Cost-effective Lead Generation Digital Marketing Strategy for 2021

An effective lead generation strategy is the backbone of a successful marketing firms Los Angeles. Before we move any further, let’s understand what a lead is. A lead is any person who indicates interest in your products or services.

A business contacts a lead after the person performs a desirable activity such as submitting personal information for an offer, subscription, or trial. This method is less intrusive than cold calling.

Cold calling involves making unsolicited calls in an attempt to market goods or services. Many people consider this another kind of spam. Contacting people after they express an interest in your products or services is far less intrusive.

When making a cold call, you have limited information about the person. When contacting a lead, on the other hand, you have their important personal info (such as their DOB and hobbies) collected through different methods, and you can customize your opening communication to address their pain points.

Converting a lead into a customer involves less effort than convincing a person who may or may not be interested in your offerings.

Types of Leads

Marketing Qualified Leads

A marketing qualified lead or MQL is someone who has engaged with your marketing efforts but is not ready to receive a call. Any person who has filled out the form on your landing page for an offer can qualify as an MQL.

Product Qualified Leads

A product-qualified lead is a leader who has used your product and taken a desirable action that indicates interest in becoming a paying customer. Let us try to understand the concept of PQLs through an example.

A company offers a (free) trial version of a product. Customers have the option to upgrade. If a user contacts the sales team after using the free version to enquire about the advanced features available upon payment, they can be called a product-qualified lead.

PQLs are more likely to become paying customers than other types of leads, as they have experienced real and meaningful value using your product.

Service Qualified Leads

A service qualified lead or SQL is any person who indicates interest in becoming a paying customer during interactions with the service team. A service qualified lead can be any person who expresses interest in upgrading their product subscription.

Sales Qualified Leads

A sales qualified lead is any person who takes the desired action such as filling the inquiry form to enquire about the product/service they are interested in that indicates their interest in becoming a paid customer.

Lead Generation: An Overview

Put simply, lead generation involves undertaking efforts to find and contact people who have indicated interest in your products/services, and are likely to become your paying customers immediately or in the near future. Leads may come through different mediums, such as referrals, telephone calls, and digitally through the Internet.

Online Lead Generation

Lead generation often utilizes digital channels. These are some of the most effective online lead generation channels:

Social Media

With almost three billion users, social media is a goldmine of leads. If you want to use social media for lead generation, you need to develop an effective social media marketing plan. Here are some effective tactics to get more leads on social media:

• Create Compelling, Clickable, and Shareable Content: Create content that answers common questions that your target audience has. Use images to grab attention.
• Optimize Your Profile: Create easy-to-use call-to-action buttons. Use the right CTA buttons. If, for instance, you want to get more subscribers, add a Sign-Up button. Make sure your contact details are accurate and up to date. Remember to add a link to your bio.
• Offer Incentives: Give your target audience a reason to share their info with you. Hold contests on different social media platforms. Make sharing personal information mandatory for anyone who wants to participate. Offer discount codes or reward points in exchange for a newsletter sign-up. Use gated content such as whitepapers.
• Make Sure Your Landing Pages Are User Friendly: The last thing you want is to disappoint a person who clicks on your link with a dull landing page. Landing pages must be accurate and detailed. Use simple forms.
• Use Social Lead Ads: Want to boost your lead generation efforts? Use social lead ads such as Facebook lead ads, LinkedIn Gen Forms, and YouTube TrueView for action ads.

Content

An effective content marketing strategy can boost lead generation. Create content your target audience is interested in. If the content is not your area of expertise, rope in a digital marketing agency to create an effective content strategy.

Make sure your content is easy to find and visible on the Internet. Once you identify customer personas, you will gain a better understanding of your audience – their aspirations, motivations, and pain points. Create content that addresses your audience’s pain points.

Create different types of content such as whitepapers, blog posts, infographics, podcasts, and videos. Use analytical tools to track the performance of your content. This will help you understand which type of content resonates with your target audience.

Creating impactful content that boosts engagement is one of the most effective ways to drive visitors to your landing page. Remember to include CTAs in your content.

Email

Email is the most effective channel for lead generation. Email marketing has come a long way. Advanced marketing automation tools connect with your Customer Relationship Management database, allowing you to send automated, highly targeted emails to your leads.

You can personalize emails by including the lead’s name in the subject line or adding their current business name. These tools can capture vast amounts of data and have several built-in features designed to help users use behavioral triggers to target leads more effectively.

Online Advertising

Create impactful and relevant ads that appeal to your audience, motivating them to take a desirable action. Make sure the same offer is mentioned on the landing page and ad. Offer lead magnets (freebies) that address your audience’s pain points.

