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Beginner’s Guide to Lead Generation Process

Lead generation process

It is an obvious fact that in order to carry on its primary operations of rendering services or sales, a business has to induce people with their portfolio. For the lead generation process, some businesses aggressively tilt to cold calling which actually does little more harm than good by disturbing people in their “me” time.

So, the concept of acquiring and then maintaining a lead becomes of utmost importance for every business.

A lead is basically the person who has shown interest in your business.

A lead would surely react in a totally different fashion to your call than a normal stranger as they have already opened up a conversation with your organization. The information collected through the surveys also forms a basis for personalizing communication for the existing queries.

Let us first understand what is Lead Generation Process and then we will be diving deep into the world of leads-

What is Lead Generation Process?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjHMvAeFI1M

The concept of lead generation can be basically explained as inducing and then converting those people into someone who has gathered interest in your company.

The lead generation process is somewhat also about better resonation, as you have to warm up the potential customer and induce them into eventually buying.

You can’t do this if your offer is not resonating good enough. Various examples of the lead generation process can be quoted as blog posts, job applications, etc.

Top 3 strategies of lead generation are Email Marketing (78%), Event Marketing (73%) and Content Marketing (67%)

Need for Lead Generation

The need for the Lead Generation process surely can’t be ignored as it is the building path for the business operations.

In the absence of proficient lead generation, the company won’t be able to facilitate its basic operations and would eventually fail and will not be able to survive in the market.

In order to compete with the other organizations, the company has to always work on the idea of capturing a bigger client base and this surely can’t be done without the proper implementation of the lead generation process.

The transition to a customer from a stranger is more natural when a stranger himself initiates a relationship with the company.

The lead generation process is categorized under the Inbound marketing methodology. Thus before delving into the lead generation process, you should know what is Inbound Marketing.

After you have attached the audience and are ready to convert them into customers, the concept of lead generation process actually starts. An individual’s journey of becoming a customer from a stranger can be easily portrayed through lead generation process flow chart.

Lead Generation Marketing

There are different channels through which you can drive traffic towards your landing page and generate the leads. You must be confused about which channel to use? Worry not, we are providing you with the best channels through which you can generate the best leads for your businesses. Let us learn about them deeply;

  1. Content

Content is no doubt the most important factor in deciding the leads on your page. The content of your website will play a major role in attracting traffic towards your page and generating leads.

Your content must provide your users with the information that they want and satisfy their expectations. The better lead will be generated only if you are able to influence your users in a better manner. They will only click on call-to-action if they are influenced by your content.

  1. Ads

Marketers create ads mainly because they want to lead users to take any action. There is no need to spend money on the ads if they are not able to influence users to take actions. Make sure that your ad correctly matches with what your landing page says and what you offer.

Make your ads clear in what they speak and you will see better lead generation.

  1. E-mail

Yes, e-mail is one of the most efficient channels to drive traffic and generate leads. E-mail Marketing can be best used to target those users who are already aware of your brand and your products. Those who have subscribed to your list are easier to be converted into a customer.

  1. Social Media

While talking about lead generation you can never miss out the efficiency of social media. Social media can help you a lot in driving traffic and getting better conversions. It is much easier to guide your users to take action through social media.

If you are into digital marketing then you must be aware of the essence of social media marketing and how effective it is. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms to promote your business.

  1. Product trials

Offering product trials is one of the most effective ways to promote your business. Your users will get to know about your product in the best way if they will use it hence it won’t be wrong to say that you must offer a trial of your product if you are looking for best lead generation.

So these were a few of the best channels to generate leads. Use these channels and drive traffic to your website and entice them to take action.

Following are the main steps of lead generation process flow chart that outline the converting of a stranger to a delighted customer –

Lead Generation Process Flow Chart

Lead generation process
Lead generation process

Attract — The process mainly starts with the step of targeting the strangers and inducing them in such a fashion that they actually become visitors of your website and business.

Convert — The next step is converting the Visitors into actual leads through various channels like forms, landing pages, and even Calls-to-Action.

Close — This step involves the procedure of inducing the leads to eventually purchase by attracting them with the portfolio

Delight — You have to try and make sure that every customer turns into a delighted customer religiously.

These are some of the steps involved in a successful online lead generation process.

It becomes important to walk through the lead generation process. The following steps do justice to the concept of the lead generation process:

Steps Involved in Online Lead Generation Process

Lead generation process
Lead generation framework

To complete the lead generation framework given in the image above, different steps you need to follow by using Inbound tactics are-

Discover — At the first place, the visitor discovers your business by one of your marketing channels so you need to gain a good online appearance.

Calls-to-Action — This step basically involves the process of a visitor clicking on an image or message that induces them to do certain sort of action.

