Sales Lead Generation in

By: Toni Becker

SALES LEAD GENERATION IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

Today’s consumer is in charge of what they want to see and when they want to see it, and because of this, marketers need to drastically alter the way they generate leads.

In today's digital climate, we need to ensure that the customer is genuinely interested in the service or product before “pitching” or offering it to them.

To sum it up, in today’s online world marketers need to qualify their leads before they implement anything else, and the more accurate the lead, the greater the chance of them becoming customers.

THE EVOLUTION OF LEAD GENERATION

WORD OF MOUTH

The vanguard marketers relied heavily on referrals, door to door marketing and being present in areas of high foot traffic for lead generation. With word of mouth and door to door marketing being one of the most essential tactics to creating a thriving business during these times, as most businesses only served their local areas.

But this was an extensive undertaking, and generating new leads required someone connecting directly with another person, making it difficult to scale and not saturate a market. But as technology advanced, lead generation tactics began to change.

PRINT MARKETING

With the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1440, lead generation began to take on a new form as print allowed businesses to send their message out to hundreds, if not thousands of people over vast distances without having to go door to door.

Marketers were able to advertise in publications and were also able to now place posters and billboards in high traffic areas - once deemed impossible. Even with print marketing taking shape, word of mouth and person to person marketing was still the primary source of marketing while newspapers, direct mail and billboards offered businesses even more tools to help in the generation of leads.

MASS MEDIA

With the Industrial Revolution of the 1900s, came the rise of big business and advertising. Businesses were able to run promotions in national publications, and the media became an industry on its own.

Radio was able to broadcast company messages to millions of potential customers, and magazines targeting specific interests made it easy for companies to generate targeted leads in specific markets. Then came the invention of the television, which gave businesses the opportunity to showcase and demonstrate their products and services on a new visual level. The telephone gave rise to cold calling while phone books made it easy for marketers to generate leads and target individuals.

During this time people would listen and consume media and outbound marketing and lead generation became a dominant force in the advertising industry. This was to change with the rise of the digital era.

THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA

As consumers became increasingly flooded with advertisements, they began to grow skeptical of what businesses were promising them. Too many bold promises were made, with too many businesses not following through on these promises - and consumers began to distrust mass media and advertisements. Then in 1983 the internet was created, and in the 1990s it became a recognised and household necessity.

The internet was a marketing dream, and the process of lead generation changed once again. ‘Consumers could now be reached on a global and instantaneous scale, and they could be targeted more than ever before. However, this meant adapting to local markets, understanding different cultures and marketers had to quickly improve their market research methods in order to see success.

Pay-per-Click (PPC) marketing, Search Engine Optimisation and Email Marketing were established in 1999 - 2002 and social media platforms began to take shape with the invention of Facebook in 2004.

It was at this point that lead generation was changed forever - enter Inbound Marketing

LEAD GENERATION GOES DIGITAL

In order to create a successful lead generation campaign in the digital world, your marketing strategy needs to take every aspect of your marketing into consideration.

This includes PPC, website design and development, search engine optimisation and social media strategy. But one of the most important aspects of lead generation in the digital age is “content creation.”

With a world of information at our fingertips and a social community ever present on our screens, content is something we are inundated with on a daily basis, and without even realising it, we are consistently digesting and searching for new content. Businesses have had to capitalise on this and it has become vital for businesses to provide potential customers and current clients with engaging and high-quality content to keep them interested and informed. So, how is this achieved? Instead of sourcing customers through mass advertising campaigns, marketers are now focusing on being found and are learning how to build loyal and consistent relationships with their customers.

This is done by sharing thought-leadership articles, creating interactive and shareable social media posts, and providing targeted audiences with helpful information that benefits their lives.

By doing this, businesses and brands have the opportunity to create close-knit communities, and it is these communities that build brand trust.

Not sure where to begin?

5 STEP TO SALES LEAD GENERATION SUCCESS

QUALITY CONTENT

Producing quality content is the foundational step in creating a lead generation strategy. According to a survey conducted by Demand Gen, 96% of Business to Business buyers want content from industry thought leaders and 47% of buyers viewed 3 - 5 pieces of content before even engaging with a sales representative.

