Lead Generation Made Simple: A Step By Step Guide

Do you need more leads for your business? Follow this step-by-step guide to increase the number of leads you generate each month.

WHAT IS A LEAD?

Before we go too deep, I want to make sure that we are talking about the same thing.

According to HubSpot, a lead is someone who expresses interest in your product or service in some way.

In our experience, this means that they have a problem they would like to solve, are aware that your product or service can potentially solve their problem, and want to learn more about your product or service to determine if it is the right solution for them.

WHAT TYPES OF LEADS ARE THERE?

We look at a lead as either inbound or outbound. Inbound leads come from inbound marketing strategies, while outbound leads come from outbound strategies.

HubSpot outlines the difference between inbound and outbound marketing in this short blog post. You can read it in 3 minutes.

WAYS TO GENERATE OUTBOUND LEADS

• TV Ads
• Radio
• Direct Mail
• Networking
• Tradeshows
• Billboards
• Workshops/Classes/Speaking engagements
• Conferences

WAYS TO GENERATE INBOUND LEADS

• Webinars
• Whitepapers
• eBooks
• Checklists
• Newsletters/email
• Videos
• SEO
• PPC
• Social Media Marketing

For this guide, we'll focus primarily on inbound leads and inbound marketing.

WHY INBOUND?

For starters, it lines up with how people buy today. Studies have proven that people are doing more online research before they buy.

Inbound ensures that you are there when they look for answers on the marketing side and is more consultative on the sales side.

Inbound is looking to help people make a more informed purchase. It's offering a solution, not selling a product or service.

Outbound marketing is much more disruptive and interrupts its audience, like commercials in the middle of a TV show.

Having clarified what a lead is and the types of leads, let's get started discussing how you can generate leads for your company.

STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM

Now that we have a better foundation for this discussion let's define the problem. Why aren't you generating enough leads?

There are a few things you should look at first to determine where you need to focus.

• Are you attracting the right audience?
• Are the people you're attracting people you can help? Can they afford your solution? Do they want or need your solution?
• Are you getting enough traffic?
• How many people are coming to you for help on a weekly and monthly basis? Are there enough visitors to reach your goals?
• Are you converting traffic?
• Are people contacting you for help? Are you capturing their contact information in some way?

STEP 2: FOCUS

If you're not attracting the right people, this could be a branding issue, a lack of defining your audience well enough, or a combination of the two.

If you've never gone through a branding process, I highly recommend it. Maybe your audience doesn't find your brand to be attractive, or you're just not making a connection. Branding can help you resolve these types of issues.

It can be extremely challenging to attract someone if you don't know what they look like, where they are, where they are going, what they need, or when they need it.

You should define your company's primary personas. Personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers.

Some other ways you can focus on who you are trying to reach is by developing anti-personas. These are representations of prospects, leads, and customers that would not be a good fit for your business.

Sometimes the best way to define something is by saying what you don't want it to be.

Another thing you can do is select specific verticals, or industries, that work best for you. It doesn't mean you can't work outside of those verticals; this is just a place to start and a primary focus.

A positioning statement is also a great way to define who you help and how you help them. A good positioning statement undoubtedly makes qualifying leads easier for your sales team.

STEP 3: OPTIMIZE

I always like to provide a little disclaimer here; I don't mean SEO here. What I mean is optimizing, your website more specifically, for best performance.

If you are not converting enough visitors to leads, you may need to optimize your site to convert.

You want to ensure that your site performs at its highest potential. Make sure the website loads as fast as it can, that all the links work correctly, and that the user experience is excellent.

Every page should have a purpose and goal for conversion, to make sure that it converts visitors to leads, even if it's primarily to get them to the page with more information.

You may need to completely redesign your website to provide a better experience and fully optimize your site to convert. In many cases, you will only need to make a few minor design changes and updates.

To get the best result, you may want to look into Growth-Driven Design (GDD). It's a process to help you improve your website's results month over month.

A few ways to optimize your website are by adding clear calls to action, making it very clear what your business does and who it helps, providing contact information above the fold on every page.

Also, make sure that the site loads under 3 seconds, has SSL encryption, and is responsive for mobile devices.

What is Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and How Can Beginners Understand It Better?

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is a vital metric in the world of digital marketing. At its core, CPA measures the amount you spend to acquire a single customer or conversion. This encompasses all marketing expenses that lead to a specific action, such as a purchase, sign-up, or download.

