In a recent newsletter I pointed out that nobody wants a marketing agency but everyone wants leads. That statement is based on our industry experience and our clients’ views. Unfortunately, not many businesses understand lead generation strategies. Just the other day we had a call from a potential client asking us whether we did lead generation. Of course, we did reply yes. Only to find out that what the company was really looking for was cold callers. We don’t do that. Hopefully by the end of the article you will understand why.
What Is Lead Generation Strategy
Lead generation in strategy (in our world) means creating inbound leads. Everything else will be considered cold calling, outreach, or mass mailing. And - based on our experience - there is a massive difference in the quality of results. You don’t want to be going in straight asking for a sale. Just like you don’t want to walk up to a girl you like on the street and ask them to marry you.
Not to mention that your audience wants to get to know and trust you before they would open their wallet or send over the order form. They don’t know anything about you, and they might have been scammed before.
Engaging in cold outreach campaigns for trust based businesses is a financial suicide. In fact, you will do more damage than good, and you will burn through your marketing budget faster than you can say “LEAD”.
As I always say: “Your audience wants to have a relationship with you”. That doesn’t mean that you have to have a million coffees a week just to get to know your prospect. There are lead nurturing campaigns that will take care of all that.
Lead generation strategies should focus as much on lead qualification as generating interest. And that’s exactly why mass marketing of niche services and luxury products is not effective any more. (Unless you are branding and you have a brand called Rolex… but still, they only put their two-page ads in magazines only high income individuals buy).
Of course, there’s offline lead generation, too. It is all about relationship building. From networking to referral partnerships and event marketing, there are right and wrong ways of creating interest. Blasting a mail campaign is the latter - in our books - unless it is targeting people who already have expressed interest in the service or product.
Lead generation is not a one-off project. It is a process or marketing automation that can - and should be - optimised continuously for the best results.
What Is Lead Generation Strategy Digital Marketing
The difference between general lead generation strategies and that one in digital marketing is that the second one takes place in the digital space. It is based on online content, assets, and brand. However, it is often supported by offline marketing especially at the bottom of the funnel. You might generate interest for your £25K per month coaching programme, but is anyone just going to pay online? No, you (or your colleagues) will need to give up personal time, even if it is just for a Zoom call.
There are three main methods of online lead generation strategies we recommend: digital marketing, content marketing, and email marketing. I will cover these in the next sections.
How to Generate Leads Through Digital Marketing In General
To get enough leads, you need enough people on your list. And to have enough people on your list, you will have a well converting landing page, too. And then you just add traffic to it. The good news is that once you have a lead generation sales funnel you are going to learn about your audience while generating leads. Not all of them will be the right ones, that’s why you need to qualify your leads at the top of your funnel.
How to Generate Leads Through Content Marketing
Content marketing is not a fast way to generate leads. In fact, it is a part of your branding, marketing, reputation management, and lead generation ecosystem. However, there is a very close connection between the quality of content you use for lead magnets and branding and the quality of the leads you receive. The more value you provide your audience the more they will “warm” to you. And the warmer the leads become.
How to Generate Leads for Email Marketing
The recipe of this lead generation strategy is very simple: you just have to make them an offer they can’t refuse. And it should be the best content you can afford to give away for free. A rehearsed version of a 2015 report or a PRL article will not cut it! You have to create powerful lead magnets and follow up with a continuation of content in your email marketing. Give them the next logical step! It needs to be a tease through the lead magnet then the email marketing sequences, so your prospects always want more! Feed them but don’t make them full!
Of course, there are plenty of different lead generation strategies, but these are the ones we at LMNts Marketing find the most effective.
Lead Generation Strategy Best Practices
Now that you know what a lead generation agency does it is time to understand the best industry practices and why campaigns go pear shaped (believe me they do most of the time).
Lead generation campaigns go wrong for one of the following reasons. Don’t worry if you have made these mistakes: I will give you a blueprint to fix them.
Why B2B Lead Generation Goes Wrong
Remember that we are a boutique B2B sales funnel agency, so I will only talk about business-to-business campaigns, not in general. Here are the main mistakes you can make or avoid - it’s up to you!
