In marketing, lead generation refers to the process of triggering considerable customer interest in order to get them to inquire about the products or services offered by a business. These interested sections of customers are referred to as leads.

What is a lead?

A lead is a person from your target audience who has in some way shown interest in your business’s products or services. In simpler words, it is a person who is more likely to convert with some amount of pursuing and nurturing.

For example: When you get a cold call from banks offering loans when you’re not looking for any, you end up annoyed instead of considering what they offer. On the other hand, if you were looking to buy a house and had been probing possible loan options, the call would have been a lot more welcome. The same principle applies in the digital world.

Why do you need lead generation?

Lead generation is the process of warming up potential customers for your business and converting them into leads. Using this technique, you make efforts that generate an organic interest within your target segment, so it is the prospect that is most likely to come to the business.

In simpler words, lead generation is a fundamental point in a prospect’s journey to becoming a customer of your business. Here’s a flowchart that explains the lead generation process:

 

 

How do you create a successful lead generation campaign?

If you want your website traffic to turn into leads, you’ll need to define their conversion path. Be it signing up for a newsletter, downloading an ebook or whitepaper, registering for a seminar, subscribing to a blog, etc. — you need to provide them with the right set of elements to guide them towards conversion.

Here’s taking a closer look at the pillars of a lead generation campaign:

 

1. Call-to-action

A call-to-action (CTA) is a line of text or button that can be placed anywhere on your website or blog to link the visitors to your landing page. Here are a few things to keep in mind while crafting a call-to-action:

• It should clearly state what you’re offering
• Always include a verb to nudge visitor action (eg. ‘Download’, ‘Sign up’, etc.)
• Place it above the fold so that people don’t have to scroll down to see it
• Choose a contrasting color scheme that makes it stand out on your page to make it stand out
• Use the same (or at least similar) copy for the offer you’re making on the landing page to avoid confusion

The CTA must be placed across all your website pages — especially on the home and blog page, as they receive the most amount of inbound traffic.

And always remember to A/B test your CTAs to understand which one brings the highest clickthrough rates possible. If you want to make use of multiple CTAs on your website, you can make use of a tool such as SalesPanda. It offers pre-built templates with customized CTAs that can be edited and used on every page of your website.

 

2. Landing page

A landing page is a custom-designed web page for capturing leads by elaborating on the marketing message you are promoting.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind while creating a landing page:

• The headline should clearly state the offer being made
• Include visuals to make your offer seem appealing
• Use a clear and concise copy
• List down the benefits of the offer you’re making
• Implement a form above the fold

Read more about the Anatomy of Yroc’s Optimal Landing Page

Here’s an infographic on what a landing page should ideally look like:

 

 

3. Form

A converting landing page should always include a form that will capture leads in lieu of the content being shared. But since not everyone likes spending time filling a form, it is a good idea to analyze your audience’s online behavior beforehand.

Here are a few things that will determine the length of your form:

• The offer’s role in the buying cycle — For example, if you just want them to subscribe to your blog, asking for their name and email address will suffice. But if you’re offering them a free ebook on your industry, you could ask for more details like company, position, etc.
• Leads generated per day — If your website is getting a lot of traffic and your sales team has way too many leads to handle, add more fields to your forms so that your reps can qualify them better.

 

4. Lead magnets

A lead magnet is an extra incentive that you offer to a website visitor in lieu of their contact information. The goal of a lead magnet is basically to maximize the number of targeted leads you are getting for the offer. The one thumb rule to use for an effective lead magnet is that it should be extremely specific — it should be consumed by the visitor within 5 minutes along with a tremendous value proposition.

Here are 9 types of lead magnets that you can use on your website:

1. Guides/Reports
2. Cheatsheets/Handouts
3. Toolkit/ Resource List
4. Video training
5. Downloads/FREE trials
6. Discounts/FREE shipping
7. Quiz/Surveys
8. Assessments/Tests
9. Sales Material

And here are a few ways you can implement them:

E-mail opt-ins: You can ask your website visitors to simply opt-in to your e-mail list to receive incentives directly to their inbox.

Social media follows or shares: You can also ask your visitors to follow you on social channels to get access to exclusive incentives you are offering. Alternatively, you can use strategies such as asking them to share a pre-typed update through their profiles to get access to the link.

Exit-intent pop-ups: You can ask your visitors to subscribe for your newsletters, follow you on social media, conduct a survey, take feedback and more to avail the incentive right before they exit your website using tools.

 

5. Lead scoring system

Lead scoring is the process of ranking prospects against a scale that represents their perceived value to the business. This score is used to determine the order or priority the leads will be engaged on.

Here are a few things to take into account while creating a robust lead scoring system:

• Identify the criteria a lead must pass to become your customer
• Recognize your target market and their qualities
• Define your ideal lead/perfect customer
• Analyze online customer/lead behavior
• Distribute points for each criteria that adds up to an ideal customer
• A/B test your system and tweak it frequently depending on the results it generates

 

6. Appreciation page

Once you have generated leads from your landing page, you will need to redirect these leads to another page. Instead of showing them the same landing page or redirecting them to a page that doesn’t interest them, use a thank you page instead.

Here’s what a thank you page must include:

• Reiteration of the offer made
• Ability to share the offer in their circles via email or social media
• Recommend another offer that constitutes the next stage of your buying cycle
• Craft a personalized copy — use the lead’s name on the thank you page to make the message more personalized

 

7. Confirmation e-mail

Even though the thank you page serves as a confirmation of the offer availed by the visitor, sending a confirmation e-mail soon after gives your leads a point of reference for future use.
Here’s what an ideal confirmation e-mail should include:

• Personalized copy to make the lead feel they’re interacting with another person and not a business
• Reiteration of the offer made by you (availed by them) or a link to the thank you page that states the same
• The next set of steps that the lead should take — sharing the offer, downloading an eBook or reading a blog, etc. — depending on the offer made
• What they should be expecting from your business moving forward
• Easy social sharing of the offer

Best of luck in your lead generation campaign, and don’t forget any good lead generation campaign is followed up with a lead nurturing campaign. I promise you can do this! But if it seems too overwhelming, feel free to reach out to one of our account managers and we can discuss putting a lead generation campaign in place for your business or agency.