In this article we discuss Lead Generation Strategy, why it is critical to the growth of a Company’s Business.
Lead generation what it means
Let’s start with the definition of Lead Generation: Set of marketing techniques designed to capture visitor interest in a product or service in order to generate leads and traffic.
Lead generation literally means “generating leads”-it is the set of certain marketing activities that aim to create a list of qualified contacts who are potentially interested in a product or service, so-called “prospects.”
N.B. This technique does not aim to sell, but to win and “steal” the attention of leads.
Winning customers is the goal of every brand.By taking advantage of lead generation techniques, you can target a highly profiled, genuinely interested audience that is willing to leave their details in exchange for information about your products or services.
We are talking about a “do ut es”: you will have to nurture your prospects(lead nurturing) to get their e-mail in return.
You can reward your visitors with a free trial, e-book or webinar about your business or activity.
Why do lead generation?
For any business, freelancer, merchant, it is essential to do lead generation.
The strength of this digital marketing technique is precisely that it speaks directly to potential customers, without wasting more time, energy and money.
We are not talking about users taken at random among the bytes of the Internet, but people who are genuinely interested in a product or service. So interested that over time they form a relationship of trust, respect and esteem with the brand.
Lead Generation (contact generation) is one of the most requested strategies at our agency.
Often when we meet new companies, or when we have to explain to people we meet every day what we do, we find it illustrative to say: We find Clients to our Clients.
If we want to conceptualize this statement and give it a label we say: Lead Generation, i.e., generation of a contact list.
But what exactly is meant by lead generation? We’ll answer that right now.
What is the Lead Generation Strategy?
Lead Generation strategy is nothing more than a process that allows a company to acquire new contacts through marketing actions that can turn people interested in products or services offered by a company, into potential customers.
Before the advent of strategic and structured marketing, every company or shopkeeper did small or large advertising activities with the sole purpose of making themselves known.
We were in the postwar economic boom.
It was not essential to know the habits of one’s customers.
The most important thing was to get them into their own store and sell a few things of their own.
Nowadays, on the other hand, fierce competition, exacerbated with promotions that exclusively leverage price, have forced companies to change the way they approach the market.
It is therefore critical that any Marketing and Communication strategy results in measurable, reusable and lowest cost/contact fruits.
But how do you do lead generation? Let us illustrate how we at Factory Communication are used to working for our clients.
Understanding Lead Generation Strategies
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and potential customers into someone who has shown interest in your company’s products or services.
Lead generation campaigns are targeted initiatives that use various channels to attract leads and guide them through the sales funnel.
The Digital Evolution in Customer Search.
The journey to find new customers has radically changed with the advent of the Internet and social media.
Modern consumers begin their purchasing journey online, making it critical for companies to establish a strong web and social media presence.
The decision, which used to happen in front of the merchant, now begins on the Web, highlighting the importance of optimized Web content and a solid digital strategy.
The Basics of an Effective Campaign
A successful lead generation campaign is based on several key pillars:
- Target Identification: Understanding who your ideal customers are, what they are looking for and where they spend their time online is the first step for any lead generation campaign.
- Content of Value: Create and distribute content that addresses the needs and questions of your target audience. This can include blogs, ebooks, webinars, and video tutorials.
- SEO and Keywords: Optimizing your website and content for search engines increases visibility and attracts qualified traffic.
- Social media marketing: Use platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to share content and interact with your audience.
- Competitor Analysis: Studying your competitors can provide you with valuable insights on how to stand out and position yourself more effectively in the marketplace.
Lead generation must be a measurable activity: the tools to use
As we always say during meetings and briefings with our clients, it is essential to prepare Inbound Marketing methods, marketing automation and Lead Generation strategies so that the real economic return of every Euro that is invested in communication projects is verified.
For this reason, in every action, it is essential to use tools and/or solutions that enable the tracking of activities: Reports, Google Analytics, CRM and so on.
It is clear that this concept is easily applicable to all activities 2.0 and that exploit the Internet channel such as email marketing campaigns, article marketing, viral marketing, etc…
It is more difficult, however, to apply it to traditional forms of communication that take advantage of channels such as postal mailings, billposting, leafleting, TV and radio commercials.
To measure the return on a campaign, it is essential to channel all contacts and data collected into a CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
When set up and used correctly, CRM allows for so much information to be statistically verified.
We report only a few:
- Origin of contacts
- Which source yields the most and/or yields the lowest cost/contact
- Which of these contacts turned into customers and thus produced income
- What services are most in demand
- What is the commercial that operates best etc….
