Lead generation is the lifeblood of your company; without leads, your business will not survive. Why I say this is because generating quality leads is the ultimate element you need to turn your business into a success story. In this post, you will understand the fundamental concept of lead generation and why it is so important for your online business strategy.
You have a great functional business website that details your products and services. You have implemented an amazing strategy to direct traffic to your website. You know you have attracted the attention of many yet how come, sales revenue are still stagnant?
The reason is that not everyone is ready to make a purchase.
No one likes to be pushed to purchase a product, especially if they don’t understand the full benefits of what they are buying. Giving your visitors a price and asking them to buy immediately will only scare them away.
According to Nielson Norman Group, the average webpage visit lasts for less than 59 seconds. While you may be able to convince some to purchase your products or services in less than a minute, it’s quite impossible to convert all your visitors into customers.
So before your visitors leave your website and forget about you forever, what can you do to keep them in the loop and remind them of how great your products and services are? The answer is building a long-term relationship with your customers through Lead generation.
What is Lead Generation and why is it so Important?
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting a stranger into a lead – a prospective customer who shows interest in purchasing your product or service. Simply it is a strategy that will allow you to stay with your visitors, form a relationship with them and then convert them into customers when they are ready to buy. Only with time, you’ll be able to gain your customer’s trust and convince them about your offerings.
The Lead Generation Process
The Lead Generation Process is completed in 4 steps: Drive qualified traffic, Lead Capture, Lead Nurturing and Lead Scoring. These 4 steps also represent the customer’s buying behaviour process.
Attract by Driving Qualified Traffic
In order to attract strangers and turn them into your website’s visitors, it is important to drive qualified traffic using multiple inbound and outbound methods including Email Marketing, Social Media, Retargeting, Pay per click Ads, Content Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). To receive your tailored digital strategy, click here.
Convert by Lead Capturing
Once you have driven qualified traffic to your website, you must now convert your web visitors into leads through lead capturing. Lead capturing is offering value in exchange for your customer’s contact details.
By offering valuable content (sign-up here to get your free e-book) or promotional deals (sign up now and get 10% off your first purchase), visitors will then provide you with their contact information which will be easier for you to bond with them as they’ll be more responsive to the conversations you initiate with them.
Build Relationships by Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the interaction stage where you turn your leads into customers by establishing trust, credibility, and relationship with your leads. It is where you’ll learn more about them and where they’ll learn more about what you do.
By using inbound and outbound marketing methods such as personalising emails and valuable content to suit their needs, you will have a higher chance of sustaining your lead’s interest and attention and most importantly their trust.
Close By Lead Scoring
Then through lead scoring as a business, you will understand which leads require immediate attention and which needs more nurturing. All leads engage differently with your online business meaning they are all at different stages of the buying process.
For example, a hot lead who has clicked on all your emails would have 25 points whereas a cold lead who has only clicked on one of your emails would have 5 points. The higher the score, the hotter the lead, the more ready they are to buy.
By scoring your leads, this will help you decide on which leads you need to contact first and convert them successfully into a customer.
Countless businesses today are losing potential customers because they don’t acknowledge how impactful Lead Generation can be to help generate customers and revenue. Through this article, I hope you have understood the process of lead generation and the different inbound and outbound marketing strategies you can use to achieve effective results at each stage of the customer’s buying process.
Next week, I’ll be explaining the differences between inbound and outbound marketing methods and how to utilise them in your lead generation processes.
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