A/B testing and keeping records
Before we start, ask yourself this. What lead generation strategies are you using or have you used? Are they/ did they work? Are/did you keep track of your results and data?
No matter what form of lead generation you do, it is highly recommended that you do some form of A/B testing and keep track of your results. With that data you can make more educated decisions on where to spend your time and money.
Lead generation strategies and sales funnel
When planning out your sales funnel, there are 3 steps you need to consider and strategize for.
1. Top of the funnel: Awareness. Your goal here is to build brand awareness and get as many interested parties to your website as possible. There are many ways of going about generating traffic such as:
Content marketing: Content marketing is a broad term which covers everything to do with creating content (blogs, videos, posts, podcasts, etc.). Your main goal should be to engage with your target audience and gain recognition/awareness. Once you’ve gained traction with this method you can start using your various platforms to educate your leads/prospects about your products/services and build brand loyalty.
Social Media Marketing (SMM): Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. are all great platforms to grow and learn about your audience. Posting original content, engaging with your target audience (#hashtags, other peoples posts) and keeping tabs on your competition are all things you should be doing.
Social network ads are also quite good at narrowing down specific buyer profiles. If you’d like your ad to show to someone from age 35-65, in the USA, that likes to fish, you can set up your campaign to do so.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Also known as keyword marketing, is a form of paid marketing that focuses on a person’s search intent on engines like Google or Bing. An example of this may be bidding on the keywords “Seafood wholesaler”. When a person searches for that term, your ad will pop up and may result in them visiting your website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The non-paid version of SEM, SEO focuses on having your website rank organically for keywords on Google. There are many nuances behind ensuring your website performs well organically such as choosing/using the right keywords, ensuring your website is fast and making it mobile friendly.
2. Middle of the funnel: Consideration and Capture. Once your leads have learned about your brand, and visited your website, you need to capitalize on this by collecting their contact information, their reason of interest, and nurturing them further.
Email capture: There are many ways you can go about capturing someone contact information. Examples of this may be through a newsletter (sign up to get updates), a sign up incentive (sign up now to get 10% off) or a content wall (sign up to view more).
Landing pages: Landing pages can be used in a variety of different circumstances, but each different landing page typically has one specific goal. Driving the visitor to perform a single action. By creating multiple landing pages and using them based on how the visitor got your website, you can further reinforce your messaging to them.
Tailored content: An expansion off of content marketing, tailored content focuses on providing more relevant content to each of your buyer personas. By now you would have a decent sized audience that you can survey and learn more about. Find out what they want, and give it to them the way they want it.
Remarketing: Essentially this is showing ads (Google) to people who have already been to your site and are familiar with your brand. The point of remarketing is to keep your brand on their mind so that they are more likely to convert to customers.
Appointment Booking: This may be obvious, but you should make it as easy as possible for a lead to book a meeting with you. Whether it be a button, a form, or simply giving them your contact information, make sure that there is as little resistance as possible for your customer to reach you. There are many apps like Calendly that can help manage this process.
3. Bottom of the funnel: Conversion. Now that you have gathered their contact information and learned a bit more about the lead, its time to pass it over to your sales team to close the deal.
If you require help with feeding your sales funnel, our team of experts can help plan and execute the lead generation strategies mentioned above.
