Every business is trying generate leads, but do we really know what we need to do to successfully generate quality leads? Well, there are a number of ways to find out...
Below are 13 methods, ideas or systems that can impact your lead generation abilities. If you adopt some and implement them as part of a strategic campaign, you are bound to be generating quality leads that you will then have the opportunity to nurture into valued customers.
1. Leads can come from everywhere and anywhere
Leads can come from all angles - both online and offline, so it is very important to make sure you are using a variety of marketing tools, such as email, social media, blogging, etc. As well as attending the odd trade show or networking event. The wisest marketers know to "cover all bases"!
2. You need to have a little patience
If you are expecting to generate quality leads overnight than you are going to be disappointed. Generating leads can take time, but stay patient, vigilant and you should reap the rewards in the future.
3. It is important to qualify your leads
If you don't have a qualifying system for new leads then you won't know how strong the lead is that you're communicating with.
When using automation software, all leads should be in some way affiliated with your company - they've downloaded a resource from you and had interactions from your company.
However, leads are also visitors to your website that have yet to receive that first touch point.
Coming up with a lead scoring system enables you to categorise all of your leads into stages - awareness, consideration and decision. Not knowing which leads are in which stages means they are unqualified.
Unqualified leads are more difficult to nurture as you don't know what they're expecting from you or what you need to do for them.
4. All leads matter
Not all of the leads you generate will be remotely close to becoming customers, some may not even be ready to become customers in the near future. However, don't dismiss these contacts, as leads that may not qualify right now are still important. Look at them again in six months and see if their position has changed. This strategy gives you time to focus on nurturing those already qualified leads.
5. As always, content is key
Content is key in pretty much every aspect of marketing and if you are not creating informative content for your visitors, then they are never going to become a leads.
Take a look at your website copy, email campaigns, blogs and resources and see if your content could do with a re-write.
6. Landing pages can lose potential new leads as easily as they can generate them
If your landing page content is not relevant and useful then you are likely to lose visitors before they go to fill in that form.
Make sure your landing pages have no links to other pages of any description, if you are tempting your visitor to visit another page on your website they will not fill out that form. This often means that landing pages lose the main navigation bar of the website.
7. Your call to action needs to stand out
Don't underestimate the power that your call to action holds.
Don't place a small call to action in the bottom or side of a page. Make your call to action big and bold on the page and there's no harm in putting one at the top, one at the bottom and a really prominent one in the centre of the page.
Make sure that your visitors cannot miss that call to action and make it worth clicking.
Of course, these multiple call to actions should all direct to the same place and not confuse someone by pointing in multiple directions!
8. Your form could be putting leads off
Some businesses make one form and think that it is appropriate to use on all of their landing pages. But are you asking for too much or too little?
Nobody is going to hand over their name, company address, email address, Twitter handle, job title and company name in return for something insufficient for those details.
For the smaller things like checklists don't ask for too much in your form, get more information from your visitors when you are giving them a 60 page ebook full of helpful content that will be worth them handing over their details.
9. A lead is not a guaranteed customer
Don't be one of those businesses that thinks every lead that comes through is going to become a customer, because it will only end in heartache.
It is impossible to please everyone, that is why it is important to qualify your leads and focus on the leads that you can nurture and will hopefully become a customer in the future.
10. Nurturing leads is very important
We've mentioned lead nurturing a lot already, but that's because it is the most important step after generating a lead.
It doesn't matter how many leads you generate if you are not nurturing them with a process you have developed that suits you and your potential customers. If you don't have a lead nurturing process in place for your leads than that is something you need to put at the top of you to do list.
- Did you know... Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads? [Source: Online Marketing Institute]
11. It's not hard to lose a good lead
You can lose a strong lead before you even know they exist. Visitors can be turned away be outdated websites, not enough content or a lack of strong content. Everything that your business is doing online can help generate a lead, so always have your audience in mind when you are creating a new website or new content.
12. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again
Just because no one read the first blog post or downloaded your latest ebook it doesn't mean you should stop making new ones.
If your content doesn't engage your audience the first time around, keep trying! It is important that even when you are engaging with your audience to be constantly looking for new ideas and ways to build on and improve your engagement.
13. Automation can make generating quality leads easier
Keeping track of all of your marketing efforts through various platforms can be quite a mammoth task. Automation brings all of your online marketing efforts into one system, making both lead generation and nurturing a much easier task to manage!
What next?
You now have a few ideas about what you need to do to either generate more leads, generate better quality leads or turn those leads into customers.
Get started by browsing our ebooks, such as the one below, or asking us about a free meeting to discuss your marketing challenges (whatever they may be)! Simply use the contact details below to arrange a face-to-face or Skype chat.