Set yourself apart as a thought leader by creating a consistent and high-quality blog. Through blogging, you have the ability to gain leads by solidifying your place as an industry expert on topics that your service or product solves. To establish your business as a thought leader you should be posting regular blogs, tips, and news articles regarding your industry.

You should also consider creating extensive and helpful guides that visitors can download via your website. The more helpful you are, the more potential customers will appreciate and trust your business.

SEO

Do you ever click on the second page of your search engine results? Probably not.

This is why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the most valuable long-term lead generation strategies.

SEO refers to the process of affecting the visibility of a website in a search engine’s unpaid results.This kind of organic SEO allows your business to find users when they need you the most.

There are hundreds of factors that can influence how Google ranks your website within the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). With a variety of factors affecting search results, the best place to start is to begin spending time optimising your local SEO with great content. To put it simply, if you want to be found on search engines, you have to commit yourself to the grind of consistently delivering quality and optimised content.

Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving in an effort to deliver useful and relevant results as quickly as possible. The “useful and relevant results” that Google is trying to deliver are the bits of content that are available throughout the web. These pieces of content are ranked by their order of relevance and usefulness to the individual performing the search.

So, for your content to have value, it needs to be beneficial and helpful to searchers. It cannot be something frivolous and without merit. Slamming in keywords and key phrases that the user is searching for within your content will not help your cause. Google and your consumer, are smarter than that.

SOCIAL MEDIA

When used correctly, social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for lead generation. For this to be used successfully, you need to invest effort into building your audience and engaging with them.

This will develop a sense of community and trust, which will convert your social audience into leads.There are a variety of social tools to choose from and the first step is to identify which of these tools will work best for your brand.

You can run paid social advertisements on a variety of platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

EMAIL MARKETING

An important part of email marketing is to tailor your message to target specific segments of your leads database.

As it is today, marketing automation is a great method to assist marketers in sending highly targeted emails to potential clients. Your leads can be placed into an email campaign workflow once you have collected their information from a website form, social media form, or landing page.

These leads can then be reached via email and can be sent content that matches their specific interests or needs. These campaigns can include a subscription to your thought-leader blog, a follow-up email filled with helpful content, and a strong Call to Action. Through this process, you will gain greater insight into each of your leads and will be able to tailor your messaging to help move them down the leads funnel.

ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING

Account Based Marketing (ABM), is a strategic and highly targeted approach to business marketing, in which a business considers and communicates directly with individual prospects and accounts within a specific market.

ABM leverages off personalised campaigns that are designed to engage these prospects, moulding the marketing message to suit the specific needs of the prospect or account.

ABM is a strategy that focuses on 3 key elements:

Identify key accounts Development of personalised content Content campaigns delivered to those key accounts

ABM provides an extremely targeted approach to lead generation. It is sometimes compared to outbound sales calls. However, ABM is very different. ABM has taken the best attributes of outbound and inbound marketing, and combined them to create a modern and powerful sales lead generation tool.

Outbound Marketing Tactics: The Outbound tactics ABM uses include the identification of key individuals and target audiences. These prospects will be reached by email or telephone, and every elevator pitch will be personalised, specifically related to the individual or the business.

Inbound Marketing Tactics: Some of the Inbound marketing tactics that ABM uses include; creating helpful, informative, and high-quality content, the ability to thoroughly track the campaign, automation of further communication, and the ability to tailor and personalise all touch points.

LEAD GENERATION CONTINUES TO EVOLVE WITH THE TIMES, AND IF YOU PUT TIME AND EFFORT INTO YOUR LEAD GENERATION CAMPAIGN BY UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE, CREATING RELEVANT CONTENT, PROMOTING THAT CONTENT ON POWERFUL PLATFORMS, AND CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION, YOU WILL ATTRACT QUALITY LEADS AND CONVERT THOSE LEADS INTO LOYAL CUSTOMERS.