For beginners, grasping CPA starts with understanding its components:

1. Calculation: CPA is calculated by dividing the total marketing costs by the number of conversions. For instance, if you spend $500 on a campaign that results in 50 conversions, your CPA would be $10.
2. Importance: CPA helps marketers evaluate the efficiency of their campaigns. Lower CPA indicates a more cost-effective strategy.
3. Optimization: Beginners can improve their CPA by refining targeting, enhancing ad creativity, and testing different marketing channels.

Key Steps to Get Started with CPA

1. Set Clear Goals: Define what constitutes a conversion for your campaign.
2. Track Expenses: Keep a detailed record of all marketing expenditures.
3. Use Analytics Tools: Platforms like Google Analytics can help track conversions and calculate your CPA effectively.

By understanding and optimizing your CPA, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are both efficient and effective.

STEP 4: AUTOMATE

A considerable part of creating a stream of consistent leads is automation.

Marketing automation and sales automation are vital to saving time, providing a good experience, and helping prospects get to the content they truly want when they want it.

Marketing automation can help nurture leads, deliver timely and relevant emails, as well as share blog posts and web pages to help answer questions and address concerns at every stage of the buyer's journey.

With tools like HubSpot, you can deliver content based on what a prospect has done on your website, what emails they've opened, and many other ways they have interacted with your company.

Marketing automation takes some planning and strategy to get going, but once it's in place, it can feel pretty magical.

It's the automation that creates a steady stream of leads. Without automation, you would need to manage every aspect of lead generation manually, which would allow for a bunch of errors, a considerable loss of opportunities, and be very time-consuming.

Once you start automating parts of your process, you will want to automate everything. It's very addictive!

If you are looking for ideas on what to automate, check out this blog to see ways you can leverage marketing automation for your business.

STEP 5: ATTRACT

To generate leads, you must have enough opportunities. If you have defined your audience correctly, then you know who to attract and where to find them.

If you know how many new sales you need, it's relatively easy to reverse engineer how many visitors you need to attract to hit your goal.

Don't assume that you need to use every strategy and tactic to get visitors to your site. You only need the ones that attract enough of the right people.

If your site is generating leads and those leads are closing (meaning they are your ideal customers), but you just aren't getting enough, you likely need to increase the traffic to your site.

Understanding Demand Generation: A Comprehensive Overview

Demand generation is a strategic approach to marketing that aims to create interest and awareness around a company's products or services. It is particularly prevalent in sectors like business-to-business (B2B), business-to-government (B2G), and longer business-to-consumer (B2C) sales cycles. This technique integrates various marketing efforts to effectively nurture potential customers from awareness to making a purchase.

Essentially, demand generation marries diverse marketing programs with a structured sales process, ensuring that every stage of the customer journey is catered to meticulously. The goal is to generate a steady stream of high-quality leads that are more likely to convert into long-term customers.

For those eager to dive deeper into the intricacies of demand generation and learn about best practices, a detailed resource is available in our comprehensive blog post. This will provide valuable insights and actionable strategies to enhance your marketing efforts.

Explore more about this in-demand strategy in our detailed blog post here.

When it comes to B2B lead generation, it’s crucial to tailor your campaigns for each specific channel to maximize effectiveness. Here's a comprehensive guide to some of the best strategies:

Social Media Campaigns

Social media can be a goldmine for B2B lead generation when utilized effectively.

LinkedIn Content Sharing: Share industry insights, research reports, and whitepapers to demonstrate your expertise and attract leads. Sponsored Posts: Use LinkedIn's sponsored content to directly target key decision-makers in your industry.

Email Marketing

Email remains one of the most powerful tools for generating B2B leads.

Targeted Email Drips: Develop a sequence of emails that guide potential leads through the buyer's journey. Personalization: Use custom elements such as the recipient’s name and company to increase engagement rates.

Content Marketing

High-quality content can significantly drive lead generation efforts.

E-books and Whitepapers: Offer comprehensive guides that solve specific problems your target audience faces. Blogs and Articles: Publish well-researched, valuable content regularly to attract organic traffic and capture leads through gated content.

PPC and Retargeting

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and retargeting can capture leads who are already familiar with your brand.

Google Ads: Target specific keywords that your potential leads are searching for. Retargeting Campaigns: Use retargeting to follow up with visitors who have shown interest but haven’t yet converted.

