What is Lead
Generation?
Where traditional marketing methods such as email blasts used to be
enough to draw customers, the increase of competition and information abundance
is making it more difficult for companies to track, reach, and engage with
potential customers. Lead generation, the marketing process of stimulating and
capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing a
sales pipeline, allows companies to nurture targets until they’re ready to buy.
Lead generation can be useful for any type or size of business, and for both
B2C and B2B spaces. Sixty percent of marketers state that lead generation is a
key pain point for their company. Determining a good lead is more complex than
just targeting people who downloaded your white paper, and it’s important that
your sales reps don’t waste their time cold calling unqualified leads when
there are ways to narrow down the pool.
When you implement a lead generation program, you increase brand
awareness, build relationships, generate qualified leads, and ultimately close
deals. The higher quality leads you to direct your sales team too, the more of
those leads will result in sales. In doing this, you are helping your company
grow, while also growing the credibility of your marketing department by
showing tangible results and proving yourself to be a valuable part of the
revenue team.
Lead generation has been around for a long time, but methods have
changed from simply finding a customer early on in their sales journey and
sending the sales team their way. The self-directed buyer is inundated with
information, so it’s vital to find new, creative ways to cut through the static
and reach potential customers. Instead of finding customers through mass
advertising and email blasts, marketers must rely on being found and building
relationships with their buyers. In the age of information abundance, marketing
is going through a massive shift.
Simple batch
and blast advertising doesn’t appeal to the self-directed buyer, and having a
solid lead generation program in place can help you navigate the new complexity
surrounding lead generation. Below are a few problems lead generation can help
solve.
·
Problem: I need to
generate a high volume of leads. If
you’re just starting out, a lead generation program can result in increased
brand awareness, new relationships, higher quality leads, and more sales. If
you’re looking to optimize an existing program, you may want to reevaluate your
audience profiles, buyer journey, channels, and tactics. Keep your goals,
customer concerns, and challenges in mind, deliver content that solves their
pain points, and keep nurturing those relationships—soon you’ll have a funnel
filled with qualified leads.
·
Problem: My sales team
says that I’m not delivering high-quality leads. There are several reasons why your sales team is struggling to
convert leads into customers. First, sales and marketing should be in agreement
about what constitutes a qualified lead, and when that lead should be handed
off, keeping in mind that 96% of people visiting your website aren’t ready to
buy yet. If sales contact them too soon, they may feel put off—buyers today do
not want to feel sold to. Lead quality is important, but it’s a major challenge
for marketers, so it may take some time to start bringing in qualified
leads.
·
Problem: I’m bringing
in leads, but don’t have a strategy around what to do next. Generating leads is just one part of lead generation. Once
you bring these leads in, you must utilize lead scoring and nurturing to
qualify said leads before sales can do their job. According to Forrester,
buyers might be anywhere from 75 to 90% of the way through their buying journey
before they contact the vendor after they’ve completed their own research.
Keep this in mind when determining what point in the funnel sales should step
in.
· Problem: I need to be able to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of my marketing team. To show the impact of your marketing team, you’ll need to plan out a strategy and determine what to measure, when to measure, and how to measure. Choose metrics that show how marketing is increasing effectiveness across the board, generating qualified leads, amplifying sales pipeline velocity, and improving sales and marketing alignment through leveraging lead generation software.
·
Problem: My lead generation
program isn’t working anymore. If
your lead generation strategy has yet to catch up to the age of the
self-directed buyer, it’s time to reevaluate. Using modern lead generation
software can help leads find you by increasing brand visibility and capturing
interest with informational content buyers can use during their own research
before they’re ready to purchase.
7 Successful Lead Generation Ideas
Here are some ideas to improve your
lead generation efforts to target the right prospects:
1) Lead Generation Forms – You can
create lead generation forms on your website that includes every necessary
field. Make sure that you ask for contact information such as: name, email
address, preferred contact method and other details.
2) Use Videos – You can create
promotional videos to promote your services and link them to your landing
pages. End the video with a form and ask for contact details.
3) Client
Recommendations – You can ask your current clients to recommend your business.
Send them emails asking for a recommendation and include a link to your website
form.
4) Social Media –
Post useful and valuable content on social media. Offer something of value such
as a free e-book or a PDF file in exchange for their contact details.
5) Surveys – You
can run surveys by giving several options to answer a few questions in exchange
for something free like a discount code or free e-book.
6) Guerilla Marketing - Coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, the term “guerilla marketing” is usually defined as getting
your message across using unconventional, untypical marketing tools with a
limited or non-existent budget.
While it previously included mostly
local (and barely legal) marketing methods such as graffiti, sticker bombing,
or flyer posting, current guerilla marketing practices include flash mobs,
viral campaigns, and various types of online marketing as well.
7) Seminars - Organizing free seminars
on useful insurance topics provides you with the chance to reach a large
audience of interested prospects at the same time. However, you have to present
a very relevant topic and keep your audience listening throughout the seminar
to get them interested in buying insurance from you.
Don’t make the whole presentation a sales pitch – you have to be ready to genuinely educate people on the topics which are important to them in the first place to be successful.
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