Understanding Lead Generation In Digital Marketing

Understanding Lead Generation In Digital Marketing

When it comes to traditional or digital marketers, you will always have to attract leads who are going to be interested in your business or other things that you have for sale.  Most often, as a business owner that has products to offer, you will have to come up with content that will allow you to project the products and services that you have to offer. In this article, I want to talk about all that you need to know about lead generation in digital marketing. Follow me as we are going to look at that in this article.

Lead generation in Digital Marketing is the process of generating sales leads for a product or service which may turn into sales for the company. It allows you to reach out to potential individuals who are likely to be interested in your products and services.

You should know that the process of lead generation is of benefit to both the buyer and the seller. Here, the buyer can inquire about the products and services of the seller. The seller also demonstrates their products and services and generates interest in the products or services.

There are four major elements when it comes to lead generation for products. It goes as follows:

#1 Offer 

Most times, lead generation strategies will often start with an offer. Offers always include free product demonstration, free download of PDF editor, whitepapers and ebook among others. Some of these tools are what prospects are looking for and they will be ready to do anything to get it. At times, prospects or visitors are asked to provide their emails so that they can download eBooks and whitepapers among others.

#2 Call To Action

This is a text, image or button that redirects the visitor to landing pages so that they can view the offers and the PDF easily.
 

#3 Landing Page

This is a specialized page that contains crucial information about your product, offers and a form to download the PDFs and whitepapers among others.
 

#4 Form

This is a way to capture information about the prospective leads. This is used to collect information from prospects in exchange for an offer. You should note that it will be difficult for customers and prospects to supply the information and the details you need without giving them something in return. This can be in form of PDFs and Infographics or e-books among others.

Now. Ways of generating leads…
#1 Advertising

Advertising is one of the means of generating leads for your organization. You can do that by making use of different media to create awareness about your products and services. Here are some of the strategies you can adopt in order to advertise your products and services.
 
You can place inexpensive ads in email newsletters and your websites in order to pass the right messages to your target audience. We often see banks making use of this method to create awareness about their products and services. As they are sending the alerts and other messages, they are also incorporating their ads so that you will be aware of what they have to offer.

Also, you also need to use direct response ads as part of your means of lead generation. You can ask the viewers if you can contact them with more information about the products and services that you have to offer.

You also need to learn how to make use of compelling to increase customers’ and prospects’ interest in your products and services. The type of headline that you give your content will often determine whether prospects will be interested in your products or services or not.

You also need to showcase your ads in some of the most targeted publications. That is why most people will often decide to place their ads on websites.

#2 Referrals

Referral allows you to recommend an organization’s product to others and earn a commission. Here are some of the things that you should have at the back of your mind when it comes to Affiliate marketing.

In carrying out affiliate marketing, you can offer discounts on your products and services to the clients who give you a referral. They might be asked to pay a lesser amount than they are supposed to pay. This allows them to refer more people and get discounts on products purchased.

There is also the use of a “loss leader” referral system. Here free samples of your product can be given to new clients for creating awareness about your products, which will, in turn, generate more sales for the organization.
 
You can also partner with other non-competitive organizations. You can be asked them to assist you in sending your promotional messages to clients in their database. For example, an SEO company can decide to partner with an SEO blogger in order to make his services available to his blog followers.

Also, you can conduct surveys, and ask for feedback from the customer about ways to improve your products and services. This will give your customers a sense of belonging. It will also improve their commitment to the organization.

You also need to get a free sample of your products and services as a gift to your client and ask him to give it to someone to give to their friends and acquaintances.

#3 Trade Shows

This is another crucial way of generating leads for your products and services. Here, you will have to choose the right trade shows that can help you protect your products and services to the right form of audience. You must choose the trade show that can give you the greatest conversion rate. Also, to generate leads at Trade shows, you need to communicate properly about the product you are offering for sale. This enables the right type of audience to show interest in the products or services.
 

#4 Feedback

Another way of generating leads for businesses is through feedback. He opens up channels through which customers can communicate about what they feel about your products and services. To get leads through feedback, here are some of the things you need to know. First, some people visiting your website read about your products and services and make product purchase. It is also possible that most visitors coming to your website do not take the time to read about your products and services.

