In a sales context, a Lead refers to contact with a potential customer, also known as Prospect which we have discusses in Sales Funnel.). Lead Generation is the process of customer`s interest in our products and services. Search engine optimization (SEO) or positive experience of others can help prospects to know us.
How to Convert Prospects into leads? (How to Generate Leads?)
Lead Generation strategies consist of:
- Outbound Lead Generation
- Inbound Lead Generation
- Referral Lead Generation
Outbound Lead Generation
In this strategy, we follow customer’s needs and it is you not your prospect who chooses the type and timing of the interaction which often happens without their permission. For example, having access to some user’s emails and sending emails to them is one of the common ways. Outbound lead generation is older than other strategies. However, it still has its own effectiveness. Outbound still has its own effectiveness if we have comprehensive recognition of all factors like audience`s motivations and demands. There are some practical examples of outbound marketing:
ATL, BTL and TTL
Advertising helps us to reach a large number of audiences in a short time and make a decision that when, where and how to send the message to them. It should be noted that the content which we present must be the same as the advertisement. For more efficiency, we need constancy in advertising, although it would have a high cost. Here are 3 kinds of advertising:
Above the Line (ATL) consist of advertising that has a large scale and has a wide reach. This advertising method uses mediums such as television, billboard, radio and newspaper in order to send their brand`s message to the customers. Moreover, the communication is not directed towards a specific group and mediums convey the message to everyone who has access to them. However, the negative point is that costs are higher than efficiency.
BTL (Below the Line) activities are more focused and try to connect to a specific group of customers directly. BTL concentration is on personal demands and priorities. Furthermore, BTL helps us in assessing sales and customer`s feedback. BTL uses sampling and direct marketing. This kind of advertising is for products that customer needs to see them closely. For example, Cold Emailing is one of the BTL methods. Cold emailing is sending emails to customers that we didn’t have any communication before with them. However, It’s different from spams. Cold email advantages include: new target, increasing ROI and accessing to chiefs managers who have no presence in web space. There are some disadvantages such as time-consuming and repetition for efficiency.
TTL Marketing stands for ‘Through the Line Marketing‘. TTL advertising use of both BTL and ATL marketing strategies. The BTL approach is to engage customers from all aspects. For example, a customer can watch an advertisement on TV meanwhile faced a company advertisement in a shopping mall for his new car.
The Three above strategies help us to understand the process of converting prospects to leads.
Inbound Lead Generation
Inbound marketing is the on the opposite side of outbound. Instead of reaching out to prospects, you lay out a trail of information and content that your prospects can follow in towards your company. It is the prospect who chooses the type and timing of the interaction. However, one of the main challenges for us is to convince customers to give us their personal information as a volunteer. Inbound is a good strategy to forces search engines and social media to put prospects in contact with your content. Inbound lead generation is a long term process that has the potential to bring prospects in leads at a lower cost. We can use Permission Marketing instead of Inbound Marketing.
Website and Landing page
Website is the first place that people surf for more information about our business. The user has more positive feelings when your website is user friendly and has high-quality contents. Website should be our first priority.
Content Marketing
Content is one of the great ways to guide users to a landing page. Typically, we aim to create content in order to provide users with useful and free information. There are a variety of contents we can create such as Blogs, Case Studies, electronic books, podcasts, videos and webinar. Moreover, another option for content creation is CTA (Call to Action). In other words, Call to Action can be a button, photo, link or a message which helps buyers find the information they are looking for. The more satisfy a user is with your content, the more likely they are to click your call-to-action and move on to your landing page.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization, can lead more customers to the Sales Funnel. It should be noted that SEO is time-consuming in comparison with other methods but can have amazing results if we do it correctly.
Social Media
The importance of social media in our daily life cannot be neglected. By social media, we can concentrate on Lead Generation, communicate with customers and encourage them to become loyal. Additionally, the effect of social media on Customer Relation Management (CRM) cannot be neglected. Furthermore, other advantages of social networks include low cost and easy accessibility to them.
Referral Lead Generation
Referral marketing includes both Inbound and Outbound strategies. A practical example of Referral marketing is Word-of-Mouth. In other words, customers will tell their friends and family about their positive experience and thus, prospects will convert to leads. Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the effective ways of advertising and generating Lead.
In conclusion, using Inbound or outbound depends on your audience and your business model. In reality, both outbound and inbound strategies can probably produce results for your business since each of the strategies can cover other strategy weaknesses.
Macan digital marketing agency in Dubai with an active and experienced team the can help your business to convert prospects to leads.
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