
The reality is, not everyone in your target audience will become a lead. If you’ve ever wondered why despite a growing number of social media followers or increasing website traffic you’re not hitting your sales targets, your lead generation strategy — or the lack of one — is why.
Successful sales is all about effective lead generation. This starts with qualifying who leads are, and focusing marketing resources on them to ensure higher conversions.
Not all website visitors and social media followers are leads. Leads are prospects: potential customers who have expressed interest in your brand through queries and contact form submissions as a result of internet marketing strategies, such as content or email marketing, brand awareness campaigns, and promotion or referral codes.
An effective lead generation strategy allows you to identify the best sales prospects from these interactions, and nurture them through regular, targeted touchpoints to realize a sale.
Unfortunately, this is where many brands falter: instead of grading leads and assigning follow-ups to sales teams in order of interest and likelihood to convert, they devote equal time and resources to pursuing unqualified leads. While these can still be converted to qualified leads, churn rates remain high, ultimately resulting in low ROI.
Struggling to convert clicks and views to leads and sales? Let’s explore these industry-leading strategies for qualifying prospects. Learn how to focus your marketing dollars on generating leads that convert — customers who buy and likely to form lasting relationships with your brand:
You already know the value of qualified leads — and the cost of chasing down unqualified ones. But who are these qualified leads? These can be repeat customers or referrals, as well as prospects defined through buyer personas with a clear need for your product or service.
Lead generation starts with buyer personas. Map out the demographics, interests, and shopping preferences of your target customers. Build out their fictional identities: age, gender, occupation, and purchases to identify their motivations for buying.
Use these buyer personas to guide marketing and lead generation campaigns. Craft compelling content that clearly positions your product or service as a solution to their needs and preferences. Optimize these for each persona across lead generation tools, including landing pages, service pages, and social media posts.
Remember the golden rule of social media: get social. To get potential customers to take action, interact via comments, replies, or likes.
A lead generation company can also help you stay on top of new tools, such as “Send a Direct Message” and “Shop Now” buttons on Instagram ads. With thousands of potential customers shopping on social media, it takes a cohesive and interactive brand to attract and convert leads — and a unique approach on each platform.
Here’s a quick guide to lead generation on social media:
Your lead generation strategy is only as strong as your website. Once customers are directed to your site from a Google search or social media post, it’s up to your website to offer a good customer experience.
When was the last time your website was refreshed? Try these core strategies for optimizing the user experience and driving conversions:
Awesome products and services are the core of good business, but how do you get customers to purchase them? Your lead generation strategy should include lead magnets: enticing offers that qualify leads and allow you to cultivate views and clicks into prospects.
Examples of lead magnets include assets, such as free guides, e-books, forms, and templates that offer value-added product resources or industry knowledge — benefits that are impossible to turn down, even when they’re not ready to purchase outright. Invite customers to subscribe to your email list to access these, and start nurturing them as leads to convert.
Customers are growing tired — and largely annoyed — of persistent, “sales-y” content. They know you want them to buy, and they likely will when they are ready, but pushing these obvious pitches will drive them away.
Instead, focus your lead generation strategy on creating value and building lasting customer trust. Aside from product information, your content strategy should include a mix of blog posts, how-to guides, and even events like webinars.
While not overtly selling, these methods will establish your brand as industry leader and a valuable resource for product information. Knowing that your brand provides these resources increases their confidence to purchase, and builds lasting trust you can leverage for longer or repeat sales cycles.
Unlike your website, landing pages are built on specific offers. Perfect for limited-time promotions and brand awareness, landing pages need to be focused, designed to generate leads and convert them to take a defined action, such as a purchase or scheduled discovery call.
The best-performing, high-conversion landing pages are built with clear headlines, compelling graphics, and strong CTAs. Before launching, perform A/B testing, and track page analytics to inform ongoing optimization.
Whether it’s early on in the lead generation cycle or conversion is stalled, you need to nurture leads to realize sales. In the process, you build customer trust and maintain interest in your brand. Lead nurturing requires multiple touchpoints managed in your CRM tool, each tailored to the level of interest expressed by a potential customer in each interaction.
How likely are leads to convert? Find out to focus your efforts for maximum ROI.
Lead generation companies use tools like call tracking to collect refined customer data and monitor lead quality. These generate valuable insights into the most likely conversions, and therefore deserve the most attention from sales teams.
Regularly scoring leads can also guide future lead generation strategies. Once you learn where and how qualified leads are generated, you can find them accordingly, and apply lessons learned on the best ways to convert them.
Ready to revamp your sales process? Go back to the beginning — and where it matters most with an effective lead generation strategy.
For many businesses, this is why sales are stalled. Often, it’s too tempting to cater to too large a target audience and entice conversions. But with steep competition measured against resources, brands need to be smart and focused.
A lead generation company can help you cut through the noise and meet the right customers: ready to purchase, and eager to build lasting relationships with your brand. With the right lead generation strategy, you can attract qualified prospects, and reap maximum ROI from every marketing dollar.
Struggling to hit sales targets despite increased digital engagement? Consultus Digital can help. Let’s talk about your lead generation strategy, and learn more about the best ways to reach leads that convert in a big market like Toronto.
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