According to a 2022 white paper by HubSpot, a majority of marketers are now keenly aware of the value of lead generation for closing sales efficiently. The rise of influencers, the popularity of video marketing, and the return of long-form content are all part of a larger trend where brands are creating campaigns that are less about gaining attention and more about gathering leads and nurturing them into converting customers.
Below, we’ll briefly discuss the basics of lead generation and take a look at the lead generation techniques being employed in today’s online markets.
What Is Lead Generation?
Lead generation or “lead gen” is the process of attracting and identifying potential customers (qualified leads) that have shown an interest in your product or service. Once identified, qualified leads could then be guided through the customer journey and converted into paying customers. This makes lead generation a conversion rate optimization (CRO) activity.
Lead generation can be performed through a variety of methods. Whatever methods are used, the idea behind lead gen is to catch and nurture the attention of customers who are the most likely to buy from you. This makes lead generation fundamentally different from awareness campaigns.
Why Is Lead Generation Important?
A business without a coherent lead generation strategy cannot maximize its sales and marketing efforts. Without any qualified leads, the business will be completely vulnerable to changes in market sentiment, and sales teams will waste effort on individuals who are unlikely to convert.
Lead generation is especially important for businesses that engage in digital marketing. The fragmented and highly individualized nature of online markets makes lead gen-oriented strategies more effective than traditional marketing in most contexts.
By focusing on lead gen, businesses can move beyond basic awareness campaigns and truly nurture potential buyers into paying customers. Among other benefits, the right combination of lead gen techniques can reduce the cost to close each sale, minimize the need for cold-calling/emailing, and increase customer lifetime value.
Digital Lead Generation Techniques You Can Try Today
Traditionally, lead generation was primarily done by actively contacting and cultivating each potential lead. While this is still an important method in some contexts, online lead gen is now primarily done through a variety of digitally-enabled techniques.
Below are some of the most common lead generation methods you can use to cultivate an online audience.
1. Mobile Optimization
According to data collated by market research firm Statista, mobile made up about 73% of all online sales 2021, with this figure seen to rise even more in the coming years. This means that at least 7 out of 10 visitors to your ecommerce site are coming in through their phones and tablets.
Optimizing site content for mobile devices allows you to hook these visitors in for longer, maximizing your brand exposure and credibility. Thus, optimizing your site to work well with mobile phones is a must if you want to retain potential customers.
Making a site mobile-friendly involves more than simply using a single-column site design. Chiefly, mobile pages should be “responsive” and automatically display the site in a way that’s optimized for each user’s device.
The whole mobile experience has to be considered as well. Designers need to think in terms of taps rather than clicks, and they should also find ways to reduce the frequency of manual data entries while implementing mobile-friendly commercial banking and payment solutions at checkout. The importance of conversion highlights the necessity of pairing your lead generation strategy with quality corporate banking solutions from reliable banking institutions.
2. A/B Testing
A/B testing (also known as bucket or split testing) is a technique where two or more different versions of a lead gen campaign can be tested against each other. This can be done to site content, emails, PPC ads, and print ads, just to name a few.
Performing A/B tests on lead gen campaigns allows you to quickly find out which things work or don’t work for a given market. A/B tests are important because the so-called “best practices” that work for many other businesses may not be appropriate for your context.
Today, there are plenty of free and low-cost tools for A/B testing everything from site layouts to email copy. This availability makes it incredibly simple for businesses of all sizes to start running A/B tests on their lead gen campaigns.
3. Content Marketing
Content marketing can help develop authority, create emotional bonds with leads, answer frequently asked questions, and create more interest in your brand. Though content marketing is not strictly a lead gen activity, a thoughtfully executed marketing campaign can be an immense boost for lead generation and nurturing efforts.
While every business’s content strategy should be tailored to its brand and objectives, video content marketing on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok will be key to lead generation success for the foreseeable future.
As far as content topics are concerned, case studies are useful for most brands whether they are presented in video or written form. Case studies provide a framework through which leads can understand how your business might address their needs. Case studies also let you explain your solutions in depth in a way that would be difficult through other types of marketing.