Landing Page — The CTA page takes the visitor to a landing page that is basically designed and optimized in a fashion to gather the information about the lead in exchange for an offer.

Offer — It is basically anything that is being offered on the landing page be it a course, template. It must have enough value that the visitors must find worthy of getting in return of their personal information.

Form — The form on the landing page collected information of the visitors through the aid of various fields. Forms though can be technically embedded anywhere on the site are hosted on the landing pages. This facilitated the lead generation process as when the visitor fills in the information and submits it you have a new lead ready at your disposal.

To facilitate the Lead Generation Marketing, you can inculcate the habit of using your promotional channels proficiently. You may choose the channels like a blog, social media, email and content to increase traffic on the landing page.

Using these ways you can easily facilitate the traffic on the landing page which would automatically shift more traffic to the main site and the number of offers provided and leads generated would surely increase. By realizing that how important the lead generation process actually is, the need to generate leads increases many fold. The idea of buying leads also strikes the head of many.

Buying leads in Online Lead Generation Process

Buying leads surely take less time and are easier as compared to the organic generation.

Instead of investing resources in lead generation, one can use them to buy leads but the main drawback that you won’t even know the leads should be sufficient to discourage this idea.

All the pitching that you do will actually be unwanted as they have no interest in your portfolio at the first place. This could even lead to messages being categorized as Spam. Your deliverability of emails and even the IP reputation would be ruined if you get blacklisted due to more spams.

Thus, one must always inculcate the idea of generating leads organically.

Qualifying Leads

Lead generation process
Lead nurturing

How to qualify leads is the main question that arises next in the online lead generation process.

The generation of sales leads primarily is done on the basis of the information collected. The fact that the information could come in the way of job seeker filling application, information in return of coupons should always be kept in context.

Taking the aid of these channels you may also choose to take the ownership of qualifying someone as a lead.

Some of the instances that can be used to quote this statement have been briefly discussed below:

Different Examples to Understand Qualifying Leads

Job Application — A person filling out the job application is obviously ready to shell out more information due to the fact that his condition is such. The complete filling out of the application clearly highlights the level of interest that person has in the job.

Coupon — Unlike job applications, you have a minimal idea about the person who has come across the coupon you are offering. Given the fact that they find the coupon valuable they may be willing to share some of the information like mailing address which can portray that whether the person is actually interested in the company or not.

This scenario is justifying the statement that the lead generation differs from person to person and obviously company to company.

You need to collect sufficient information to gauge whether the person actually has a real interest in your company or not. The question of how much information is sufficient might pop up the mind of some and it’s completely obvious.

Lead Scoring

Lead generation process
Lead scoring

The points of collecting information in the lead generation process can help you to qualify leads quantitatively which are also known as Lead Scoring.

Using this concept, you can rate the lead on the basis of their interest and the readiness to buy the product. For instance, you may rate a lead on the basis of their response to your social media appearance and updates.

The more the score is the more are the chances of the lead becoming a customer. This is known as Sales-Qualified lead in the lead generation process. It facilitates the convention of a lead to a great extent.

Lead Generation Trends outline that 74% of the companies didn’t know the visitors, leads and were not able to exceed revenue goals. It was found and outlined that the companies following a formal system to organize and store leads were mostly the successful ones.

Lead Generation Strategies online contain many campaigns, strategies, and tactics depending on the platform chosen for the lead generation process. Some of the few famous types of social media are also used for facilitating the lead generation process are:

(i) Facebook

(ii) Instagram

(iii) Twitter

(iv) LinkedIn

(v) PPC Lead Generation

(vi) B2B Lead Generation

Some of the Tips for Lead Generation process have been enlisted below that speak for themselves;

Tips for Online Lead Generation Process

(i) You should always use the right lead generation tools

(ii) Customers love when they get offers at almost every stage of the cycle you indulge in with them.

(iii) You should always be consistent with your performances.

(iv) Use social media proficiently to facilitate the lead generation process.

(v) To facilitate the traffic using lead generation process, it is always advised to link your CTA to an engaging landing page.

Final Words

So this was all about Lead generation process that highlighted its importance too.

You should always be striving to learn about the customers and the visitors of your business. You should inculcate the habit of renovating the CTAs, offers, landing pages, and even forms to make them engaging.

To conclude the fact that more your tweak and play around the more will be the lead generation facilitated should always be kept in context.

Joining Inbound Marketing Certification Course will enable you learn and master the lead generation process like a pro.

Avatar of satyendra tewari
Satyendra Tewari
A Certified Corporate trainer involved in Leadership and Life Skills coaching with a holistic 3Q approach. As an E-business Influencer and Digital Media Trailblazer, my forte includes Business leadership, Branding, Social Media and Digital Marketing, Online Advertising, Global Marketing Strategy and Refining of Marketing Processes.

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