In today’s world, lead generation is an important strategy for modern marketers. Leads are very important for any business, without potential leads you can’t be successful. You must acquire leads & convert them into potential customers. Marketers use lead generation to build brand awareness, nurture customers & generate revenues. Some outbound strategies such as cold calling, direct mail, TV ads & expensive advertising are not generating qualified leads quickly.
“Inbound marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing”
In this article, we will discuss about how inbound marketing can generate qualified leads for your business.
What Is Lead?
Before knowing about inbound lead generation, we must know about what is a lead. A lead is a person who has indicated an interest in your company’s product or service. Some examples of lead are- You get a random call from a person for information about your service or product. Some people respond to a survey, people visit your store and submit their information on your lead capture form.
What is Inbound Methodology?
With inbound lead generation, you attract a steady stream of potential customers to your website with interesting content and build their interest in your products and services over time. You need to focus on inbound methodology, it is a best way to convert strangers into customers & promoters of your business.
First step, You have to work on unique ways which attract people to your business like unique & informative content, social media. Second step, convert visitors into leads through forms, call-to-action(CTA) & landing pages. Third step, turn these leads into customers through emails, work-flows. Forth step, delight your customers through smart content, events & turn them into promoters of your business. See This Visual.
Ways in Which Leads are Generated
A lead is generated through information collection. We know that a lead is a person who has indicated an interest in your services or products. Now let’s talk about the ways in which leads are generated.
Job Application: When an individual fills out a job application, they are willing to share a lot of personal information. Filling out the job application shows their interest in job. This person can be considered as a lead for company’s recruiting team.
Coupons: If you place out an online coupon on the Internet and people find it valuable, they will share their name & email address to get it. This information is enough for you to know that person has interest in your service & it allows you to continue the conversation through email.
Content: In order to understand the interest of a person in your service or product, you will need to collect more information. Enough information is very essential for a sales representative to understand the interest of person in your service.
Here is an example, how to collect enough information: Like if someone provide an online ebook for inbound marketing, but to download it, you need to fill a form & provide some information like- first name, last name, company name, job title, email id, phone number, website url & other.
Components of Lead Generations
Now lets understand the mechanics of lead generation. Here are some components:
1. Create Content
In order to convert leads faster, you should provide visitors with relevant content that they are more willing to exchange their contact information for on your website.
Here are 3 things to consider when creating content :
a. Value:
Content should be valuable to your visitors & prospects. Content must solve the queries of your target audience.
b. Relevant:
Create unique content & offer that are relevant to your target audiences.
c. Unique:
Don’t offer content similar to your competitor. Be creative & offer unique.
2. Landing Page
It is a web page where your visitors land after they click on your call-to-action. You need to make sure that you offering a relevant landing page to visitors. You can also provide video content on your landing page. Elements of landing pages:
a. Headers:
-Keep headers simple.
-Include company name or logo
-Put contact information in header
b. Headline
-Clear & strong headline
-Use words which grab visitors attention
c. Copy
-Strong & clear copy about what you offer
-Keep copy to few short paragraphs or use some bullet points.
d. Visual
-Always include an image
-Image must be relevant enough to understand what you offer
“Businesses with 31 to 40 landing pages got 7 times more leads than those with only 1 to 5 landing pages.” (Hubspot)
It is the most important element of landing page to collect contact information. Now collect information of visitors via lead capturing form which contains name, company name, email address, region, phone number & some additional information.
Use a call to action button like “Download Now” for ebooks or guides or “Book My Seat” for webinar. Once visitors fill their information, they should be redirected to a thank you page.
4. Offer
If you are providing an offer on landing page which must have enough value, so visitors encourage to fill it out & provide personal information. Offers can include free trial or demo of your product. Offer should be designed to start a conversation.
5. Call-to-Action (CTA)
Next step is creating the call-to-action to place on your website. CTA grabs visitors attention and takes visitors to the landing page. A Call-to-Action(CTA) can be an image, button, or message that calls visitors to take some action.
You need to make sure that your CTA must be action oriented & clear. You must place CTA everywhere: on website pages, in emails, in blog posts, content offers etc.
This is an overview of inbound lead generation. Inbound lead generation is one of the most effective ways to take leads and convert them into customers. Results of inbound marketing are measurable.
