10 Things You Need to Know About Lead Generation
In today’s world of the marketing-driven sales funnel, many marketing teams live and die by the phrase “lead generation.” Are you being asked to produce more qualified leads? Here are 10 tips to optimize lead generation efforts and tweak your lead gen campaigns for better results.
1) Define a Target Demographic
The first step of any successful lead-gen campaign is defining who it appeals to and how they’ll be reached. Even if you segment to different consumer pools, campaigns should be designed specific to the end user. Ask yourself: What do customers need? What do they want? Where do they get their information? What devices do they use to find it? How does this campaign mesh with these criteria? Is the brand’s value proposition clear? The answers to these questions are the basic foundation of a marketing-driven sales strategy so make sure your campaign aligns to them.
2) Vary Formats to Increase Viewership
Your ideal consumer may use social media more than email or opt to access information from their desktop rather than their mobile device. While this information should be considered when deploying campaigns, there’s no harm in using several media formats to convey your message. Not only does varied media strengthen your brand awareness, but it also gives you the opportunity to potentially capitalize on an unexpected buyer that gravitates to a different interface than your key demographic. Plus, you might gain a new perspective on your campaign message when re-creating your content for new channels.
3) Monitor With a Reliable Tracking Platform
A huge component of effective lead generation is tracing the source. Tracking platforms have several functionalities and are more affordable than some might think. They not only help a company see the kind of engagement they’re getting, but they can also see which sources have the highest ROI and which should receive less resources to minimize waste. Additionally, having a dependable platform to gather lead data and report accurate sales numbers helps with accountability.
4) Target Market Various Stages of the Buying Process
Not all consumers are ready to buy the product or service they moment they begin researching. Some want more information; others need a greater incentive to complete the sale. Creating campaigns for the same product or service that appeal to same audience but at different points of the buying process will cover a larger spectrum of the customer pool. For example, say you have a company that sells custom bicycles. You could create a campaign to aggregate emails for people who may want a bike eventually, those looking for a quote on the model they like, and even those that are ready to buy but are waiting for a seasonal price. Segmenting campaigns in this way increases lead-conversion opportunities.
5) Keep Content Fresh
All content, especially keywords, need to be refreshed regularly, especially for email campaigns. A promotion using trigger words could go straight to the spam box, essentially wasting the opportunity for a potential sale. Even more, consumers are less trusting of brands that use too many salesy words in their ads. Staying up-to-date with trending phrases and top-ranked SEO terms is a great way to refresh content without losing exposure.
6) Make the Submission Process Easy
Don’t make the form submission or purchase process on your site too involved. People might close out the webpage before they complete the sale or be so deterred by the amount of information requested that they opt out of something they would have otherwise pursued. Create forms that are legible, short in length and request a minimal amount of personal info.
7) Include a Clear and Concise CTA
Call-to-action buttons work best when they have a clear, specific message in as few words as needed. There’s a fine line between too much and too little when it comes to phrases used. For example, a site offering an informative e-book to readers could get users to download using ‘download e-book’, ‘download free e-book’ or ‘click here to download your free e-book’. Similarly, someone providing quotes on a product or service could use ‘more info’, ‘get a free quote’ or ‘contact us for more information’. The truth is that there’s no way of knowing what will or won’t work until you’ve A/B tested several possibilities and honed your CTA based on real customer engagement. Regardless, the call to action should be clear, should communicate the value proposition, and should set an expectation or meet a need the consumer wants to fill.
8) Leverage the ‘Thank You’ Page
Your newest customer may also be your hottest lead. Using a thank you page to get customers to sign up for other offers, show them additional or complimentary features to a product they just bought, or simply sign up for your newsletter so that you remain relevant can be incredibly effective. If someone has already converted to your brand, using the ‘thank you’ page as additional ad real estate is a smart way to encourage repeat engagement without exhausting more resources.
9) Make More Landing Pages to Get More Leads
A landing page is essentially the webpage that influences the consumer to initiate a lead submission or buying process. Having multiple landers allow you to test which perform well and which need to be optimized. It will also allow you to segment across audience pools and use multiple sources (or affiliates) as traffic drivers. In terms of page design, ‘less is more ‘might hold true, but increasing the number of pages that exist will almost always lead to more opportunities. If you extend the reach of your net in the right ways, you will likely generate more leads than you ever would have with only one webpage available for lead gen purposes.
10) Email has the Highest ROI (in the digital world…)
Email is currently the top contender for ROI in the digital marketing space – with an ROI of as much as 4000% for those executing campaigns properly. While marketers struggle to adapt to target mobile devices, many are forgetting that almost everyone reads email on those devices these days. You may not need to spend money developing a custom app to deliver special promotions to your potential clients, because an email will put that information in the exact same place . If you’re looking to maximize leads and you have yet to break into email advertising, start now. If you’re currently running email and not seeing the ROI you want, research optimization tools or reaching out to a professional company like Madrivo, which specializes in extending email traffic reach. Email is here to stay for now and should definitely be an integral part of your lead generation strategy if it isn’t already.
Want to learn more about lead generation or how to get started with email lead gen campaigns? Reach out to us today!
