MarketingCraft
Sign Up to MarketingCraft Newsletter for Free!
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
With the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic still being felt worldwide, traditional lead generation strategies for your business aren’t enough. Social distancing and lockdown measures have put in-person events on the backburner, forcing some businesses to cut down on their marketing spend. However, leveraging digital channels for your lead generation strategies can help your brand navigate this new normal.
This is because consumer behaviour is shifting increasingly from offline to online, with the pace of digital adoption being accelerated due to the pandemic. Brands too must innovate and adapt their lead generation strategies accordingly, which requires shifting their marketing online to reach customers where they are now.
In order to tweak your lead generation strategies for the new normal, you need to leverage digital channels. Here are five lead generations strategies that can help you to do so.
Gated content are great lead generation magnets that you can offer on your website. From whitepapers, eBooks, invite-only webinars, weekly newsletters and customer case studies, it is important to create relevant and quality content for your audience. This helps entice the right, potential customers to download your content in exchange for their contact details.
While your content must be compelling, the details required to download your content should also be kept to a minimum. A person’s name, job title, and contact number or email is enough information for your brand to assess a quality lead. Furthermore, asking for too much information can turn people off.
Making gated content visible on your website is key so remember to provide clear calls-to-action on your most important web pages. For example, place a relevant customer case study ready for download on a product blog post.
With more than half the world now using social media, it is fast becoming a key marketing channel for lead generation, moving beyond awareness, engagement and gauging customer sentiment. In fact, marketers around the world find it the most effective tactic for improving lead generation quality.
Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn all now offer lead generation ads that make it easy for you to collect customer’s details when they click on your ad. It pulls user data from their social profiles to pre-fill field forms and even syncs customer data directly into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
However, you must give people a good reason to exchange their information. With Covid-19 changing customer priorities, creating relevant content that directly addresses their new concerns are a good way to use lead generation ads. Offering them downloadable content or webinars in exchange for their name, contact details and even job title can help you gauge their level of interest in your product or service.
You can also repurpose your gated content to promote them on your social media channels, which will help drive traffic back to your website.
Webinars, master classes and virtual networking events are now essential for your business to thrive during the pandemic. As many events are being cancelled, they form an important part of your brand’s lead generation strategy. You can use them to showcase products, position your brand, give recommendations and interact directly with customers.
It is also a cost-effective method as it requires less logistics than a physical one. The whole process can be digitalized – from promoting your event online, to capturing lead information, running the virtual event and reengaging them post-event. Platforms like Zoom, On24, Microsoft Teams and more have features that can make live sessions more engaging.
If attendees aren’t able to view it live, you can always send them the recorded session via email and gauge their level of interest by the open rates and click-through rates. This ensures that you can measure the effectiveness of your lead generation campaign better and increases the likelihood of engaging higher-quality leads.
Email marketing is another lead generation strategy that can help you reach customers during these unprecedented times. If you have built your customer email list, reengage them through email marketing to remind them of your brand.
Offering exclusive discounts or coupons to your email subscribers can be a good way to encourage them to buy from you. This can help you separate more loyal subscribers from one-time buyers. You can then offer other promotions or put those email subscribers that clicked through to be put into another nurture funnel.
B2B lead generation strategies in email marketing can also include offering coupons or referral fees to satisfied customers, which can help generate better quality leads for your business. It’s the modern-day word-of-mouth referral model.
However, be wary of not spamming your audience. Ensure you’re following these email marketing best practices to get the most out of your email lead generation strategy and drive higher conversions.
As 81% of people search online for a product or service and 74% of users purchasing online, search engine marketing is an effective digital marketing channel for brands. That is why investing in a good search engine marketing strategy for lead generation is important for your business.
With Google and YouTube being the top search engines in the world, put some of your marketing dollars into ads that showcase your products and services on Google Search, Display, Shopping ads and even YouTube ads. It can help you target particular audiences and and show your ads to people who are actively searching for products and services similar to yours, limit your ad spend and make it easier for you to measure ROI. This ensures you can track and optimise future campaigns for the most optimal results.
With Google Ads, you can even use remarketing to target users that have visited your site before. In this way, you can generate higher quality leads for your business with more targeted and personalized ads that will likely drive a higher conversion on your website.
However, do remember that a remarketing campaign can only be run if you have generated 1000 unique visitors to your website.
