Are You Generating Enough Leads?
Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you build it, they will come?” As great as it would be if that were the case for marketing your business, it is far from the truth. Businesses will get some traffic organically to start, but not the kind that you need to boost your business into a successful enterprise.
What are leads exactly? They are opportunities to reach consumers and make sales of your business’ products and services. There are many ways to generate leads, but here are some of the more common:
- Pay-Per-Click lead generation
- Buying leads through Google and others
- Mining leads from public data
- Purchasing mailing lists
- Organic leads
These are just some examples of lead generation, but provide a good sample from which digital marketing is most effective at converting.
Converting leads into sales is the responsibility of your sales team, but getting the potential customers in the door is up to your marketing team.
Below, we will take a closer look at two of the methods of lead generation listed above.
Pay-Per-Click Lead Generation
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is also called Cost-Per-Click (CPC) in some circles. The idea behind it is simple – platforms with broad viewership place your ads into a pool that generates based on people’s browsing habits.
The cost for the ad is paid by the company when a consumer actually clicks on the ad, providing direct connection to the company’s landing page or website. This is different from traditional advertising in that the page provides the service, and payment is only based upon the number of clicks you get from the source.
PPC is most often found on websites that host search engines, like Google or Yahoo, as well as on multipurpose social media platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
PPC has become one of the most effective sources of lead generation in recent years thanks to changes in how SEO is approached by Google and Facebook. But it has been around for longer in a slightly less-effective form.
The major benefit of PPC is that it is fairly easy to set up, and has a low cost entry point. You will want an effective marketing team to develop what appears for your ad, but rather than pay a flat monthly fee, you only pay for clicks. You will also want to either have a very user-friendly landing page for mobile users, or have your entire website optimized for mobile viewing.
The other benefit of PPC is that it is easy to track the source of leads as well as the percentage of effective leads because of the way click-throughs are tracked.
On the other hand, PPC is not an effective tool to be used in isolation. It is better as part of a combined marketing campaign, and can be made more cost-effective if multiple sources lead to that same landing page you create for this purpose.
Mining Leads From Public Data
This can be a more labor-intensive form of lead generation, but ethically mining data from public sources is a very effective marketing approach.
The primary way leads are mined is by using tools online that compile or provide targeted search parameters to look through websites like LinkedIn, Academic listings, and other publicly available information.
This can be handled by programs, told to effectively search for terms like “Marketing Director” or “Sales Manager” online. Finding the data is just the beginning though.
Once you have the data you are looking for, you need to do some sample research to make sure that your program is finding effective results. You don’t want to bombard the completely wrong people with something that isn’t relevant to them. It could cost you a related sale if you don’t get to the right people!
You will also need an effective marketing team to communicate what your expectations are in reaching out to these potential customers. Using a form email is a standard practice, but it is also important to be practical and think ahead before simply sending a lengthy email.
This email should provide links to your landing page or website, a personal contact, a phone number, and the personal contact at your company’s email address and phone number as well.
Data mining is effective if targeted through the sources mentioned here, as well as any publicly available affiliation websites that list members and their job titles.
It is important to remember, however, that there are also many less ethical sources for obtaining data on the Internet, and you don’t want your business associated with those for legal as well as reputational reasons.
Is Your Lead Generation Effective?
Probably! But, it can always be more effective. The better question is, “How often do I update my lead generating plans?”
In order to remain effective, lead generation has to stay on top of trends. Millions of people change and update their information every day. Getting a list of contact information that went out of date a year ago could be a drastic waste of time and energy by your company.
Ideally, you should have a marketing team or hire a marketing agency to manage your lead generation in order to maintain the most effectiveness. Missing even a couple of weeks or months of changes to the digital marketing world online can cause your brand to lose effectiveness and miss out on important sales opportunities.
Get moving on those lead generation tools, and don’t forget to stay up to date with them!
PixelPop Marketing offers a wide variety of full-service digital marketing solutions, as well as custom packages for specific business needs. In order to find out more, schedule a consultation; we look forward to hearing from you!
