Lead generation is a big part of the inbound marketing methodology. Welcome to the third and final part of the lead generation series. Following the previous two informative lessons, here we will go over how the entire process works, as well as the different lead funnel strategies that you can employ in your marketing strategy.
Lead Generation Process
If you’ve been following our educational series, outlining the lead generation process, you will already be familiar with terms like sales leads and lead funnels. Now, it’s time to walk through the steps of the lead generation process.
- Discovery – The visitor finds your business online through one of your channels (social media, blog, or website).
- Call-to-action (CTA) – The same visitor will interact with your CTA (a message, button, or image).
- Landing page – The CTA takes the visitor to a landing page; a web page designed to capture lead information in return for an offer (an e-book, a course, or a template).
- Contact form – Once on the landing page, the user will fill out the form and becomes a sales lead.
To sum the process up; a user clicks the CTA which takes them to a landing page where they will fill out a form in exchange for an offer, in turn, becoming a lead.
Put these four elements together and you’ll have a lead generation process. This is where using your various promotional channels to drive traffic to your landing page is necessary to generate leads.
There are several promotional marketing channels that one could use to flow towards a generated lead:
- Social media
- Blog
- Content
- Ads and retargeting
- Product trials
- Referral marketing
Lead Generation Strategies
We’ve discussed what happens to a lead when it’s on your site but how do you get them there in the first place? Below we dive into the different methods of lead generation for a few of the most popular platforms right now.
Facebook Lead Generation
Since its inception, Facebook has been a favoured method for lead generation. When it was first gaining traction as a social platform, businesses attempted to use outbound links in their posts and information in their bios in a bid to attract users back to their web domains.
This came to an end when, in 2007, Facebook Ads was launched. This was when its algorithm started favouring accounts that utilised paid advertising. This created a major shift in how marketing was done and how leads were captured on Facebook.
It was for this purpose that Facebook created Lead Ads. Additionally, this social platform has a feature that allows its users to place a simple CTA button at the top of your business page. This is a great help when it comes to leading users back to your website since it’s so easy.
Twitter Lead Generation
Twitter’s lead generation tool is Twitter Lead Gen Cards, which allows users to generate leads straight from a tweet. This is all without needing to leave the domain. The card automatically pulls the user’s Twitter username, email address, and full name. All there is left to do is click ‘Submit’ and the user will become a lead.
LinkedIn Lead Generation
LinkedIn is the platform for professionals which more and more people are realising. This platform is optimal for marketing purposes, for one, the viewers outweigh the creators. LinkedIn is something that all businesses should be advertising on. This platform has created Lead Gen Forms. These auto-populate with a user’s profile contents once the CTA is clicked. This makes capturing information a breeze.
PPC Lead Generation
PPC stands for pay-per-click which refers to ads on search engine result pages (SERPS). Google gets roughly 3.5 billion searches each day which makes is prime real estate for marketing company ads, lead generation especially. Your PPC campaign will sink or swim based on whether there is a seamless user flow, not to mention, your budget, keywords, and a few other elements.
B2B Lead Generation
B2B is a business model that needs a certain approach to lead generation. This makes it a specific kind of method. SEO, for one, is a big part of this strategy as the top resource for capturing business leads. Following this is email marketing and social media. The effectiveness of this strategy is known to vary according to the channel. In summary, B2B lead generation needs a guide of its own.
This marks the end of our mini-series. To summarise, lead generation is your friend and all businesses should be employing these strategies within their digital marketing campaigns. Sales leads lead to profit and now you know how to generate and funnel those leads – the rest is up to you and your efforts.
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