As a business owner, whenever you engage a person using a marketing technique – e.g. email marketing, an online advert etc – that person becomes a lead. Lead generation is the process of creating interest in your products and services in the hopes of turning them into paying customers.
As the result of lead generation is ultimately sales, rather than enquiries, finding the best ways to increase the quality and relevance of your leads is central to lead generation, as is the process of nurturing a lead from first contact to first purchase.
Quality in this context refers to the potential of a lead to convert to a customer, and their value should they do so. The best quality leads have a high chance of conversion and a high potential lifetime value, the opposite being true of low quality leads. How do you improve the quality of the leads you attract to your company?
How To Improve Lead Generation
Recognising the diverse needs of customers necessitates customising your marketing materials to their needs and interests to improve lead quality. To do this you have to know who your ideal target customers are in the first place, and what they want you to solve for them – and get this spot on.
Failure to do this will result in your messages missing the mark, or attracting the wrong type of person. To aid in this task, many businesses create detailed fictional customer profiles to reflect typical buyer types – referred to as buyer personas. This lets you target your lead generation efforts at very specific audiences.
For example, creating specific landing pages on your website that cater to different buyer personas will capture a greater amount of leads by increasing the relevance of your content for different audiences.
Understanding The Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel is the process through which an initial lead enquiry is ‘nurtured’, through progressive sharing of valuable information and answering questions, to becoming a paying customer.
This buyer journey can be divided into four stages:
1) Awareness of your business
2) Interest in your business’s services
3) Desire for what your business can provide
4) Action taken towards becoming a customer
Image source: Business Owner Elevation
Knowing where a lead is in this process enables you to create content that targets them at each stage of the journey, with the goal of moving them to the next stage.
Feedback forms can be designed to capture information at each stage: more specific fields will help you gain better insight into who your buyers are, what stage they are at (not all initial leads come to you at stage #1, some may be closer to a purchase decision), and how to keep them engaged.
Targeted ads and accompanying landing pages can be customised according to this data to attract leads at each stage of the journey, while specific keywords and search phrases will increase the likelihood of your business appearing prominently in search results.
Finding Your Place In The Market
Another potential way to generate leads is examining where your business is represented in the market. In order to increase brand recognition, you not only need to encourage your current customer base to turn other leads into new customers as well – by a process of referral marketing and reviews. Inviting your customers to review your business and refer it to others, including via promotional offers, will help build brand recognition that will further increase the quality of your leads. Making leads come to you rather than going to them will create a better ROI.
Cultivating referrals through targeted incentives is different to word of mouth marketing, because you remain in control of your marketing messages and are better able to keep track of costs and results.
Using Inbound Marketing For Lead Generation
As with any marketing strategy, implementing methods to increase lead generation requires careful planning to maximise ROI and potential turnover. As such, you should consider the services of a marketing agency to help you implement the best lead generation strategies for your business.
The JDR Group specialise in various inbound marketing strategies that increase lead generation for UK businesses.
To find out more, please call 01332 343281 today.
Image source: Unsplash
