We’re here to simplify the process and make lead generation a breeze!
When generating marketing leads for your business, it can be tricky trying to keep your head above water in a sea of evolving marketing technology (special shout out to Artificial intelligence).
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, marketing leads refers to an organisation or individual who has interacted with your brand. This could include someone who has engaged with an ad or signed up for a resource on your website.
Consistently establishing marketing leads is an essential part of scaling your business, as leads fall hand-in-hand with prospects and then customers for your business.
But here’s the important part.
You need to be generating quality leads, rather than focusing on quantity.
The solution? Hint, hint, it has to do with Inbound marketing.
Tips for Inbound Lead Generation
Get personal and identify your target market.
Have you ever struggled to buy a gift for someone you don’t really know?
It’s a lot easier when you understand the person you’re buying for, right? Imagine you are a buying a gift (your product or service) for your ideal customer. What would they want/need?
Customer personas help you uncover the different ways people search for, buy, and use products. They allow you to improve the user experience for real people based on your ideal (or current) customer.
Having detailed, accurate personas are essential when generating marketing leads for your business. As personas allow you to specifically target leads through your messaging which increases the chances of your content resonating with leads.
Ultimately, connecting with potential leads on a personal level will provide improved outcomes from your lead generation activities. It means you are more likely to convert individuals into paying customers.
Get the wheels turning and craft realistic customer personas, we recommend considering:
What gender do they identify as?
How old are they?
Where do they live? (urban or rural areas)
Do they have dependents or major responsibilities?
What’s their job title?
What are their reasons for needing your product or service?
Stuck on a fresh strategy?
We offer strategy sessions to help get you on course to meet your goals.
Engage with your community
It’s no secret that everyone is online now, this includes your marketing leads. Leverage your social media platforms and engage with your connections in a strategic way to extend your reach to potential leads.
This is where your persona research comes into play. Create engaging, relevant content that resonates with your business’s target personas. Sharing valuable knowledge on a regular basis will allow you to build a loyal following and generate marketing leads for your business.
Responding to social media comments should never be overlooked, as this is an easy way to provide leads with more information (this could be providing them a link to a specific relevant page on your website or answering a question). By pointing people to your website, you’re not only providing value, you are also guiding leads to the next stage in their customer journey.
Our top tip is to engage with your connections, spark conversations in comments on your social media posts, and use CTAs (call-to-actions).
Build brand authenticity with user-generated content
User-generated content (the bread and butter of social media marketing) refers to content created by a non-official representative of your business – think unpaid, or unsponsored social posts. UGC is such an effective form of engagement, as it allows you to connect with leads organically. It can come in many forms, including, blog posts, podcasts, social media updates, and reviews.
We all know the warm fuzzy feeling when a customer leaves a positive review, raving about how much they love your product or service. It’s time to leverage that feeling and share those reviews with other potential customers.
Demonstrating previous positive customer experiences not only reduces your marketing efforts (the constant battle of content creation), but also allows you to build brand authenticity – a must for all brands in the digital age.
It’s time to start embracing the modern-day word-of-mouth advertising. Generate marketing leads for your business through user-generated content.
User-generated content can be a long-term game, but building brand authenticity allows you to develop and grow leads which are more aligned to your offering.
Collaboration is key
Collaboration can be a crucial strategy for lead generation. Here’s why.
Brand co-marketing collaborations or brand partnerships involve two or more brands working together. The partnership or collaboration could involve joint content creation, working on an event together (online or offline), and most importantly, cross-promotion.
A great example of leveraging brand collaborations would be running an online competition (promoting the competition on each brand’s social platforms, through email marketing and on their respective websites). Be strategic with how you monitor and capture your lead information. We recommend using just one landing page for the competition which incorporates a lead capture form.
On completion of the collaboration competition, each brand then shares all the leads captured with one another. The next step would be to start nurturing those leads captured, showing those contacts value by providing a free download or with personalised, relevant content.
This can be achieved through social media or EDM marketing, keen to learn more hacks for EDM marketing? Take a look at our ‘Five hacks to generate more leads from your EDM marketing’ blog.
When considering who to collaborate with, opt for businesses with a similar target market to yours or one you want to expand into. Check back on your customer personas to ensure you are finding the right match. And, of course, opt for someone who has a good level of engagement and following from their audience.
