Gone are the days where the only way to reach new customers is to hand the salesperson a phonebook for cold calling or create direct mailers to send to everyone in your general vicinity. Technology in the online space has paved the way for digital marketers to step in and develop innovative strategies to get the attention of a brand’s ideal audience.
This is done through lead generation. In simple terms, lead generation is the process of gaining the interest of potential customers in order to increase future sales. A lead is anyone in your target audience who may have interest in your brand. What brands really want are qualified leads, which are people within their ideal audience who have shown interest in the brand’s product or service but have not yet closed the deal (whether that means signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, etc).
Lead generation is most often used to drive site visits and sales. Digital marketers utilize data analytics, which can offer key insights into buyer personas such as who your customers are and what made them say yes (or no) to your brand.
According to the 2018 HubSpot Marketing Statistics report, 61% of marketers say their top challenge is generating traffic and leads. And yet, 85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important marketing tool.
To face the challenges of acquiring leads, B2B companies are pouring more of their marketing budgets into lead generation practices. One way of doing this is increasing spending for automation tools, which is expected to reach $25.1 billion annually by 2023.
Dive deep into your data to discover where your ideal audience spends their time online. Are they on social media or reading emails and blogs? Some of the most popular channels for effective lead generation are email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, and landing page/website optimization.
The sales funnel is a helpful way to visualize your customer’s journey, from lead to prospect to customer. Leads enter the funnel as they learn what you have to offer; then develop an interest in your product and become prospects; and finally, they decide to convert into a sale and become customers. It’s important to know what stage of the funnel you’re losing leads, so you can better strategize to increase your conversion rate.
Nothing scares prospects off faster than a brand they can’t trust. Build your credibility by leveraging social proof. Connect with happy customers to develop customer testimonials or case studies to feature on your website. Other options include working with influencers to expand your reach to their customer bases; and including trust signals on your site such as reviews, star ratings, verified payment badges, industry awards, press mentions, etc.
Experimentation is the best way to reduce the risk of losing leads and discovering your missed conversion opportunities. To set up A/B testing, you’ll have two versions of something (i.e. landing page, email or advertisement) that are exactly the same, save for one element (CTA text, email subject line, etc). The one that converts more customers is your winner. From there, you can run more tests and improve your lead-gen digital marketing campaigns accordingly.
Investing in a CRM system, like HubSpot, can save your brand time, money, and missed opportunities to acquire leads. Set up automatic workflows to help move your leads down the sales funnel. For example, if a lead clicked a link in your email to view a product but did not make a purchase, you can remarket to the lead through emails or even paid search ads in order to nurture them down the funnel. You’ll have a better grasp of your data with automation as well—you’ll always have access to your conversion rates and other key performance indicators.
To calculate your Cost Per Lead, divide the total marketing dollars spent on the campaign by the number of leads that came in. For example, your education company spends $25,000 to market its courses and products to potential students. You have 500 leads who signed up for more information. Your total CPL is $25,000/500 = $50/lead.
To clarify, this number is for a lead but not a prospect. Leads will drop out of the sales funnel at different stages, so it’s important to calculate the CPL at all three (or more) stages. In our example above, if only 100 out of 500 leads become prospects, the new CPL for prospects is: $25,000/100 =$500/lead.
Let’s get more qualified leads to your website, generate more revenue, and gain additional business from repeat clients using our full-funnel inbound marketing approach.
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