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What is lead generation? Definition + Complete guide to understand everything
Lead generation can be difficult and time consuming. However, the idea itself is quite simple.
- You need to create a website or a landing page that offers a product or a service
- Show your proposal to the right people.
- Then, using a compelling call to action, you need to persuade these people to complete a form or provide you with their contact information so that you can follow up with them later.
Making that happen isn't always easy.
The process can be broken down into numerous steps, each of which will require detailed planning, a sufficient budget, and people to complete it.
READ MORE: GROWS, a Growth Hacking process
Why do you need a lead generation strategy?
Traditionally, marketing has been about reaching consumers and presenting your product to them, but the growth of online commerce has changed that. To succeed in the digital age, businesses have had to adapt to changing buyer behavior.
Rather than forcing a product or service in front of people and bothering them while they go about their daily business, inbound marketing is about bringing the right people to your home. The result is leads that are much more qualified and easier to convert into customers.
Using this customer-focused methodology means that potential buyers are often less hostile or distrustful of sales teams. Indeed, they feel familiar with your brand and recognize you as an expert in your field - which enhances everyone's experience.
What are lead generation best practices?
Grab the attention of your prospects
User attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. You will only have 3 to 7 seconds on average to capture a visitor's attention.
Very few visitors will end up on your home page unless they came through a direct link or searched for your brand directly.
They are much more likely to land on an internal page that matches the specific query in their search. This means that every page on your website should be consistent in design and quality. If a page doesn't look out of place or doesn't deliver your message effectively, your entire site will suffer.
Test your value proposition and messages
The secret is to test everything and do it regularly. Never assume that one page is better than another, or that a call to action is more effective than another without solid data to confirm it.
Small changes can affect page performance, such as:
- A word or a phrase
- Adjusting the color or position of a button
- the number of fields in a form,
- etcetera.
Once you've picked up the data from a test, analyze the information and make relevant changes to your landing pages, then test again to improve your value proposition, target customer data, and messages.
Define a strategy that you can stick to and dedicate yourself to carrying it out.
If one lead generation method isn't feasible in your current situation, use another method until you get better results.
READ MORE: What are Lead Generation Best Practices?
Define your ideal customers
Understand their problems
Define who your ideal customers are, using information gathered from your current customers if possible. Create a buyer profile for each of them, then work to target each profile specifically.
This will help you connect with your customers in several ways:
- Understand what motivates them,
- Challenges and pressures they face
- How can you help them?
READ MORE: How do you define the “problem” that your business is solving?
Validate and redefine the value proposition
Once you know who you are targeting and what their main issues are, talk to them directly. Avoid talking about yourself and your product. Instead, talk about your customers, their problems, and what you can do to help. Potential buyers don't want to read 10 pages about you, they want to know how you can make their day more enjoyable.
READ MORE: How do you conduct customer interviews to improve your value proposition?
Be active on social media.
75% of B2B buyers are influenced by the information they've found on social media, so it's vital for you to be as visible as possible on as many platforms as possible.
This is how you will promote your brand and that you will be remembered.
Social networks are never used for direct sales. They allow you to establish a link with your target audience and to build a relationship with them over time.
Produce content
Content marketing is becoming more and more important for generating leads.
Compared to other similar channels, it is still extremely efficient and very inexpensive.
Search engines have a vested interest in showing users the most relevant results. They are therefore constantly on the lookout for new attractive content and prefer websites that constantly provide attractive content that answers users' questions.
Getting started requires a solid content marketing strategy that you are fully committed to. This strategy should precisely define your target audience, their needs, and where to find them.
The aim is to create the right content, for the right audience, at the right time, delivered on the right channels.
While content marketing is a powerful method for generating leads, the results won't be instant. It can take several months to see results, so don't be discouraged if you don't see a big impact right away.
READ MORE: How do I find marketing content ideas? Here are some effective methods
Diversify your lead generation strategies
Opt for a multi-layered approach to your lead generation that covers a lot of different options and tactics. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, and no single method can check all the boxes by itself. If you're running a long-term content marketing campaign, consider strengthening it with something that delivers immediate results, like a pay-per-click campaign. Plan your strategy intelligently to ensure you get the best results with the available budget.