4. PPC Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an internet marketing technique where advertisers pay a search engine or content publisher whenever the ad is clicked. When clicked, ads lead potential customers to a selected landing page.
Running PPC ads on search engines is an entire marketing sub-discipline in itself but the general idea is simple. PPC ads are placed more prominently than organic search results, which grabs more attention and more qualified leads.
When leveraged correctly, PPC ads can be used to reach a large number of potential customers relative to the cash spent. Another big advantage of PPC ads is that you can easily fine-tune their conversion rates over time through A/B testing, further bringing down the cost of each lead conversion.
5. Maximizing CRM Software
Customer relationship management (CRM) software allows businesses to have a unified view of their leads, qualified leads, and current customers as they interact with your business. When set up properly, this software can be used to deliver highly targeted marketing to a select group of leads or customers.
The main advantage of using CRM software is that it offers better visibility and efficiency when managing leads. This makes it possible to remove a lot of the pain points in customer journeys, leading to more conversions.
CRM software enables businesses to assess leads according to quality. The spending habits, interests, demographics, and conversion probability of each lead could also be gleaned through these systems. Using this data, leads can be grouped and automation scripts can be set up to trigger events such as exclusive promos, emails, and targeted offers.
6. Social Media Campaigns
Social media is a highly important source of leads, especially given the sheer amount of time people are now spending on their favorite platforms. On average, global internet users spend about 2 hours and 27 minutes a day on social media according to the Digital 2022 Global Overview Report by DataReportal. This figure can be significantly higher for younger users, particularly in emerging markets.
What’s more, social media lead generation isn’t just for businesses engaged in B2C marketing. Platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn are frequently used for B2B lead generation campaigns as well.
Social media platforms typically allow you to create ads that target a specific demographic, allowing your business to quickly rack up a high number of qualified leads. Regular social media posting can also be used to generate a small but steady stream of leads, particularly when done as part of a wider content marketing campaign.
7. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of refining content so that it is more likely to rank higher on a search engine results page (SERP). SEO practices can be applied to any content that is designed to be searchable.
Most SEO strategies are built around “keywords. These are words or phrases that you type in search bars to retrieve a desired type of content. SEO can be an incredibly diverse field that could be leveraged in countless ways to pull in new leads.
While SEO is most often used to rank high in SERPs of major search engines like Google, it can also be used on search engines of 3rd party eCommerce platforms like Amazon and Alibaba.
Because search engines are constantly updated, businesses need to regularly change strategies to stay on top of the SERPs. While the “best” SEO strategies always depend on context, it’s a good idea to perform a regular SEO audit for your site to ensure your pages are ranking for your target keywords.
8. Automated Email Campaigns
Email is a low-cost, time-tested way of bringing in new leads to a business. Email lead generation is most often done through opt-in forms, often as a requisite to access exclusive content, apps, or services.
Apart from their low cost, the beauty of email campaigns is that they can be customized and automated to be highly relevant to each recipient. This makes automated email campaigns a highly effective tool for nurturing leads and maximizing the chances of conversion and repeat purchases.
Combining automated email campaigns with social media and content marketing efforts is now a standard digital marketing strategy that allows businesses to gain and nurture leads with relatively low effort.
9. Brand collaborations
Collaborations can be a source of new content and social media posts, creating new opportunities to engage with new and existing customers. According to brand matchmaker Collabosaurus, brand collaborations are also up to 25x less expensive compared to paid digital advertisements.
These benefits are especially acute when the brands you collaborate with are seen as authentic. “Influencer marketing” is a current trend where businesses leverage the perceived authenticity of “microcelebrities” to generate more solar leads for their brand.
Increase Conversions the Smart Way with a Lead Generation Strategy
Whether you run a food truck or are in corporate banking, lead gen strategies can help sustainably drive conversions and repeat purchases for any business. The digital age has brought with it opportunities that make having a lead generation strategy more viable than ever before.
By learning and applying the digital lead generation techniques above, your business can gain the market’s interest, reduce sales and marketing costs, and create a firm foundation for more conversions and faster growth.