Also, you have to make sure that before a user jumps to the next page, you make use of a pop-up to collect feedback from a user. This will help you to know what they are looking for exactly.

You can now use this feedback form to contact the customer and find out the reason why they are not interested and take time to clarify their doubts about your products and services.

You can also use other useful articles for your customers and ask them to fill out a form.

#5 Soft leads

Another means of generating leads for organizations is through the use of soft lead methods. Soft leads are leads that exchange an email address or contact address for something that is of value to them such as access to a whitepaper or free samples. Also, social media referrals at times can also be referred to as soft leads.

Social media platforms are ideal for spreading awareness about a company and gathering potential information about prospects that might be interested in your products and services.

Also, soft lead generation is the most ideal for businesses trying to target leads early in their sales lifecycle.

You need to know that lead generation plays an important role when it comes to the success of any marketing strategy. It has to do with creating engaging content for webinars, videos, whitepapers and guides that direct users towards lead funnels.

At times, when it comes to online marketing, your Return On Investment is calculated based on the number of soft and hard leads that you are able to convert. Hard leads measure success only through sales and revenue earned from the website.
Soft leads make the visitors perform certain actions such as providing contact information, filling a form and creating an email account among others.

How To Generate Leads Through Influencers

In my previous articles, I have talked about some of the means of generating leads for your businesses. In this article, I want to talk about some of the ways of generating leads through Influencers. Follow me as we are going to look at that together in this article.

Generating leads through Influencers or what we sometimes refer to as Influencer Marketing is the main aim of bringing Influencers to talk about your business so as to boost sales and increase brand recognition. Some of these influencers already have great followership. They can use that to influence their ardent followers to start using your products and services.

Also, it is very possible that these influencers are musicians, writers, bloggers, analysts, journalists, and other opinion people that can connect products to brands.

Influencers are also internet users who write stories and share experiences about a product and a brand. They are always trying to influence the opinion and decisions of their users in order to make them start using particular products or services.

How to identify Influencers….
When it comes to influencer marketing, as a brand or Digital Marketer, you need to make sure that you identify the right type of influencers for your product or service. Your inability to identify the right influencers that the same aspiration can ruin your brand’s digital marketing strategy. Here are some of the things that you should have at the back of your mind when you are trying to recognize the needed influencers for your brand.

#1 The impact
In order to choose the right type of influencer for your brand, you need to know the impact of that influencer on your followers. You must know what he has the capability of doing and his level of influence on his followers. Understanding this will enable you to know whether such an influencer can help you to achieve your goal or not.

#2 Use the right tool
In order to identify the right type of influencers for your brand, you need to make sure that you are using the right tools that can help you to identify the right type of influencers for your brand. Inability to use the right tool might make you choose the wrong type of Influencer for your brand. I am going to list some of these tools later in this article.

#3 Combined effort
You also need to know that choosing and identifying the right type of influencers for your brand is one of the assignments, you need to make sure that your marketers and the influencers work together in order to achieve your marketing goals at the end of the day. All effort must be geared towards closing the gap between you and your influencers. This becomes necessary because some of your influencers might not have adequate knowledge to run sales campaigns on their own.
 
The tools for influencers’ identification…
https://mentionmap.com
https://peerindex.com
https://followerwonk.com
https://kred.com
https://sovrn.com
https://boardreader.com
https://mblast.com
https://commun.it
https://circlecount.com
https://linkedin.com
 

Understanding Lead Funnel In Digital Marketing

In my previous article, I tried to establish what a lead funnel is. You need to understand that there different levels when it comes to defining your prospective customers’ levels. The process of classifying your leads will help you understand the kind of attention that you need to give to different kinds of audiences. In this article, I will be talking about all that you need to know about the lead funnel in Digital Marketing. Follow me as we are going to look at that in this article.

Lead funnel defines the process that the buyer has to go through when they are trying to purchase your products and services. You also need to understand that your customers are also going through this process when they are purchasing your products and service, although the process might be faster for different customers, they still have to go through that process. Also, the lead funnel defines the lead funnel using the AIDA perspective. Let us now look at what that is all about in this article.

#1 Attention

This is the stage when you create awareness by designing adverts that are launched and run so that customers and prospects can be aware of your products and services. These are done to attract customers’ attention to your products and services. When this is being done and the right audience is targeted, it might increase interest in your products and services.