Webinars and Virtual Events

Engaging directly with potential leads can build trust and showcase your expertise.

Educational Webinars: Host webinars on pertinent topics in your industry to attract and engage potential leads. Virtual Roundtables: Facilitate discussions between industry experts and potential clients to create valuable networking opportunities.

SEO and Organic Search

Organic search can be a sustainable source of high-quality leads.

On-Page SEO: Optimize your website for search engines to improve your visibility for key search terms. Content Upgrades: Offer downloadable resources in exchange for visitors’ contact information.

Direct Mail Campaigns

Although less common, direct mail can be surprisingly effective in the B2B space.

Personalized Packages: Send customized packages that cater to the specific needs of your target audience. Follow-Up Strategy: Incorporate a follow-up plan to ensure that your direct mail efforts are not in vain.

SMS Marketing

Mobile engagement is crucial, even in B2B.

Event Reminders: Use SMS to remind leads about upcoming webinars or events. Quick Surveys: Engage your audience with short, interactive surveys to gather insights and qualify leads.

Gated Content

Gated content can significantly aid in lead capture.

Exclusive Reports: Offer high-value content like industry analyses or exclusive research behind a lead capture form. Case Studies: Provide detailed case studies that demonstrate your product’s effectiveness in real-world scenarios.

Lead Generation Tools

Leveraging the right tools can streamline your lead generation efforts.

CRM Systems: Use Customer Relationship Management software to organize and track leads. Lead Capture Forms: Ensure your forms are optimized for user experience to collect valuable lead information effortlessly.

By implementing these varied strategies, you can optimize your B2B lead generation efforts across multiple channels, ensuring robust and high-quality lead capture.

What Are Some Top Lead Generation Tools in 2023?

Navigating the digital landscape to find the best lead generation tools for your business can be overwhelming. With innovations continually reshaping the market, it’s important to stay updated. Here are some standout lead generation tools in 2023 that can help you capture and convert leads effectively:

1. HubSpot

HubSpot continues to be a leading choice for businesses of all sizes. Its comprehensive suite includes CRM, email marketing, and advanced analytics. This integration facilitates a seamless lead generation process.

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

For B2B marketers, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is indispensable. It allows you to leverage LinkedIn’s vast professional network to identify and connect with prospects, turning your social media efforts into tangible leads.

3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster excels in converting website visitors into subscribers and customers. Its customizable pop-ups and advanced targeting features ensure you capture leads at the right moment.

4. Pardot

Salesforce’s Pardot is perfect for those needing a powerful B2B marketing automation tool. It offers robust lead scoring, nurturing, and real-time sales alerts, enhancing your ability to track and engage prospects.

5. Intercom

Intercom’s live chat functions are fantastic for real-time lead engagement. By offering instant customer support and personalized messages, it helps you capture leads while they’re active on your site.

6. Leadfeeder

Leadfeeder reveals which companies visit your website, showing you their browsing behavior and interests. This intelligence helps your sales team prioritize high-intent leads for follow-up.

7. SEMrush

Beyond its SEO capabilities, SEMrush offers tools for content marketing and competitive analysis, aiding in attracting organic leads through better visibility and targeted content strategies.

8. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is beloved for its user-friendly email marketing platform. Its automation and segmentation features ensure that your lead nurturing campaigns are timely and relevant.

9. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign combines email marketing, automation, and CRM features. Its robust customer experience automation helps you deliver personalized experiences at scale.

10. Drift

Drift’s conversational marketing platform uses AI chatbots to qualify leads instantly. This ensures that your team only engages with highly interested prospects, optimizing your sales funnel.

By incorporating these tools into your marketing strategy, you can efficiently capture, nurture, and convert leads, driving sustainable growth for your business.

Why SMS Marketing is Still Relevant and How to Get Started

The Continued Relevance of SMS Marketing

In an age where social media and email campaigns dominate the digital marketing landscape, you might wonder why SMS marketing still holds a place of significance. Simply put, SMS marketing remains relevant due to its astonishing open rates and immediate impact. Unlike emails that can get lost in crowded inboxes or social media posts that might never reach your audience, text messages boast an open rate of 98%, with most being read within minutes of receipt. This level of engagement is unmatched.

Moreover, SMS marketing offers a personal touch. Messages land directly in the hands of your audience, fostering a sense of immediacy and intimacy. It's a direct line of communication, cutting through the noise and ensuring your message is seen.

