Understanding What Is Lead Generation In Digital Marketing And The Importance of It For Your Business
What is lead generation in digital marketing? It is a process to initiate the interest of consumers in the products and services your business offers.
Your online business must have customers for it to survive but the process of gaining those customers starts with lead generation. As an online business owner, you may not be aware of how the process works online. Therefore, I will clarify just what is lead generation in digital marketing and how to leverage tools that are available.
Technology within the digital age you live in now has changed the way that business is carried out. Old school methods of knocking on doors, sending flyers in the post and cold calling are not as effective. Some businesses still try this but invariably find themselves struggling through quicksand.
That approach to marketing your business can be compared to throwing mud against a wall and seeing what sticks. Time, effort, and money is wasted because you will be adopting a blanket marketing strategy. Trying to appeal to the masses when there is only a small section of consumers that are interested in what you have.
Therefore, you must become strategic and attract the people who are aligned with you and your business. Fortunately, there are tools, and technology which can help you laser target your marketing efforts. Enabling you to find people though their interests and daily habits so they are a perfect match.
When you master the art of digital marketing it is like having your own virtual superpower in business. A skill set that enables you to market any product and service online. Imagine being able to choose who you want to attract and finding out where they hang out online. Then executing your campaigns with pinpoint accuracy!
What Is Lead Generation In Digital Marketing And Why Is It important?
Just to clarify that a lead is a potential customer for your business. They fit a certain criterion that you have set out when defining who your ideal customer is. As a lead they enter the first point of any customer sales cycle through your marketing strategy.
The process starts online with attracting traffic to a website or webpage through advertising and content. You will place advertisements online which individuals will click on and then get redirected to your web pages.
Once you get them to those pages your task then is to turn the visitor into a lead for your business. There will only be a certain percentage of people who visit you page who then become leads. That percentage is affected by the quality of your marketing message and the facility to capture their details. I will cover this element shortly.
Once you have captured them as a lead it is then you task to convert them into customers. There are many ways you can do this such as having sales teams follow up with them in person. Or you can have automated marketing strategies in place that delivers value to that lead. The emphasis at this point is the value that you provide and to build a relationship with that person. You must have the mindset that you are dealing with people and not just a phone number or email address.
Think of a lead as seed that you water and feed to allow it to grow into a healthy plant that thrives. Your leads need that same nurturing to grow into high value customers which doesn’t happen overnight.
Strategies To Attract Leads To Your Business
There are many strategies that you can use to attract leads to your business but there is one common denominator. That is your message and the story behind that message. You will be building a personal brand which reflects who you are and what you stand for. Also, what your missions is and who you want to serve.
Consumers are very savvy people now and are subjected to thousands of marketing messages every week. On the whole marketing messages are very similar, Whether it is how to make money or how to lose weight there is not a lot differentiate one from the other.
This is you perfect opportunity to stand out from any competition that you may have. Consumers want to check you out and your story is what makes you unique. Your story is what you leverage within your content to attract leads to your business.
It may through blog posts that you write or through videos that you create which you then regularly publish. Having your own platform such as a blog or website is your virtual real estate which you have control over. Your blog or website establishes your authority online and demonstrates your expertise in your field.
This is like a trunk of a tree of which branches sprout from. These branches will contain the tools you need to capture those leads to then nurture into customers. You will create social media channels to start to build your tribe of followers along with video channels such as YouTube or Vimeo.
Your emphasis must be on creating content that stimulates a problem that must be itched. The message contained with that content agitates that itch even further, so individuals need the solution. You then provide the solution through your calls to action.
So How Do You Put This All Together?
First you need to create content but first you must establish the purpose of that content. As we are talking about lead generation then this is the purpose. It could be a blog post that you optimize for the search engines. This means that you are addressing a specific problem that people are searching for.
You content will address that problem then agitates the itch that person has. It will pre-frame the solution that you have to offer in a persuasive manner. By the time the reader gets to your solution they should be chomping at the bit. Your call to action will lead them to a lead capture page or squeeze page which extracts information such as name & email address.
By this stage you have the source content and a page that captures information. Then you can create videos that are published on YouTube which focus on the problem that your post is about. Here you have two options of either directing them to the post or to the lead capture page. This is probably a matter of testing to see which works the best.
Now move onto your social media platforms and post the first couple of sentences about your post. Have a call to action link saying “to learn more click here” which directs them to your blog post. Now they are on your virtual real estate which is you blog or website.
They read the content hopefully proceed to your lead capture page.
What Happens On The lead Capture Page?
When they land on your lead capture page they will be introduced to your solution. It could a free eBook, video of maybe the offer is a consultation with you that you charge for. Again, this depends on what you are offering and the appropriate message but the call to action will be an opt in form on that page. Here is an example of one of my lead capture pages to show what I mean.
As you can see there is a clear headline in place, a video and an opt in form for people to fill in. Once they fill this information, they are added to a data base of leads that is provided by an autoresponder service.
This service allows you to communicate with your leads by sending out automated emails. These sequences are value driven to build relationships with the lead but there is a clear objective.
The objective is to provide the value, so the lead begins to know, like and trust you but you also ask them to make decisions. You do this by placing clear calls to actions within the email copy for the lead to click on.
These calls to actions then direct the individual to your product sales pages. Here they can determine the benefits they will receive from your products and services and make an informed decision.
The decision you want them to make is to click on the buy now button but that will again depend on your messaging. This is where your story will have the most impact and act as the deal breaker. If you have provided the value, shared your story, empathised with the individual and built up that trust they should then purchase from you. The cycle is now complete, and they graduate from a lead to a customer.
Hopefully, I have given you clarity on the subject of what is lead generation in digital marketing. I cover this subject extensively within my Build Your AU mastermind. To learn more about this program please click here and register your details.
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
Build Your AU
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