generation ads to be more effective.
To help put it into context, imagine you are driving through the downtown area of your city and looking for a new Italian restaurant to eat at. Would you visit a restaurant that you’ve heard of, or would you choose to eat at one that you’ve never seen an advertisement for?
Although not 100% of people would eat at the restaurant they have previously heard of, there’s a good chance that most of them would.
The same principle applies to lead generation. If your audience has heard of your brand before they reach your landing page, you have a much better chance of making a conversion.
Developing Landing Pages
Your landing page will be your primary lead generator. After all, you’ve put in all this effort to get them there in the first place.
A solid landing page has a clear headline that grabs the user’s attention. It’s also highly recommended that a landing page opens in a new tab so that users can’t readily click the “back” button on their browser.
The overall design of your landing page should also be sleek and aesthetically pleasing. However, it should also be relatively simple as to not be visually distracting.
Finally, the CTA that you use should be brief and instructive. Common examples include:
- Learn more
- Contact us
- Buy now
- Schedule an appointment
As long as you implement the above information appropriately, you’ll be able to maximize your number of conversions.
Email Marketing
Although you may have gotten in touch via email prior to your audience reaching the landing page, email marketing really comes into play afterward. This is simply due to the fact that they have already expressed interest in your brand.
A best practice is to send a welcome email as soon as possible to strengthen the relationship you have with your audience. From here, you can begin to send offers that they may be interested in.
Email is also a great way to leverage database marketing, as you will have access to a large amount of contact information.
Reporting
The reporting phase is when you analyze all of the crucial information from your campaign. If you decided to split test your landing pages, you can determine which CTA was most effective, which ad design attracted more visitors, etc.
Analyzing this information will allow you to drastically improve your lead generation campaigns as time goes on.
For those who need a bit of extra help, outsourcing is always a viable option. You can visit this resource to hire a lead generation specialist.
Proper Lead Generation Can Be Game-Changing
The above guide will help ensure that you know everything you need about the lead generation process. From here, you will likely be surprised at the metrics you can reach.
Want to learn more useful info that can help you out in the future? Be sure to check out the rest of our blog.