#2 Interest

This is being used to boost customers’ interest in your products and services. At this stage, you have run the ads and they are already aware of your products and services. But you are trying to deepen the interest in your products and services. This happens when customers decide to give your product a try. Their conviction after this trial will now determine whether they will become permanent customers or not.
 

#3 Desire

This is when you make effort to convince the customer and make them believe that the product can fully their basic needs. You also tried at this stage to educate the customer about the usefulness of the product as well as how it can add value to their life in general.

#4 Action

This is when you lead customers towards taking action such as purchasing your product or fulfilling a commitment form. Here the prospect has now become or is about to become your customer. He is actually performing the desired actions that you want the customer to perform.

Marketing perspective to gain a customer

Here, the marketer has only the name of the customer. Marketers get the names of their customers from various sources such as referrals or purchase lists. Some organizations can also buy name and email lists from other non-competitive organizations that they have an association with. Some of these names can also be purchased online as well.  Above all, you need to identify your target audience based on the geographical location and demographic information of your target audience. You will not want to waste your time pursuing the wrong target.

Suspect

A Suspect is a person who shows interest in your brand or what you have to offer. They might perform some action on your site such as :

• Frequent visits to your website and attending your webinar
• Participating in content and promotion on your website
• Filling online form to download white papers, PDF etc and subscribe to your newsletters.

 You need to identify such customers and add them to your Drip program which is an email program that will allow them to learn more about the use of your products and services.
The drip program offers educational content and promotional offerings that allow prospects to become organizational customers. This will allow them to develop an interest in your products and services. This also allows you to send SMS that is also geared towards understanding your customers better.

Prospect

Also, a user will move from being a suspect to prospect when he takes any of the following actions:

• Interacts with your brand by attending webinars, participating in contests, and downloading your PDF files among others.
• Fits your demographic profile.
• He has a bi-directional conversation with you.

When it comes to prospects, we have them in two categories. They are called Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Accepted Leads.

#1 Marketing Qualified Leads

They always have a direct conversation with the people via emails or phone calls. They can be seen as people who have called or emailed and have decided that they are going to purchase the product on a particular date.
You can identify whether the person is really interested and ready to purchase your product and transfer him to the sales department.

#2 Sales Accepted Leads

The salesperson follows the lead once the qualified lead is transferred from the marketing department to the sales department.

Opportunity

A salesperson can either close or lose the leads, Also, lost lead is again sent to recycled by conducting a drip program for the customer once again.

Customer

You gain a customer once the lead is closed. At this point, you need to maintain a good relationship with them in order to turn them from ordinary customers to brand advocates.

Advocates

Here, the customer becomes an advocate when he or she is with the marketer for a very long time. This customer becomes loyal as well as refers others to your customers.

9 Correct Marketing Strategy For Lead Funnels

In my previous article, I talked about some of the ways that you can identify the correct product influencers for your products. In this article, I want to look at the correct marketing strategy for lead funnels. Follow me as we are going to look at this together in this article.

Now the marketing strategy…

#1 Define potential buyers

One of the great ways to generate sales for your business is for you to define your potential buyers. You need to know the characteristics that your buyers have in common. This will allow you to be able to direct them to the correct departments or individuals that can assist in turning your prospect into customers. You will also be able to come up with products that will serve the interest of your customers as well.

#2 Create awareness

Also, there is a need for you to create awareness about your products and services. No matter how good your product is, you still need to go the extra mile of letting people know about your products and services. It is now left to you to decide on what you need to do in order to achieve your goals. This will be based on your finance and the circumstances surrounding the sales of your products as well.
 

#3 Create interesting content

One of the marketing tools that you can adopt when you are promoting your products and services is to make use of a mix of content such as texts, Infographics and videos. You need to make sure that you create interesting contents that are capable of convincing your audience. You need to also take time to study your audience and understand what resonates among your target audience.
 

#4 Engage your audience

In order to promote your products and services, you need to make sure that you engage your audience. You should never assume that your audience already understands the benefits of your products and services. You must take time to highlight the benefits of your products. Let them understand the reason why they need to pick your product ahead of that of competitors.
 

