Businesses are opening every day, and marketers seek to find advanced ways to attract new customers. Yes, lead generation marketing has been used by many companies to acquire clients. This year defines that marketing becomes more digital, while automation seems to be at its core and bring benefits to the firms’ owners.
What are leads?
You probably wonder what lead definition is and how it is different from marketing. Lead is about finding, recognizing and attracting potential clients that can buy your goods or services.
Notably, it is an underlying concept of digital marketing.
Lead Generation Funnel
How does lead generation work, then? In this regard, it is vital to mention the lead generation funnel. It contemplates a standardized method for turning those who are interested in a product into ones who will buy it. Usually, it consists of three levels and dictates the whole strategy a company applies. Considering this, there are different tasks shared between marketing and sales departments.
Attraction phase: Awareness
The higher levels of leads generation scheme relate to making individuals interested in the product. In other words, raising awareness is what marketing experts try to achieve there. It is like meeting new people.
And how do people usually meet? Right, by conversations and talks. In terms of lead generation, it comes to creating content that is useful for potential clients. Simultaneously, such content can introduce the product to the customers.
The best practices in customer lead generation contemplate designing a blog where people can leave their contacts for more details or further information. How does it work? For instance, you are looking for hints on repairing an old bike or buying a new one. A bike company has a website where it explains the differences between bikes or presents DIY repair guides.
For a person looking for such information, this blog answers their needs. It is how a company works on awareness.
Engagement: proceeding with the interest
The middle level of the funnel is about engagement. At this stage, the marketers try to engage with customers and get their contacts. Imagine the customer reads the piece on repairing a bike. At the end of the article, they are offered to share contacts for more information. If they like materials and want more, they are likely to leave their email. These customers are prospects now! What next?
Developing an intent to buy
The following stages are about pushing prospects to become clients of the firm. How? That’s where the sales team is likely to interfere. It may be the proposal of a free consultation or a significant discount on a new bike. The main thing is that the prospect has trust in a company, meaning they are ready to turn into a buyer.
Inbound and Outbound Marketing
To produce new leads, a company may apply different techniques. You definitely know some of them. They include content marketing, social media, paid ads, and email marketing. Notably, there are two groups of them, inbound and outbound. The first type is about attracting the attention of the customer organically. Under this, marketers control the funnel.
The second type is the opposite. It interferes with the environment of a person and calls for their reaction. The simplest example is a targeted ad in social media. Imagine a user scrolling news feed, and the commercial appears based on the “bike” google search they made a day ago. It might be intrusive and miss some stages of the funnel; nevertheless, it works.
As a result, there are different ways to attract customers’ attention, while 2021 is to bring it to a new level.
Trends and Insights for 2021
Interestingly, some new trends can improve the efficiency of your digital efforts. Knowing how leads generation work, one should see that technology is impacting our life. Much will be said about automation in the paragraphs below. When there is a lack of marketing personnel, it might be beneficial. Let’s see some of the most important ones:
Email Marketing: Finding Emails in Bulk
Email technique is primary for any marketing effort, either for customer retention or engagement with the leads. This year, as there are more lead generation programs, the marketers use email finder software.
In terms of 2B2, using finding software can even provide leads in bulk. How? With such a tool, the marketer can type a domain or use a Linkedin network to get their target audience’s email contacts. There are different options, either a free email collector or a paid tool. (Here is an example of such a tool: https://getprospect.com/email-finder)
Chatbots
Chatbots seem to work as an excellent tool for marketers in getting the intents of prospects. First of all, the chatbot is not hard in management and maintenance. Secondly, it interacts with the user and can answer requests. Chatbots can be used instead of forms so that people can answer your questions via interactions and witty dialogues. As it has an algorithm behind it, there may be no need for the whole support department to make it work. The automation brings both insights to the user and can fulfil the information needs of the customer. At the end of the day, it enhances the company’s marketing capabilities.
Voice Marketing
Technology is affecting lives, thus businesses. In this regard, many people use speakers for a search. The number of speakers used should reach 163 million in 2021 and 630 million by 2024. Such programs as Alexa or Siri are used to look for various information on the Internet. Holding a button and asking a question is all it takes to google something. No typing.
What does it mean for customer lead generation? Voice marketing! SEO experts now consider more long-tail keywords based on requests made via virtual assistants. The reason is that they are similar to the phrases people can say when looking for something.
Automation Challenge? Unity of Sales and Marketing Teams
Lastly, as the lead generation gets even more complicated and rapid, the sales and marketing teams are worth being united. How? Well, start with better communication and discussion of the lead production process. Everyone should understand their tasks and responsibilities within the funnel in the provision of leads of high quality.
In this regard, the business can utilize lead generation programs or software. If CMO can integrate them with other units or tools, like Ad and social media managers, or designer’s tools, there is a chance to structure the whole department’s work. As lead generation marketing in 2021 contemplates focusing on video creation and social media, such integration would give an advantage.
Consecutively, the joint implementation of best practices on behalf of marketing and sales teams is a thing for firms to consider this year. It is not a question of “how does lead generation work”, but “how efficient” a business would be with the advanced tools presented.