Master the Art of Lead Generation
Lead generation is vital for increasing sales prospects and bringing revenue into your business. This must be one of your marketing team’s key objectives. Yet only 1 in 10 marketers feel that their lead generation campaigns are effective.
To build a well-oiled inbound marketing machine, lead generation mechanics should be optimised to foster personalised visitor relationships and reduce friction throughout the buyer journey. You can then use a carefully considered marketing mix to maximise lead generation across multiple channels.
The first step is generating an offer that is simply irresistible.
Whether its through a free trial, an eBook, or a sales promotion, people need to perceive the value of your offer to be greater than what you’re asking for in return.
You can maximise your offer’s desirability by making it seem exclusive or limited and tailoring it to a specific stage of the buyer journey. Basic principles of supply and demand indicate that when supply is limited, demand increases. The fear of missing out, that limited time or limited quantity offers generate, triggers a sense of urgency and encourages lead conversion.
It is also important to develop your offers with a specific stage of the consumer journey in mind. Someone at the beginning of their buying cycle may be more interested in an informational guide or eBook than someone closer to a decision or purchase, who might prefer a free trial or demo. No need to pick and choose, create offers for each buying stage that are easily accessed via calls-to-action throughout your website.
Optimise online mechanics
Effective call-to-actions (CTAs) engage visitors, generate leads and drive sales. To maximise both impressions and conversions, it is important that your CTAs are clearly identifiable, specific, and linked to dedicated landing pages. It is also advisable to personalise the visitor experience through a chat function – either an automated bot or a live one handing over to a real person.
Using a conversational marketing tool such as a chatbot significantly reduces friction along the buyer journey, allowing visitors to have their questions answered and concerns addressed in real-time.
Creating and maintaining personalised human relationships with visitors not only generates short-term leads but encourages prospects to become long-term fans and brand advocates.
Once a site visitor has clicked a CTA, an optimised landing page is key to turning a prospect into a lead. Minimising distraction by removing the main navigation menu, clearly outlining the benefits of the offer, and keeping the design clean and simple will encourage higher conversion rates.
Landing page forms should also be formatted to reduce visitor friction. Often a short form with a few fields ensures quick completion and a higher probability of conversion. The more landing pages and linked offers you create, the more opportunities to generate leads for your business. And by using progressive profiling you can show the same people different fields each time they fill in a form, serving to build out your profile on them.
Download our Guide: 31 Lead Generation Tips, Tricks and Tactics
Power your lead generation engine
Now that you’ve optimised your online lead generation, don’t underestimate the importance of using multi-channel promotion. Blogging, email marketing, social media and organic SEO are all techniques you can and should use to reach your audience in a way that is most appropriate for them.
For a complete comprehensive guide to lead generation, download our 31 Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Effective Lead Generation here.