#5 Drip programmes

Most times, you should not expect customers to give in the first time that you talked to them. You may need to get their email and other contact details and start sending them newsletters that talk more about your products and services. You also need to let them know when you have promotional offers that you feel that they might be interested in. This will go a long way in convincing them to subscribe to your products and services.

#6 Meet all needs

As part of your efforts toward engaging your target audience, you need to make sure that all customers’ needs are met. You should note that a good customer-centric enterprise will not go to sleep except customers’ needs are met. Also, nobody will be interested in transacting businesses with organizations that cannot add value to them. Therefore, you have to make sure that always surpass the expectation of your customers.

#7 Build relationship

As part of your efforts toward building your lead funnel, you need to make sure that you build relationships with your customers. You need to give them a sense of belonging and see them as part of the business. You should also open room for feedback so that customers can tell you areas that they want you to improve. This will encourage your loyal customers to become brand advertisers for your business.

#8 Clear call to action

In my previous article, I talked about the use of Call to Action for lead generation strategies. You have to make sure that clear calls to action are provided which will allow customers and prospects to know the step that you want them to take after they might have read your content. This will go a long way in increasing conversion and boosting the revenue of your organization.

#9 Track your result

As the saying goes, an unexamined life is not worth living. As part of your effort towards driving more prospects to your sales cycle, you need to make sure that you continue to analyse your website. You must take time to track your results in order to determine whether you are achieving your goals or not. This will also allow you to come up with measures that will allow you to adjust if you are falling below your target.
6 Ways To Convert Leads Into Sales
In my previous article, I talked about some of the ways that you can generate leads through Influencers. In this article, I want to look at some of the ways that you can convert leads into sales. Follow me as we are going to look at that together in this article.

How to increase leads and boost your sales….

#1 Calculate

The very first thing you need to do is to find the lead close to the ratio for a period of at least eight months. You also need to calculate the total leads to closed sales during those eight months in percentage. You need to divide the number of leads by the number of closed sales that you have. You also need to turn that number into a percentage out of 100 to estimate just how many leads you need to close sales.

#2 Act Quickly

You need to develop a system, set the time and date when you have to follow up with the leads. You also need to get the assistance of your sales team to follow up on a lead.

#3 Organise

There is a need for you to also invest in CRM such as Salesforce.com to organize all your work. CRM does not allow you to lose a lead, it will track every sale and every moment in the sales process.
You need to set automated responses to the queries sent through email by your prospects.

#4 Delegate

There is a need for you to segregate the responsibilities among the sales teams such as replying to online queries, emails, and phone calls among others.
You need to put effort and money into the sources that yield you better results. The CRM system can also help in finding sources that give you more sales.

Converting leads to sales…

#1 Determine your personae

First and foremost, in order to make more sales and convert leads for your organization, you need to identify the type of people that are using your products and services. Having this understanding will assist you to package your product in such a way that it will attract the interest of your desired audience.

For developing your buyer personae, you should know the ideal buyer, your customer needs, how to fix problems, and your unique selling proposition among others.

You need to get your current sales and customers to interact with each other to find out buyer personae who can turn into your prospects, leads and customer.

#2 Content mapping

When it comes to content marketing and lead conversion, you need to know where a prospect is on the ladder. The reason is that the content that works for someone at the top of the funnel will not work for someone at the bottom of the funnel.

Top of the funnel

These are visitors who are unaware of your products and services. They may likely be prospects who have started researching your products or services.
 

Middle of the funnel

These are customers who are interested in your products and services but they do not necessarily want to buy from you.
 

Bottom of the funnel

These are prospects or customers who are ready to buy your products and believe that you have every solution to their problem.
 
The content mapping chart will help your sales and your marketing team to understand the right type of content to introduce to each type of prospect that you have in your sales funnel.

You have to develop the chart and understand the type of content that you can introduce to each prospect on the sales funnel.

#3 Segment lead nurturing campaigns

As part of your effort to nurture your leads, you need to segment your campaigns and your leads based on the characteristics that the leads have in common. Some of the characteristics that can be used in segmenting leads include geographical location, area of interest in contents, industry and roles and brand advocates as well as customer behaviour among others.

#4 Make use of workflows

You also have to make use of workflows when you are trying to nurture your leads and convert leads to customers. You need to make use of email workflow which will help you to send emails to a specified group of users at a particular time.

