If your business needs to attract new customers and build a sales pipeline, you might benefit from a marketing strategy that includes lead generation.
Business categories that typically focus their marketing on lead gen include home services, like roofers, window replacement specialists, electricians, HVAC, and plumbers; financial service firms, real estate agencies, and professional services including consulting and legal firms; and B2B, to name a few.
If you’re a local roofing company with a few crews, you’ll want to ensure you’re consistently building your sales pipeline to keep them busy and the revenue stream steady. Idle work crews lead to inefficiency and added pressure on the profitability of your business.
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Marketing for lead generation refers to the process of using marketing strategies and tactics to identify, attract, and capture potential customers (leads) by providing valuable content or offers in exchange for their contact information, ultimately aiming to nurture those leads through the sales funnel into paying customers.
Some of the common tactics included in marketing for lead gen include:
- Content Marketing: Creating informative blog posts, articles, videos, or ebooks to attract and engage potential customers.
- Landing Pages: Dedicated web pages designed to capture leads through forms, typically offering a downloadable source like a white paper or free trial.
- E-mail Marketing: Sending targeted e-mail campaigns with valuable content to nurture leads and guide those leads through the sales funnel.
- Social Media Marketing: Engaging with potential customers on social platforms to generate interest and capture leads.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing website content to rank higher in search engine results, attracting organic traffic.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: Placing advertising on search engines or social media to reach a targeted audience.
Marketing for lead generation focuses on targeted outreach that enables the business to focus on qualified prospects who are more likely to convert into paying customers with the goal of providing a consistent stream of potential leads for the sales and marketing team to engage with.
A simple example of a lead generation-focused marketing campaign might be a wealth management firm offering a free downloadable whitepaper on their website in exchange for a visitor’s email address. This contact information is, in turn, used to nurture the lead with further relevant content and offers, ultimately aiming to convert them into paying customers.
Key elements of this example campaign might be:
- Sharing valued and relevant content: The whitepaper acts as valuable content that solves a problem for the potential customer, making them more likely to provide their information. For the wealth management firm in our example, they might offer a paper on retirement investing in a rising interest rate environment, for example.
- Utilizing a landing page: A dedicated landing page is used to capture the lead information with a clear call-to-action (CTA) to download the whitepaper.
- Using e-mail marketing to engage the nurture sequence: Once the lead is captured, a series of targeted e-mails are sent to provide further information, answer potential questions, and ultimately guide them towards a purchase.
Other examples of lead generation marketing tactics include: Blog posts with lead capture forms, social media contests, webinars with registration, free trials, targeted advertising on search and social media platforms, and referral programs, among others.
Marketing for lead generation is very similar to inbound marketing in that inbound is a primary strategy used to attract and generate qualified leads by creating valuable content that draws potential customers in, rather than actively reaching out to them. Marketing for lead gen tends to encompass the broader concept of attracting potential customers while inbound marketing specifically refers to a strategy where you draw leads organically. While inbound marketing uses a “pull” strategy, marketing for lead generation uses both “pull” and “push” tactics.
According to data from various marketing studies, marketing for lead generation can be highly effective with many marketers reporting significant success in generating leads through strategies like content marketing, social media, SEO, and paid advertising with more than 70% stating these methods have helped them generate leads.
A customer relationship management (CRM) system would be extremely important for managing your leads at volume, as it provides a centralized platform to organize, track, and nurture potential customers throughout the sales funnel. This will ensure no leads slip through the cracks. A CRM system allows sales and marketing teams to efficiently convert leads into sales by providing a comprehensive view of each prospect’s interactions and status updates. Look for more information on the value and uses of CRM systems in an upcoming blog post.
In summary, marketing for lead generation can be valuable to your business because it actively attracts potential customers by providing relevant content and engaging them through various channels, ultimately creating a pool of qualified leads that can be converted into sales, resulting in increased revenue while minimizing wasted marketing efforts by targeting the right audience and focusing your marketing efforts.
If you’d like to learn more about lead generation through marketing give us a call or email us here at Sentinel Solutions.
We are experts in marketing and effectively incorporate these tactics into your marketing mix. We can help you build a compelling campaign that engages your audience and drives sales.
Give us a call if we can help at 603-352-5896 or e-mail to Advertising@SentinelDigitalSolutions.com. We’re here to help you succeed.
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