Getting Started with SMS Marketing

Ready to dive into SMS marketing? Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:

1. Choose a Reliable SMS Marketing Platform: Select a service that aligns with your needs and budget. Platforms like Twilio, EZ Texting, or SimpleTexting offer various features and pricing plans.

2. Build Your Subscriber List: Obtain consent from your audience to receive text messages. You can do this through online forms, in-store sign-ups, or integrating with your existing CRM.

3. Craft Compelling Messages: Keep your messages concise and valuable. Ensure each message has a clear call to action (CTA) that drives engagement.

4. Segment Your Audience: Personalize your campaigns by segmenting your audience based on demographics, purchasing behavior, or engagement level. This tailored approach increases relevance and effectiveness.

5. Schedule and Automate: Plan your messages in advance to align with your marketing strategy. Use automation to send messages at optimal times for maximum impact.

6. Monitor and Optimize: Track the performance of your SMS campaigns through metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Use this data to refine and improve future messages.

In summary, SMS marketing remains an invaluable tool for direct and effective communication. By following these steps, you can harness the power of SMS to connect with your audience in a meaningful way.

STEP 6: CONVERT

You have to have a way to capture visitor information, and you must have something of value they are willing to give in exchange for their information. We often refer to these as offers, premium content, or conversion tools. You can offer an eBook, checklist, webinar, or another useful resource. Conversion is an excellent place to focus when you know you are attracting enough of the right kind of people, but not generating enough leads. Landing pages and online forms are a big deal when it comes to generating leads online. The sole purpose of a landing page is to convert a visitor to a lead.

Best Practices for Building Fantastic Lead-Capture Forms

To enhance your lead-capture forms effectively, consider these best practices:

• Simplicity is Key: Keep your forms simple and straightforward. Only ask for essential information to avoid overwhelming your visitors.
• Design Matters: The design of your form should align with the overall aesthetic of your website, ensuring a seamless user experience.
• Strong CTA: Incorporate a clear and compelling call to action that encourages visitors to complete the form.
• Value Proposition: Clearly state the value the visitor will receive in exchange for their information, such as a free ebook or a subscription to a newsletter.
• Privacy Assurance: Include a privacy statement reassuring visitors that their data will be handled securely and will not be shared.
• Test and Optimize: Regularly test different versions of your forms to see which one performs better. Use A/B testing to make informed decisions.
• Accessibility: Ensure that your forms are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

Another critical piece is a well-crafted call to action. There are still millions of websites that don't make their contact information easy to find and don't tell visitors any next steps. Don't make people figure out what to do next. If they are ready to buy, tell them how to get started. Tell them what to do next if they are not prepared to buy. A great way to test your conversion and improve it is through data. Converting leads is not an area where you should guess, or go with your gut, to make improvements.

By integrating these best practices into your strategy, you can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your lead-capture forms and, consequently, improve your overall lead generation efforts.

How can the effectiveness of a lead-capture form be tested and improved?

Effectiveness can be tested through A/B testing by comparing different versions of the form to see which yields better conversion rates. Tools like Google Analytics can be used to track the performance and gather insights about user interactions with the form. Regularly updating the form based on feedback and performance metrics, as well as staying updated with the latest web design trends, can greatly improve its effectiveness.

What common errors should be avoided when designing lead-capture forms?

Common errors include asking for too much information — which can deter potential leads — and not providing sufficient value in exchange for the user's details. Neglecting to optimize the form for mobile users or placing the form in a less visible area of the page can also reduce its effectiveness. Additionally, failing to test the form to ensure it is working correctly across all browsers and devices can lead to lost lead opportunities.

What strategies can be used to increase form submissions?

To increase form submissions, consider offering incentives such as free downloads, entry into a contest, or access to exclusive content. Employing A/B testing to try different versions of your form can help identify which elements perform best. Also, ensure the form is optimized for mobile devices, as a significant amount of web traffic comes from mobile users.

How should a lead-capture form be structured to maximize lead generation?

The form should be designed with simplicity in mind, using a clean layout that avoids unnecessary fields or clutter. Positioning the form prominently on the page, ensuring it is immediately visible without needing to scroll, can also enhance its effectiveness. Using visually appealing elements like colors that contrast well with the rest of the page can draw attention to the form.

What are the key components to include in a lead-capture form?

