A lead refers to a person or business entity that is presently not a client but has the potential to become one in the future. It is anyone who is interested in the product or service your company provides or has taken some sort of action regarding it.
Lead generation is therefore the process of attracting strangers and prospects and subsequently converting them into people interested in the product or service of your company.
Lead generation should be considered a long-term and continuous process. Therefore, in generating leads for your business, some effective strategies and points to consider include;
- Define Target Audience: This is the first step to take before deciding which lead generation strategies to employ. It is important to identify and clearly define who your target audience is as this will guide you into selecting lead generation strategies that will be most effective for that audience.
- Personalised Email Marketing: This is one of the most popular strategies used in lead generation. By using emails or email newsletters to promote products and services, leads are generated. Consistent use of this strategy fosters a good relationship with potential clients. Email marketing is effectively done using a customer relationship management tool (CRM).
- Social Media: Social has increasingly gained relevance over the years especially as more people are becoming more tech savvy. Therefore, it is important to create a brand presence on various social media platforms. By understanding the sort of product or service you have, you utilize the platform that can give you the best results. You may not use every available social media platform but you must make use of few that are the ideal marketing channel for what you offer.
- High Value Content: Good content always attracts. Hence, it is important that you put out engaging contents that are very rich in value. By so doing, people are more inclined to check out what exactly your offers look like. By using content like case studies, webinars, ebooks, podcasts, pictures, infographics and blog posts, etc, leads can be generated online.
- Paid Ads: By engaging in paid advertisements, you can effectively generate leads. Paid adverts give your content a wider reach. This technically means that more people will come across what you offer and have their interests picked.
- Retargeting: If someone visits your site at some point in time, you can retarget ads such that it pops up on the person’s timeline a little more frequently. This increases awareness of the product or service and has a high chance to propel one into taking action.
- Referral: This is a very effective way of generating leads. When someone is satisfied with your offer, there is a great likelihood that they will tell another about that offer. This way, more people are aware of the offer and will likely give it a shot to experience the service or use the product and eventually draw their own conclusions.
Ultimately, lead generation is very important in any business. Therefore, it is important to have a number of strategies that will attract the right people to the product you sell or the services you offer.
