Lead Generation

When a person shows interest in your brand’s products or services, the steps that person takes towards making their first purchase just seem natural. You just helped them to fulfill a need or solve a problem.

When a person has no interest in what you have to offer, yet you still try to convince them to make a purchase, they may feel like they are being pushed to spend their money. This can make the customer feel like they were forced to buy your product and it can hurt your brand’s reputation.

Attending to your target audience only through lead generation can ensure that your brand is ideally matched with the right customers. More benefits of lead generation include:

• Target the right customers – Companies can focus their resources on targeting specific markets, which in turn will save money and increases sales (improved ROI).
• Increased awareness – Lead generation can also build brand awareness and reputation. When people discover your brand, you will be able to supply them with more information regarding product features and benefits.
• Opportunity to collect valuable prospect information – Lead generation has the potential to gather important marketing information from prospects. Customer information such as needs wants, and preferences can assist you in tailoring your product or service to suit your customers’ needs. Eg. Companies can obtain this information through registration forms.
• Brand Loyalty – Companies can build larger communities of like-minded customers, which can, in turn, improve customer loyalty.

Most marketing departments measure lead quantity when determining a successful lead generation campaign. Sales teams, on the other hand, focus on lead quality. Leads with a clear intent to purchase your product, have the finances and means to do so, and meet the parameters set by you are considered as quality leads.

If a company focuses on lead quality, the chances of converting a lead into a customer drastically increase. Having higher conversion rates will allow you to confidently invest in your quality leads, increasing your return on investment (ROI).

The definition of a quality lead will vary according to a company’s product or service. The best place to start when identifying quality leads is by tracking all inbound leads. An example of tracking lead information is through website forms and marketing campaign software like Mailshake.

When a prospective lead fills out a form on a website to gain access to free downloadable content like a PDF or e-book, they will have to provide their information. Just by providing their name, email, and contact number, you will be able to sort the data into leads, existing customers, and spam.

If your company sells multiple products like software, apps, and technical hardware, then you could add more fields to your forms to gather more info on leads. This can further categorize your leads by department, product, interests, etc.

If you plan on acquiring leads through social media or email, then you could simply keep track of your lead interactions on a spreadsheet. Make sure to include all interactions with potential customers and leads. The more information you have, the better you will be able to assess the quality of your leads.

Manually inputting your findings into a sheet can become time-consuming and difficult to manage at times, which is why it is recommended to use lead management software.

Use Lead Scoring

Lead scoring allows you to rank your leads by their interest levels and readiness to buy. You assign points to leads based on their actions and behavior on your website. There is no exclusive method for scoring leads, which is why companies define their own scoring systems to suit their needs.

Points can be awarded for:

• Visiting your website
• Opening your mails
• Clicking through to a promotion
• Downloading free resources (e-book or PDF)
• Watching a webinar
• Started a free trial