There are three main pricing models that you can use to buy ads and generate leads:

• Cost Per Thousand: CPM or cost per mile utilizes pricing models that charge advertisers based on the number of times their ads are viewed. A major drawback of the CPM model is that advertisers have to pay even if people do not click on their ads.
• CPC: In this model, advertisers pay only when a person clicks on their ads.
• Cost Per Acquisition: In the cost per acquisition model, the advertiser is charged by the lead. Marketers who want to pay only if the lead takes a specific action/(s) can opt for CPL (cost per lead) advertising or CPA advertising. In the CPL advertising model, the advertiser pays only for interested leads, whereas with CPA, advertisers pay for completed sales.

Lead Generation Process

• A visitor discovers your business through a marketing channel (can be your website, blog, or social media page).
• The person clicks on your CTA (can be an image, button, or message that encourages website visitors to take a favorable action).
• The visitor is directed to a landing page designed to capture lead information. Use lead magnets such as offers or discount codes to give your visitors a reason to share their personal information.
• Once on the landing page, the lead fills out the form. They provide personal details in return for the offer.

Reasons Why Every Business Needs a Lead Generation Strategy

Lead Generation is Cost-effective

Lead generation is more cost-effective than many types of advertisements. A single lead can cost you between $5 and $500. The more difficult it is to acquire a lead, the higher its price.

Helps Build Online Brand Awareness

Lead generation involves using content and other tools to interact with prospects. Lead generation teams undertake various efforts to educate leads about their companies’ products and services.

They interact with leads at every stage of the sales funnel to build trust and credibility. A reputable and credible business wields more word-of-mouth marketing power.

Target Desired Customers

Lead generation allows you to target only those people who have shown interest in your offerings. When you narrow your target market, you can save a ton of money on marketing, and still increase profits.

Lead generation allows you to collect detailed information about leads that you can use to tailor your value proposition. Also, targeting people who have shown interest in your offerings instead of people who you know very little about makes perfect sense.

Increased Sales and Profits

More than 55 percent of B2B marketers spend over 50 percent of their marketing budget on lead generation. Leads are more likely to convert into paying customers, as they have already expressed interest in your offerings. An effective lead generation strategy can boost your sales and profits.

Why You Should Generate Organic Leads Instead of Buying Them

When it comes to lead generation, there is no shortcut to success. Many marketers buy leads from third parties. Though buying leads, instead of organically generating them is easier and involves less effort, you need to realize that leads that you purchase do not know anything about your business.

They have agreed to receive notifications by some other site. Any messages that you send them will be unwanted messages. This can be considered intrusive. Many leads would mark your messages as spam. If your email provider receives a barrage of complaints against you, you run the risk of going on a blacklist. This can dent your brand’s reputation.

Online Lead Generation Tips

Place Your CTAs Strategically

Having an impactful CTA is as important as placing it strategically. Do not use more than one CTA per page. Make sure your CTAs are noticeable (should be placed above the fold and in plain sight). The best CTA buttons are logically placed and utilize contrasting colors. They do not compete with other elements.

Make sure your CTA is not hidden at the end of long-form content, as this will reduce the number of views your offer receives.

Ensure Your Offer Pages Do Not Have Navigation

If your prospects are directed to some other page after landing on your offer page, your lead generation efforts will go down the drain.

To maximize conversions, make sure every landing page directs visitors to the single offer presented on it. When you remove navigation menus and sidebar options, you give your visitors two options – convert or leave.

Leverage Video Content

There are more benefits of video content than many marketers realize. Video is the most engaging type of content. Viewers retain 95 percent of a message communicated in a video. Comparatively, the human brain can retain just 10 percent of the message communicated through text.

Videos can be consumed on the go. Use accurate and impactful video descriptions, thumbnails, and headings. Remember to add CTAs to your videos. When creating videos, your focus should be on telling engaging stories, not driving sales. Create a hook that gives your viewers a quick preview of what’s in store for them.

Keep Your Website Clutter-free

Your website is one of the first things many leads will notice about your business. A clutter-free website will go a long way in creating a positive first impression. To streamline your website’s UX, eliminate unnecessary elements. Limit the number of colors and fonts used.

Use drop-down menus to help your visitors easily find what they are looking for. Utilize white space to accentuate the main elements and features that deserve the attention of your visitors. The text must be short and to the point. Use a responsive design that automatically adjusts your website content for different-sized screens and viewpoints.

Create Impactful Landing Pages

Consider creating high-converting landing pages a priority. Use clean, organized, and simple designs for your landing pages. Landing pages must not have any distractions. Use natural and obvious navigation. Use trust signals such as trust badges and testimonials. Keep your forms short and simple.

Autus Digital is a reputable digital marketing agency in San Jose; our team comprises digital marketing experts with years of experience in creating effective digital marketing strategies that fuel business growth.