Here are some steps to a more effective lead generation:
Identify your leads’ pain points. To generate the best quality leads for your business, you want to understand everything you can about the people who choose to buy from you. You need to know your audience’s pain points — what concerns them, what needs they are trying to fulfill, and what motivates them to make a purchase.
Start by looking at your website analytics. You’ll gain access to demographic information, along with the sources and search terms that draw people to your site. Also, you can derive insights from current or past customers. Review any Survey Data, examine their comments on Social Media, or reach out to customers to gain their perspectives.
Or ask your customer service or sales teams about feedback trends they’ve observed. If you’re just starting out, you may not have much web or customer data on hand. In those instances, look at the types of customers your competitors generate to understand buying motivations.
Align with Sales and Customer Service. Effective lead generation requires a strong relationship between your Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service Teams, who should work together to deliver mutually agreed-upon service level agreements (SLAs) — a commitment between parties to achieve a common goal.
Here are a few areas where you’re sales, marketing, and service teams, will need to be in alignment:
- Definitions of Key Terms
- Standardized Sales Processes
- Performance Measures
- Reporting
Align Content To Your Lead’s Sales Stage. One important thing to remember about Lead Generation is that you need to find ways to stay on your prospects’ radar if you want them to become customers. Regularly creating, publishing, and disseminating content is an excellent way to keep in touch with your prospects.
To create compelling content, consider your customers’ point of view. What types of information do they need at different points of the buying cycle to help them progress to the next step? As discussed previously, you can create content tailored to each stage of the marketing funnel to guide prospects towards a purchase.
During earlier stages, focus on education and provide material tied to your offerings when people are close to conversion.
Build Your E-Mail List By Offering A Free E-Book. A steady stream of content, will keep moving leads down the funnel. If you’re not sure where to start, offering a few e-books for download in exchange for e-mail contact information is an excellent way to build a prospect list.
An e-book is a digital content intended to be read on computers, tablets, and mobile devices. Keep in mind that e-books don’t need to be long, even a 2,000- to 3,000-word e-book on an attention-grabbing topic can bring in leads.
Nurture Existing And New Leads. After you’ve gained basic details about your prospects, nurture them down the funnel. Make ongoing outreach to keep contacts engaged and share more details about your offerings.
E-Mail Marketing is an excellent option for lead nurturing. You can send out regular e-mails such as newsletters and targeted promotions to stay top-of-mind with your prospects. Invite them to fill out preference forms or complete surveys to tell you more about their interests and needs and support your qualification process.
Score Each Lead. Once you have some insight into your prospects, use lead scoring models to evaluate their readiness to buy. Set a threshold that identifies when a prospect is likely to become a customer and use more proactive and personalized follow-up approaches.
Leads with lower scores should stay on your list for continued nurturing, with the goal of increasing their lead score and guiding them further down the funnel.
Pass Along Leads To Your Sales Team To Close The Sale. When you identify leads with a higher lead score, hand them off to your sales team who can use approaches, such as demos, free trials, in-person meetings, or discounts to the deal.
This is a critical step — and you must ensure that you don’t hand leads off too early. Also, make sure your sales team has all the content and resources they need to be successful.
Evaluate The Lead Generation Process. It’s always wise to evaluate your Lead Generation Process regularly. As your audiences or offerings shift, you may need to fine-tune your approaches to attract, nurture, score, and close leads.
You’ll also need to determine if you need new messaging or content types to drive more sales. Think of lead generation as a continuous learning process and make adjustments over time.
Here’s To Your Success!
The GWC Team
Online Marketing Tools And Services 