Too Broad Targeting
When a client says that they can work with anyone, I feel like there are some tiny little spiders crawling up my back. It is not true. And you certainly should not try to target anyone. You have to be as specific as you can. And you always have to focus on the audience that is most likely to buy. Of course, knowing who they are requires research, therefore, don’t miss out on investigating your ideal client persona and creating interviews, surveys, polls, and quizzes.
Wrong Message
Are you talking about what your audience wants to hear, or are you saying what you want to say? There’s a huge difference between the two! They might not be interested in how many publications you have and how many awards you have. But they will certainly want to know how you have helped other clients like them and how you can support them. There are too many brands caught up in bragging and using jargon only their employees understand, instead of having real conversations with their audience.
Talking About You Not the Client
This point is closely tied to the previous one. You will need to talk about the client if you want them to feel important. Instead of saying how good you are, help them out and support them. Show them that you understand their most urgent problems and biggest frustrations and you have the key to overcome them. It sounds simple, right? Still, only a very small percentage of businesses implement this strategy.
No Clear Next Logical Step
We can see so many landing pages that don’t include one clear next step. Or - as a matter of fact - they include a lot of them. And - as Russell Brunson says: “The Confused Mind Always Says No”. If you are sending a lot of traffic to a page, review your goals of what you would like the visitors to do. A landing page should be clear as daylight. If you would like to tackle this issue, see this blog post about landing page optimisation.
Impatience
We have worked with clients who have tried to close top-of-funnel leads on the first day. It will never work. You want to create a conversation and personalise client experiences. Instead of how you would like them to buy, be there when they want to buy. Nobody wants to be sold but everyone likes buying. Of course, on their own terms.
Now that you know that lead generation is more than sending out a mailshot or cold calling businesses, and you have learnt about the most common lead generation marketing mistakes, it is time to find out how to get started the right way.
Our Best Lead Generation Strategy Tips
Laser Focused Targeting
The first thing you will need to remember is to understand your target audience and your ideal client as if they were sitting across the table from you. Our free ideal client exercise will help.
Next, you will have to enter the conversation that’s going on in your ideal client’s head. Disruption marketing no longer works. You can catch them when they are already thinking about the problem you solve. The right ad placement is crucial.
Brand Voice
You will also have to use the same language as your target audience. No matter if you engage in email marketing or content marketing, even social media promotions, you have to be approachable. I can show you a lot of examples of business communication that only talks about how good the business is or uses jargon only the writer understands.
Clarity
Being too vague in your messages is another mistake you can make as a beginner. You might assume that people know as much about your product or service as you do, and this means that you will probably leave out the most important USPs that would get you the sale.
We have recently spoken to a client who said that their clients found their website content boring. We looked at it and found that it is indeed boring. If you are already a customer and you have been working with the company for a while and know how they operate. But the fact is: they were not the target market. They were already informed. But people who first hear about your company might easily be confused if you are too vague.
Consistency
After all, as I have been saying for more than a decade: the first thing your customer asks when coming across your website is:
What’s in it for me and why should I care?
If your website, landing page, content, social media post, or email is not answering that question, your lead generation marketing project will be doomed to fail.
Conclusion
To create an evergreen lead generation marketing strategy, you will need to put in the hard work in the beginning. A funnel - or lead gen system - is never ready. It is always evolving with your business and your changing needs. However, if you follow the instructions above and implement these lead generation strategies, you are more than likely to end up with a plan that will work initially and keep on improving, giving you a higher return on investment every month.
When that time comes, your business will simply bring you the right qualified leads and you don’t have to worry about where your next client is coming from. Wouldn’t it be nice?
Want to find out why your lead generation marketing is not working? We’ve created a simple quiz that will give you all the answers. Take the quiz now.
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Resources:
https://www.close.com/blog/lead-generation-examples
https://www.semrush.com/blog/lead-generation-strategies/
https://searchenginecage.com/blog/lead-generation-strategies/