What Exactly Is Lead Generation?
A lot of businesses look to leverage traditional marketing tactics like large-scale email blasts to acquire customers. That being said, this is a much more difficult thing for businesses to track, reach, and engage with prospective customers.
Businesses attempt to use lead generation as a way to warm prospective customers until they can get them ready to purchase something. The end-goal of lead generation is to focus on the development of a sales pipeline. It does this by both stimulating and capturing interest in a product and/or service. You will find businesses in both Business-to-Business (B2B) and even Business-to-Consumer (B2C) industries leveraging this type of strategy because it is effective for virtually every type of business.
According to 60 percent of all marketers, the primary pain point they experience is ineffective lead generation. After all, it's extremely complicated to figure out who is a good lead and who isn't. This is because some people who download your white paper aren't warm leads at all. Therefore, you don't want to only target these people. Instead, you want to find ways to proactively narrow down your options to ensure your best salespeople are calling on the wrong prospects who could be classified as unqualified leads.
By developing a highly optimized lead generation program, you will be able to do everything from boosting brand awareness, generating qualified leads, and even building relationships. You will even be able to increase your sales by getting better quality leads and re-directing them to your sales staff. This will help you scale your company and you will be able to maximize the effectiveness of your marketing staff. This will be the case because you will be able to enhance the effectiveness of your team as a whole and prove you are a valuable contributor to boosting your company's bottom line.
Lead generation isn't new. It's something businesses have been using for several years at this point. However, the strategies that have been adopted have continued to change. Nowadays, you no longer have to find customers early on in the sales process. Rather, it's become increasingly important to find newer and more creative and innovative ways to reach prospects. This is because customers by in large are being flooded with new information. Thus, any marketer should avoid the overuse of general email blasts and mass advertising because it has become largely ineffective. Instead, they should be focusing on building relationships with prospects instead. This way, you will be able to cut through the clutter and avoid being tossed aside by a prospective customer.
According to Tim Barker who is the Chief Product Officer at DataShift, "Customers have become influenced socially and they are quickly becoming smarter, more informed, and more connected."
Lead Generation Can Solve A Lot Of Problems
You aren't going to be able to appeal to any buyer who is self-directed by using general and blast-form advertising. Instead, you will need to create a highly optimized lead generation program that is tailored to your prospects. Here are a couple of the different problems you will be able to solve by implementing an optimized lead generation program into your marketing efforts:
1. Problem: You Want To Get A Lot Of Leads
Any lead generation program you are implementing should have one goal. That is, to attract as many high-quality leads as possible. To do this, you will need to re-evaluate all of your current tactics and strategies. You will want to ensure that you are optimizing everything fully to maximize your efforts. You want to keep your customer's pain points, concerns, and challenges in mind when you are doing this. Getting qualified leads depends on your ability to solve the pain points of your prospects. Also, you will need to find ways to nurture and maintain relationships with these prospects to get the most out of your lead gen efforts.
2. Problem: My Sales Team Says I Am Not Delivering The High-Quality Leads They Expect
If your sales team is not converting at the high rate you are expecting them to, it could be for several reasons. For one, both your sales and your marketing teams should be in full agreeance on what constitutes a lead that is qualified and when the lead should be handed off. That way, everyone is on the same page. Keep in mind, as much as 96 percent of those who visit your website are not going to be in a position where they are ready to make a purchase. Prospective buyers don't want to be sold to. Therefore, sales teams can push away buyers if they are contacting them too soon. Thus, it will take a good amount of time to nurture these leads and to fully qualify them making it a big challenge for marketers.
3. Problem: I Don't Know What To Do After I Bring In Leads
One of the major components of lead generation is the process of bringing in leads. However, you also must solve the piece of the puzzle on what to do with the leads that you do successfully bring in. You need to qualify your leads using both nurturing and scoring. This is to be done before your sales team is ever being handed the leads. A prospective buyer will have done their research and they typically will contact a business when they are near the finish line. Therefore, you should keep this in mind when you are trying to optimize the last portion of your sales funnel.
4. Problem: I Should Show My Marketing Team's Return On Investment (ROI)
You want to craft a strategy and figure out everything that should be measured. That way, you will be able to fully measure and showcase the value of your marketing team. You want to look at the metrics that showcase your marketing efforts and figure out the impact it is having on your sales figures.
5. Problem: My Lead Generation Efforts Aren't Working
You will need to do a full revamp of your lead generation efforts if your program isn't converting. Nowadays, buyers are much more educated and self-drive than ever before. Your leads will be able to find you as long as you are using modernized lead generation software. This software can boost visibility in the marketplace and help optimize the entire process from start to finish. Buyers will be using the informational content that you provide them through this to help them cross the finish line and make a buying decision.
Components Of An Effective Lead Generation Program
As soon as you can generate leads, the program you have in place shouldn't end. Various other components have to be considered when you are looking to optimize the entire thing.
1. Database
You will need to have everything tracked from start to finish. You want to give each lead a score and segment all of the leads as they are coming in. This can be done the best using an automated system and approach.
2. Supporting Channels That Are Lead-Ready
Content is King when it comes to the foundation of your lead generation efforts. You will need to leverage content as the fuel for your marketing efforts. This includes social platforms, email, and more.
3. Analytics
You will be able to track all of the returns you are getting with your lead generation efforts which will give you a full picture of how things are turning out.
4. A Martech Stack
You will be able to save a lot of money by constantly measuring and optimizing your programs. This can help you boost your efforts through optimization with the right software and technology in place.