Essential components of a lead-capture form include a clear headline, a brief description of what the user will receive, input fields that are limited to collecting essential information such as name, email, and perhaps one or two other relevant details depending on the offer. Additionally, a strong call-to-action button that stands out on the page is crucial.

Understanding Gated Content and Its Importance for Marketers

What is Gated Content?

Gated content refers to online materials, such as eBooks, whitepapers, webinars, or case studies, that are accessible only after a user provides certain information, typically through a form. This information often includes details like the user's name, Email, and sometimes additional data like job title or company.

Why is Gated Content Important for Marketers?

1. Lead Generation:

   • Collecting Valuable Information: By requiring visitors to fill out forms, marketers can gather crucial lead information, which can later be used for nurturing through targeted campaigns.
   • Qualifying Leads: Not all leads are created equal. Forms can include questions that help to qualify the leads, ensuring that the sales team spends time on prospects who are more likely to convert.

2. Segmentation and Personalization:

   • Tailoring Content: With more detailed information, marketers can segment their audience more effectively and deliver personalized content that resonates with specific groups.
   • Improving Engagement: Personalized content increases user engagement, as it addresses particular pain points and offers relevant solutions.

3. Measuring Content Performance:

   • Tracking Metrics: Gated content allows marketers to track who is downloading and interacting with their resources, providing insights into content performance and user interests.
   • Data-Driven Decisions: These insights enable data-driven decisions, helping marketers to refine their strategies and create more compelling content.

4. Building Authority and Trust:

   • High-Value Content: Gated content often contains in-depth, high-quality information that reinforces the brand’s authority in the industry.
   • Establishing Credibility: By offering valuable resources in exchange for user data, businesses can establish themselves as trusted sources of information.

5. Encouraging Deeper Engagement:

   • Fostering Relationships: Providing valuable gated content encourages users to engage more deeply with the brand, increasing the likelihood of continued interaction and long-term customer relationships.

In conclusion, gated content is a powerful tool that helps marketers generate leads, personalize interactions, measure content effectiveness, build authority, and foster engagement. By strategically gating high-value resources, marketers can drive significant value for their businesses.

STEP 7: CLOSE

You need a strategy for closing leads. You also need the right tools. You want to do everything in your power to enable your sales team to close more inbound leads into customers.

You should outline a sales plan and have a sales strategy. You should also implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between your marketing team and sales team. An SLA will help align both sides with the same goal and expectations.

Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software will help facilitate most of your sales process.

The right CRM will help marketing and sales teams understand where prospects, leads, and customers are in the buyer's journey.

A CRM will also inform sales teams what content a prospect has viewed so that sales teams can enter the conversation well informed on how to help each individual.

Another part of converting leads to customers (closing sales leads) is nurturing. You can use marketing automation to deliver personalized, relevant content to leads over time.

Automated emails are a great way to build trust and address common sales questions. You could also provide product or service information helping to move leads down the funnel and into the decision stage of the buyer's journey.

STEP 8: DELIGHT

Before I get going, let me make this clear. You should work to delight everyone as early in the buyer's journey as you possibly can.

You can delight visitors, leads, and customers by being timely and helpful. Sometimes, surprisingly beneficial.

You should strive to deliver relevant and timely content. Delighting everyone will take a good understanding of your audience, but if you are using the HubSpot CRM and Marketing software, it will be much easier.

If you deliver good content, people will begin to trust you more and will likely come to you whenever they need a solution to a problem they know you can solve.

STEP 9: INCREASE YOUR LEAD GENERATION OPPORTUNITIES

Complete and repeat. I know it sounds a little silly, but it's true. Do it all over again, and again, and again.

Your odds of generating leads increase as you build out more funnels and landing pages with great offers.

Studies have proven that sites with more landing pages generate way more leads than those with less or without any at all.

According to HubSpot, sites with ten or more landing pages see a 55% increase in leads. Companies with 40+ landing pages typically generate 12X as many leads as companies with five or fewer landing pages.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Building a site that generates leads can take planning, strategies, and lots of work, but it's very much worth the effort.

The return on investment is typically better. Inbound leads are 49% less expensive than outbound leads.

I encourage you to work on developing a few landing pages with premium offers on your own.

If you find this overwhelming, you don't know where to start, don't have the extra time to do it yourself, or feel out of your area of expertise; give us a call.

We'd be happy to schedule a free consultation and offer a few tips and resources. We can also provide an extra hand if you're ready to work with an agency.