The generation of leads is not a subject to take lightly. This is even an essential point for the development of a business and for the regular growth of its income. Why ? Because it needs leads, attract prospects and then transform them into customers. We invite you here to better understand what the generation of leads in inbound marketing, and to approach some effective techniques.
Lead and generation of leads: what is it?
Lead
First of all, let’s start by defining what a lead is. A lead is a prospect (professional or individual), a contact that has a certain interest in the product/service of a company. He is therefore not yet a customer, but he may become it.
There are two main types of leads:
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) are contacts generated after a marketing action, showing interest in the company (downloading a white paper, subscription to the blog, etc.) and corresponding to the targeted public. We must therefore keep the link with this prospect and feed his interest in the company.
- The Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) are at a higher stage of the purchasing process, because they represent real sales potential. They are ripe, ready for purchase, and are likely to become customers.
Generation of leads
This term used in marketing means attracting prospects, to arouse their interest towards a product or service, then naturally increase this interest, to nourish it in order to convert these prospects into customers. It is therefore an integral part of inbound marketing by its organic approach.
How is the generation of leads so important?
The clientele already acquired is not enough. A company needs to constantly generate prospects if it wants to maintain sales, continue to develop and increase its income.
The generation of leads facilitates the work of sales teams. Indeed, a person who shows interest in a product/service will naturally be more inclined to be approached then for a purchase. On the other hand, if this person shows no interest and that a company tries to sell him something, it will seem more intrusive, and it will give him the impression of being encouraged, even forced, to buy when she does not wish. This will have a negative impact on brand image.
The generation of leads allows you to focus only on a targeted and voluntary audience, while offering solutions that meet the needs and problems of this same audience. It also makes it possible to increase the notoriety of a company in a positive way, to strengthen public confidence and to increase conversions of prospects to customers. And who says quality prospects, often says quality customers.
Some examples of techniques to generate leads
Missing on SEO
To attract visitors to your site, you must not only be able to offer interesting and enriching content, but also make these contents are well-placed on search engines. This implies the use of adequate keywords, corresponding to your target audience, integrated into the right places and naturally.
Another important point: when a person performs online research on a product/service that you sell, they must be able to find you easily. Thus, SEO is essential to generate a maximum of qualified leads.
Use social networks
In addition to search engines, social networks are also extremely powerful channels to generate leads. Do not hesitate to use it to directly broadcast your content at the targeted audience, to strengthen your brand image, to put your products/services forward, to exchange with your audience and thus collect precious information on its expectations.
Attract then direct: quality content and landing page
Quality content is a great way to attract visitors, and then direct them to a landing page. As a reminder, the landing page, or landing page, is an independent page to which the visitor is sent after clicking on a particular link or on a Call-to-Action button. The optimization of this page is very important because it will strongly influence the conversion of the visitor to qualified prospect, or even in customer.
But let’s go back to our content. This must provide useful information. Once visitors have read, to encourage them to take action and leave their contact details, you can offer something free in exchange, for example access to exclusive content, an invitation for an event, a Online guide, etc. By clicking, they will land on the landing page and can then enter their information in order to benefit from your free proposal.
Personalized emails
Emailing, and especially the creation of personalized emails, is a powerful tool for generating leads, especially with people already knowing your products/services.
Start by segment your leads according to their behavior, needs and expectations and then send the right message to the right person. Remember to work the object like the body of the email, to contact yourself directly in contact rather than an impersonal “Sir” or “Madam“. Finally, do not hesitate to integrate clearly visible and catchy CTAs into your message in order to attract the reader’s attention and leave him the possibility of acting by clicking if he wishes.