Some of the specified email workflow used by you include:

• Subject line workflow: content download
• Eye-catching offers.
• Leads that are ready for Sales workflow.
• Get dead lead to engage again
• Event workflow allows visitors to register or attend the webinars
• Lifecycle workflows, welcoming new customers to a new business
• Upsell workflow, based on purchases made by customers in the past.

#5 Enforce Lead Scoring Methodology

Segregating is one of the best means of separating a good lead from a bad lead. This process always gives points based on information that you already have about the lead. This will allow you to determine whether a particular lead is profitable or not.

It helps in increasing sales efficiency and effectiveness, increasing marketing effectiveness, and tightening marketing and sales alignment for the organization.

It also helps the sales team to avoid spending their time on bad leads and to concentrate on leads that are ready for sales.

How To Conduct Effective Lead Nurturing
In my previous article, I talked about some of the ways that you can generate leads through Influencer Marketing. In this article, I will be looking at how to conduct effective lead nurturing in digital marketing. Follow me as we are going to look at this together in this section.

Lead nurturing is a marketing term that describes the process of building relationships with potential clients even when they are not looking to buy your products. Leader nurturing are being carried out to raise the profile of the organization in the eye of prospective customers. This will also change any wrong perspective that they might have about the organization.

The ability to deliver products based on a customer’s interaction with email drives more engaged traffic to the website, and this also helps in the organization’s lead management efforts. At times, this process might be as simple as letting customers know about your ongoing promotion as well as telling them about changes in prices among others.

Also, a complex nurturing campaign involves educating the clients about the advantages and disadvantages of using the product. You have to make sure that you do not keep any of these facts away from your target audience.

In addition, lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with sales prospects who are ready to purchase but are not showing interest currently in your products and services.

The ways…
#1 Listen to conversations
There is a need for you to listen to the conversations of your users. That is why you need to create a community where you can bring all your users together and follow what they have to say about your products and services. You can also make use of hashtags and other social listening tools in order to know what customers are saying about your products and services.

In addition, companies can understand customers’ interests and in turn get information about the products and services that customers are likely to be interested in. This will enable them to meet customers at the right place with the right products and services.

#2 Provide meaningful content
Also, you need to develop interesting and concise content to build relationships and trust with your customers. When you create contents that educate customers about how your products can benefit and add value to their lives, it will increase customers’ interest in your products and services.

#3 Stay in touch
There is a need for you to also ensure that you do not leave your customers alone. You need to make sure that they constantly hear from you. You can be sending them bulk SMS and emails that educate them more about what your product can do for them.

#4 Contact the prospect
Also, you need to make sure that when you are dealing with prospects, you must place integrity above anything else. You have to make sure that you contact them whichever time you promise. This will encourage your customers that you will always fulfil your promise.

#5 Ask for business
As part of your effort toward improving business relationships with your prospects and nurturing your leads, you need to make sure that you ask for business when prospects and customers are showing interest in your products and services. This will ensure that you are able to increase conversion rates for your products and services.

#6 Send ebooks
Most times, customers will not give you vital information that you need when you are not giving them anything in return. One of the best gifts that you can give to your customers is to give them eBooks that talk more about the products and services that you have to offer. This will enable your customers to know that you really appreciate them and that you are considering them when you are making business decisions.

#7 Ask for referrals
As part of your efforts towards nurturing your leads, you need to always ask for referrals. Whenever you successfully sell your products to a particular customer, you need to ask them to supply names of other individuals who might likely be interested in your products and services. This will allow you to generate more leads without spending much on advertisements.

#8 Track all conversations
As part of your efforts toward nurturing your leads, you need to make sure that you continue to track all conversations on social media and blogs. You must take time to understand and aggregate what customers are saying about your products and services. This will enable you to identify products and services that will resonate with them.
#9 Special offers
Also, as part of your efforts towards nurturing your leads, you need to make sure that you are always coming up with special offers for your customers. You have to design packages that will attract customers to make their initial purchase. This will help to increase customer retention and generate more sales for the organization.

#10 Learn from the experience
As a business person, there is no way that you will not make some mistakes when it comes to lead generation, you need to make sure that you are always learning from your mistake and finding a way to move forward. You need to create room for feedback so that customers can show you where they are wrong. This will enable you to design strategies that really work for your customers.
 
Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training. 

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

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