Lead Generation Strategy: where do I take the leads?
Capturing lead data can be done in a number of ways, depending on the tool we are using and especially on the goals we have set.
For example, if he makes a campaign on Facebook, the social network provides a tool for collecting leads.
We generally recommend making a specific landing page on the website, so as to focus the message on the product/service you want to sell.
Lead generation is a profitable investment over time
It is clear that if a company implements a communication campaign with the use of television, it certainly has the possibility of reaching a very high number of contacts.
This is why so many marketing managers still make use of this tool.
But really, how many of these contacts enter the store and turn into customers?
How many Products/Services are actually sold through these campaigns?
Above all, how do we get the right contact information of the one who bought the product, so that we can carry out further low-cost, high-profit post-sale communication activities?
Basically, how do I benefit from “reusing” the investment made?
Through lead generation, it is possible to create a database of contacts that the company can reuse to come up with news, attractive communications getting more chances of conversion.
Lead Generation Strategy: Lower Cost/Contact
Basically, the less it costs us to acquire a new contact, the more communication activities we can do.
Obviously through targeted techniques it is also possible to acquire contacts for free. But how?
For example through a lead magnet, which is a free incentive that can be valuable content, an ebook or a discount you can more easily obtain contact information as users will be more enticed to share it with your company, having already obtained something from you.
Instead, it is often difficult to measure cost/contact.
Even if you use Lead Generation 2.0 Strategies such as: PPC campaigns, Article Marketing, Content Marketing, Viral Marketing, Bannering, DEM etc.
Clearly, when analyzing cost/contact, not only immediate sales should be considered.
Why?
Because unlike television, radio, print or billboard campaigns, once the contact is generated it can be reused over and over again, we might say indefinitely, reducing the initial acquisition cost/contact.
Lead Generation and Inbound Marketing Campaigns
You know the little story of the Professor, who challenges the pupils to fill a jar with rocks, pebbles and sand?
By prioritizing the largest objects (the rocks), and placing them first in the jar, he was able to optimize the space, managing to fit all the materials available.
Here, our Company should adopt a mindset similar to the one explained in this little story in order to implement a successful qualified lead strategy.
In fact, just as the Professor challenged his class to put rocks, pebbles and sand in the jar, we need to think that our strategy also consists of the same materials. We must therefore define which ones:
- Are the big rocks, essential to your strategy?
- Are the pebbles, which are secondary and supportive of your activity?
- Are small things, or distractions, the sand of your business?
Most Companies, claim that their rocks are their customers.
Of course, the importance of customers, for any business, is indisputable. But are we really sure that they fill the role of the rocks in our jar?
We are convinced that our customers, in fact, are represented bywater.
In fact, water is the last element inserted into the jar. It fills it completely, occupies the empty spaces, but most importantly, unites all the other components.
And this is a very good representation of theInbound Marketing philosophy.
Lead generation strategy that starts with content
Our rocks, they are our contents. So we use these as the first thing, to fill our jar.
The creation of engaging content is critical to achieving successful B2B or B2C lead generation activities. And this also includes all the tools we use to generate traffic, such as website, SEO strategy, PPC Campaigns and Social Media.
Of course, we must not forget that it is necessary to offer the right content, at the right time, to the right person, if we want to get good results. So it is essential to dwell on our content marketing strategy, and plan it in every detail.
In fact, not surprisingly, Companies that adopt a content marketing strategy generate 67 percent more leads per month than Companies that do not.
Contact generation: is it the only solution?
As we always tell clients, before investing capital to acquire new contacts it would be more appropriate and cost-effective to retain the clients you already have.
Increase the conversion rate, for example, with activities such as
- Cross Selling (a sales technique that aims to offer consumers something of greater value than their initial purchase choice)
- Up selling (involves increasing the value of the exchange by making available products or services that are somehow related to the initial purchase choice, making it more complete).
Research in recent years has consistently shown one unambiguous result: for a company, acquiring new customers costs 3 to 5 times more than keeping existing ones.
Yet every day we see a constant price war to “steal” the customer from their competitor.
An obvious example is the telephone companies.
In a saturated market, they continue to make downward promotions, “dangerously” reducing margins, with the sole purpose of taking customers away from their competitor.
In this case, only the users benefit because they keep switching from one company to another by taking advantage of different promotions.
Do you too want to create a lead generation strategy but don’t know where to start?
At Factory Communication, we can help you achieve your company’s goals through inbound marketing and customer retention activities.
