Customers are what keeps a business alive. They are the lifeline, the heartbeat, the fuel that keeps the engine running, the reason businesses exist.
That is why having a good lead generation strategy is crucial. It is there to help a business convert random visitors into paying customers.
No matter whether your company is B2B or B2C, it is necessary to have a few effective strategies up your sleeve so that you can ensure a continuous influx of new prospects. Of course, the more qualified these prospects are, the better.
Take a look below and find out what you should do to improve your lead generation strategy and convert more prospects into customers.
What is a lead generation strategy and why is it important for marketing specialists?
A lead generation strategy refers to a set of steps and actions taken to acquire a lead. It could refer to customer touchpoints, assets a business builds for its marketing team or anything else that helps attract prospects to a given business.
A lead can be anything from an email subscriber opt-in, a sales prospect, or a follower on social media.
For example, a marketer can take advantage of content promotion to attract prospects through search engine marketing. Then they proceed to create an engaging and relevant lead magnet to further convince the website visitors to sign up for their email list.
In addition, lead generation strategies refer to the act of gathering details from consumers that can further the relationship between the business and the consumer.
A carefully-planned lead generation strategy that aims at high efficiency is one of the staples of every successful business. That is the only way to ensure high conversion rates and satisfactory revenue.
Take advantage of social media for lead generation
Social media platforms grow with each new year and no one can say if their popularity will ever stop growing. Every now and then new social media platforms come to life, existing platforms come up with new ways to engage users, and consumers are always there to embrace these novelties.
Hence, it would be wise to harness the power of social media platforms for lead generation. It is important to use your chosen platforms wisely, which means that you should interact with the followers, respond to their comments, questions, and join their discussions.
For example, if you want to use Facebook to generate leads, it is important to know that improving click-through rates is essential for this platform. You can do this with compelling headlines and CTAs, as well as images and videos, which work great on Facebook too.
Place your focus on Facebook followers and then try to have them visit your website. Then optimize your business’s Facebook page and profile for the audience you are targeting and give them reasons to convert.
On top of that, it is common knowledge that Instagram was acquired by Facebook, so these two platforms can make a great pair. Try to come up with social ads on both platforms via the same page.
Instagram is a platform that relies on visual content (images, stories, and videos). Videos and live videos are great if you wish to increase conversions through lead generation.
Go live and ask your followers to visit your website and sign up for your email list or even purchase a product. Offer an incentive just for the ones that watch your stories.
Finally, it is crucial to use reliable tools and proven methods if your goal is to be more efficient on these platforms. Social media tools for marketers will allow you to schedule Instagram posts, Facebook posts, monitor their success, and they even offer important analytics regarding your followers, their age, gender, behavioral patterns, and so on.
Efficient sales prospecting
2021 will be all about efficiency, so you should do everything in your power to introduce better efficiency to sales prospecting.
The first step involves lead research, qualification, and prioritization.
It is important to determine the quality of your leads right away and see if they appear to be strong potential sales prospects that are worthy of your time and effort. Do a quick internal qualification check to ensure that the leads tick important boxes of criteria that you have set to identify the most common qualities of potential buyers.
To be successful at this important step of sales prospecting, it is recommended to use sales prospecting tools such as ZoomInfo or a ZoomInfo alternative that can help with lead generation.
These business intelligence tools provide accurate and actionable contacts and they can also help with marketing campaigns, email address acquisitions, and background information gathering. Once you do the research, qualification, and prioritization properly, all steps that follow will be fairly simple.
Great lead magnets translate to great results
A lead magnet can be downloaded or accessed for free by website visitors after performing an action, such as signing up for the email list. It’s an essential part of most lead generation strategies.
Lead magnets need to be appealing to your target audience to an extent that visitors can’t say no to them. Consider creating an interesting ebook, calculator, template, form, checklist, guide, or anything that the prospects can benefit from.
Promote your new lead magnet the best you can and create strong and transparent CTAs that lead prospects to the perfectly-crafted landing page where they will leave their details.
Produce interesting blog content
Entrepreneurs who write and publish blog posts at least 16 times a month get about 3.5 times more traffic than their colleagues who blog less frequently.
Add the fact that more traffic translates to more leads and this equation becomes quite simple – post more valuable blog content!
Lead generation strategies cannot work without enough traffic and that is why good blog content can help. It will stimulate more traffic, bringing more of it to your website and social media pages.
Posting engaging blog content will make your website more discoverable through search engines. Additionally, it would be wise to interlink your content so people stay on your website for longer periods of time.
To make the matter even better, blogging can make a business and its owner the trusted authority in their industry. Manage to demonstrate the knowledge you have and people will come back to read more. But they will also trust what you have to say, which is even more important.
Strong CTAs boost your lead generation efforts
A call to action is a marketing term for any type of signal designed to prompt an immediate response or encourage an immediate sale. CTAs usually refer to the use of words or phrases that can be incorporated into sales scripts, advertising messages, or web pages, which compel an audience to act in a desired manner.
Logically, lead generation strategies simply can’t work unless you tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do. For example, you can make use of one common affirmative call-to-action phrase ‘Yes, I Want XYZ!’, XYZ being the lead magnet you’re offering.
This affirmative call-to-action is speaking in the voice of the consumer. When readers see this CTA, they read it to themselves as if it were their own thought.
Use your website’s homepage as the starting point
Many of your website visitors will arrive on the interior pages of your company’s website. For instance, they might first visit a blog post they found using Google search.
Now, consider your own habits as an internet user. Even when you first visit a website’s interior page, what is the next thing you do if you find the content interesting?
You would probably click on the ‘Home’ button in the navigation menu and go to the homepage. This is some basic human psychology that can work in your lead-generating favor.
Therefore, you should do your best to have an enticing homepage. Also, think about adding an exit pop-up to it. In case a visitor tries to leave that page, they will get a pop-up with an incentive that should convince them to stay on your website (and maybe become a lead).
Final thoughts
Lead generation is a process that requires patience and craftiness and involves lead capturing, communication, and conversion efforts.
You can maximize your chances of securing more leads in 2021 by incorporating what you have just seen here. Try to combine various methods and be as creative as possible.