How Lead Generation Marketing Works

Your business is unlikely to grow as it should without a proper lead generation strategy in place. Irrespective of the nature of your business, any business that doesn’t attract leads is on its death bed. We agree that lead generation marketing is challenging but not impossible. For this reason, most B2B marketers are not able to generate quality leads hence they obtain low conversions.  Luckily for you, we have discussed the lead generation process in this article so as to help you stay ahead of your competitors from the start.

What is lead generation?

A lead is any individual seeking for services or products from a given brand. Lead generation is, therefore, the process of persuading and capturing the interest of an individual through a service or product with the aim of creating a sales pipeline.

How lead generation works

The lead generation process can take two roads:

Inbound

• Inbound lead generation involves creating content or incentives that your customers or prospects can follow. You will need detailed information around a given product or service in order to attract visitors through a search engine.

Outbound

In the outbound lead generation process, you directly contact your target audience with a message about the products or services your company offers. Contact can be done through different channels such as via email, social media platforms and many more.

Inbound lead generation provides no criteria for qualifying the prospects who click on your products or services until they are finally a lead. In most cases, leads are lost along the way since the products or services you sell might not be for them.

Generating leads through the outbound technique is quite effective since it is aimed at targeting and qualifying potential customers before and after contacts so that your business is full of prospects that are likely to buy.

Lead generation strategies

Lead generation may not be easy when you have no idea whom to target with your products and services. Additionally, you must know where your prospects live. You have to understand that each day, your audience expectations change and your competitors get better. Which strategies do you use to wow your prospects into becoming customers?

1. Go live

In this internet era, your customers need answers to their queries within the shortest time possible. It is simple to convert your users to leads by use of visual engagement tools. Live chat is the most widely used tool. A video chat is also on the rise and can’t be ignored. To keep your visitors glued to your website, let them watch a video that is engaging with the business.

There are several video chat software programs in the market that can help you offer both live chat and video chat. Live chat simply provides the users with an excellent personal experience hence enhancing trust. Live tools will definitely help you increase your leads significantly.

2. Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the best lead generating strategies.  Nowadays, email is, in fact, the leading lead generating tool. It is most importantly used to nurture your leads for future conversions. Again, email marketing automation tools have brought a new twist to email marketing. These tools are connected to your CRM  so that you are able to automatically send highly targeted personalized emails to your prospects.

• You may want to use the typical newsletter to capture leads, but one thing you have to know is that most B2B marketers have moved to target individual users in their inbox.

3. Events

Your customers love to be engaged. An event enables you to truly express yourself and meet your prospects face to face.  Your event should be set to discuss a new idea; it could be a product or a service.

Allow your prospects to engage with you so as to know what their needs and interests are. An event is also a good venue to clear any doubts about your products or services. You are likely to lure your prospects into becoming customers by meeting them in person.

4. Content marketing

Your users are prone to reading content that is of value to them. It is not easy to grab your visitors’ attention with poorly crafted content.  The quality of your content will help the user decide if they want to trust you or not.  More leads can only be generated when you give details about your offers. It is only this way that your users feel convinced enough to continue doing businesses with you.

B2B lead generation

Here are tricks and tips that will help you kickstart your B2B lead generation process:

1. Use a relevant call to action

The best way to generate B2B leads is to update your old content by adding killer CTAs; you may also use this strategy for your new blog posts. How do you create effective CTAs?

• Make sure the CTA is above the fold or pin it on the screen to have it scroll with the viewer.
• Encourage your prospect to act  fast by limiting the  opt-in fields
• Employ a text button that describes the actual action.
• Male use visuals such as arrows to guide your visitors to the next step

2. Make use of exit- intent pop-ups

Place pop-ups wisely so as not to distract your user from reading through your content. An effective  exit-intent pop-up should:

• Give two options a Yes or No
• Have a clear action with a simple text, you can include images or omit them
• Be mobile optimized
• Be tested with A/B testing so as to retain what works best.

3.  Update your content

You can revamp your old content by grouping it into desirable categories that are will attract the lead to a click. You can even integrate them for downloading. This however highly depends on the channel or platform you intend to use.

Make an ebook using your related posts and post it on your landing page with a download button so as to attract new leads. You can also use the posts to create infographics that are sharable on platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook and many more.

4. Gate premium content

Gating some of your high-value content will enable you to generate leads fast. Most of the B2B buyers are willing to surrender their contact information for some high-value premium content such as ebooks. This is  how to get make good use of your gated content:

• Make use intelligence forms so as to avoid repeated fill- out requests
• Each gated content should have its own optimized landing page.
• Your landing page should be directed to a thank you page after the prospect has downloaded. You can include social shares on the page.

Lead generation business

The lead generation industry is huge.  This is because most businesses rely on leads to make a name for themselves in the market. How do you start a lead generation business from scratch?

1. Choose your industry: You need to choose an industry that is in constant demand; your clients will also need to identify your area of speciality. It is not wise to become a jack of all trades when it comes to lead generation business.
2. Create a marketing strategy: There are several ways of reaching out to the leads. Target your ads depending on the user needs.
3. Let it be automatic: Automation is paramount is when running a lead generating business. A lead is simply generated by placing an ad online. The target audience clicks in the ad when they see it on whichever platform and they are directed to the website. The user then fills their information in the required fields to finally become a lead.

• Managing your marketing campaign is an essential part of the lead generation business. All you have to do is ensure that you adhere to your budget so as to increase your profit margins.
• The only way to monetize your lead generating business is to have lead buyers. Generate leads depending on what your buyers need. It is not funny having leads you can’t sell because no one needs them!.

Conclusion

One thing most businesses forget is that B2B lead generation is about giving their potential customers a piece of themselves. With useful problem-solving information, you won’t have to worry about how to capture leads,  it almost becomes automatic. Your prospects are looking for the value that your business offers.  To get the best out of your leads, reward them with value in your services or products.