How can you get more leads?
There are countless ways to generate leads for your business, but the most important thing is to find a lead generation strategy that works properly.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to lead generation. You need to research who your ideal customers are and figure out how to get their attention.
For example:
- Does your ideal customer spend a lot of time on the web?
- What are their browsing habits?
- Is he active on social media?
Creating accurate buyer models is critical to determining the best way to target your customers and deciding where to focus your time and money to get there most effectively.
There are several tried and tested methods that provide good results for most businesses. These include the following methods:
Content marketing
The creation of high quality content that meets your customers and their needs. It helps establish you as a trustworthy leader and an expert in your field.
READ MORE: How do I find marketing content ideas? Here are some effective methods
Email Marketing
It's about maintaining a relationship with your prospects over time through carefully crafted messages that are sent at the right time. These emails should offer advice, new content, or other useful information and resources, without being intrusive.
READ MORE: How do I find and prospect with EMAILS?
Event Marketing
Coming face to face with potential customers is one of the most effective ways to create a lasting bond. You're unlikely to hit gold the first time, so try different types of events and review them carefully to find the most effective one for you.
If you're not able to organize or participate in physical events, webinars can be an equally powerful tool.
Regardless of the method used, participants should feel that they have used their time well and that they have accessed valuable information.
SEO
The SEO allows you to target terms that are likely to attract relevant, high-quality traffic from search engines that is valuable to your business.
While competition will be strong for the most common general terms, there are often several longer variants, called “long-tail”, that can be considered.
For example, if you aim to be found first for the term “lead generation,” you're unlikely to get results. However, creating a page devoted to “lead generation software for SMEs” is much more likely to be ranked. The key is to find a niche in which your business excels, then research search volumes and assess the competition before choosing what you want to target.
READ MORE: The best SEO software for your website
PPC
Pay-Per-Click advertising is the action of targeting key terms or phrases in search engines with relevant advertising that only appears when the specified search criteria are met.
As the name suggests, you pay advertising agencies when someone clicks on your ad PPC is used by a lot of businesses, and for good reason.
The results of a well-designed PPC campaign are almost immediate. Google estimates that businesses earn an average of €2 for every €1 they spend.
Social networks
Hard to set up, but powerful when you do it. Lead generation through social media is about being where your customers are and showing them how accessible and human you are.
The aim is to build a personal relationship with them, which will put you at the forefront of their concerns when they come to buy.
In summary.
The key to successful lead generation is planning, experimenting, evaluating and then adapting.
Some things will work better for your business than others. Make sure you test each strategy for long enough and gather the data needed to make an informed decision about whether or not that strategy is right for you.
If it doesn't work, just move on and learn from your mistakes. You can mix strategies using different tactics and fill in the gaps.
READ MORE: What are lead generation strategies?
FAQs
How do you generate quality leads by attracting the right prospects?
Generating traffic is all well and good, but if you attract the wrong prospects (the ones who are not appropriate and are never going to buy what you have to offer), then all of your work will be useless.
So how do you know who you need to target and how do you reach them as effectively as possible?
The first step is to identify your target customers - that is, the ones you want to reach with your product or service - and to think about which business model might work best for you.
READ MORE: What is Persona Marketing and how do you define it?
What prospects do you hope to reach?
This will have a considerable effect on the overall tone of your message and on your communication methods.
- Are you a B2B company that targets other businesses,
- Or a B2C business that directly targets consumers?
- Or a B2B2C company?
Once you know your target audience, you can break them down into customer profiles, that is, ideal customers that are a perfect match for you and your business.
To do that, you need to look at your existing customer base to see who's earning you the best profit margins and who you enjoy working with. Focus on acquiring more customers that are similar to this target.
Once you have analyzed all the available data and defined your target customer base, you should work to further develop the personality of your buyers. Find out what really makes them stand out and use that knowledge to create targeted content for your ideal target market.
