When you’re building an online marketing strategy, there are many different pieces to the puzzle.
- Web design
- Landing pages
- Content
- Mobile design
- SEO
- PPC
- Social media
- Lead generation
Which is the most important?
If you’ve been online for any length of time, you know that’s a trick question.
They all have a role in a successful online marketing strategy. And yet, if you take one away, it can bite into the user experience.
You can have a great website, but without the right content, nobody will stay when they click over to it.
You can have a great landing page, but without the right ads for driving traffic, no one will see it.
Today’s digital users are sophisticated, and they know what they’re looking for.
Every piece you create is about giving users what they want. Without those leads, your business will fail.
Who is your user?
There are currently about 8 billion people living on planet Earth. And no, not all of them are your customers.
Lead generation is about defining who your ideal customer is, then using that information to create the best user experience you can. Luckily, your online marketing can help with that. In many cases, online marketing takes the guesswork out of trying to determine who your client-base is. With analytics, you can discover exactly what online viewers think and do.
- 68 percent of marketers think digital paid advertising is extremely or very important to their overall marketing strategy
- Email automation is one of the top three tactics used to improve marketing performance
- The number of global social media users is expected to reach 3.4 billion by 2023
And due to the world’s changing economic order, digital is going to rise even faster.
Lead generation has always been about converting one stranger into a prospect, and ultimately into a customer.
But to do it right, you need more than understanding who your ideal user is. Lead generation is designed to meet the needs of one. A lead generation strategy is created to reach out to the masses, one lead at a time.
Get this right, and you’ll create an endless supply of leads.
How digital has transformed the way you get your leads
If you’ve been in the marketing world for any length of time, it’s important to understand the differences between traditional lead generation and digital lead generation. There are distinct differences for how you reach out to your customers.
Attention – With traditional marketing efforts, you could build your authority with nothing more than a print ad in a magazine. With digital, you have access to endless information all at the click of a mouse. Instead of access to a handful of television channels, today’s media offers an unlimited supply of options. With that comes information overload. You have to work much harder to cut through that noise.
Approach – Branding used to be about teaching; your marketing proved you were the one to follow and do business with. Today’s consumers are savvier than ever; you can’t hide behind weaknesses and only show up with good ads. Consumers can dig through the noise, make their own carefully crafted assumptions, and even voice their concerns on review sites. A marketers job is no longer about finding people to do business with. Instead, it’s about creating the right company culture that entices people to want to find you and do business with you.
Access – Never before has a marketer had so much access to data and analytics. It can teach you anything you want to know about who is following you. You can use this to create dynamic ads that speak directly to your prospects and create messages they want to associate with. That means your lead generation tactics no longer have to be about the mass, but instead can be broken down into many, giving a more in-depth message that appeals directly to the person viewing it.
Engagement – Lead generation used to only be about the sale. It was the path to get you from awareness to signing on the dotted line. Today, it’s more about relationships. It’s about creating a relationship that lasts indefinitely, and has two-way communication to allow you to know what the consumer is thinking. This gives your business a more transparent feel, as you continue to engage with the customer long after the sale.
Why bother with lead generation at all?
How many leads are enough?
That’s kind of a trick question. For most business owners, an “unlimited supply” may be the first thought. Of course, you want prospects knocking on your door every single day. But there are two separate ways to look at it.
Volume is important; you can’t build a business without enough leads.
But on the other side, there is also the issue of quality. A million leads would do a steak restaurant no good if they are all vegetarians.
That’s why tracking is so important.
Your first goal should be to measure volume. Luckily, every tool you use online has its own way of tracking who visits. Each channel has different metrics, so it’s important to track them all separately to determine what gives you your biggest bang for your buck. With emails, for example, you’ll want to know who’s opening it, how many unsubscribe, and how many click on links. The more you know, the more you can optimize.
It’s similar for things like content as well. If you write a blog post, for instance, how many people click over to it when it’s announced? Do people scroll and read all the way through? Do they click on links and move around? This can be an indicator for what they really care about.
These tactics can also lead you to improve your quality. By following your statistics, it can help you realize what your audience is thinking. You can build additional information and campaigns around ideas that gain more traction.
Awareness is everything
Of course, there are a lot of ways to track this by yourself. We fill our blog with information to help you understand lead generation strategy even more.
But if you want to do what you do best, and leave digital marketing to the experts, you can always give us a call. We’re here to help.
