Lead generation is a popular marketing term refering to generating enquiries or ‘leads’ to a website. This is not just about visits to a website, it has to physically be an enquiry where people submit their details.
As a company that specialises in SEO (search engine optimisation), we are practically a lead generation company, but the concept of lead generation is an occupation and career in itself. If you sell services or products online, you need to look at the full marketing spectrum and apply lead generation from a variety of places. Below, we look at some of the main types of lead generation:
Word of mouth: A word of mouth referral is technically a type of lead generation, provided that it turns into a sale. This is in fact the best quality of lead generation you can typically find. Taking the recommendation of one person you trust should reduce risk for you as a consumer and mean that the product is suitable. There are methods to engage in more word of mouth marketing, by encouraging people to refer friends and receive incentives for doing so – such as discounts, nectar points, bonuses etc. Or simply providing a product that is unbeatable should generate natural word of mouth.
Print: Advertising in newspapers, magazines and billboards falls under print. This is typically less popular compared to 20 years ago as a result of the fast-moving Internet. Sometimes generating leads from these campaigns is harder to measure and quanity, since you don’t know if someone saw your billboard and contacted you as a result. Ways to measure your lead generation through print including adding discount codes or specific URLs that you can verify with a particular campaign. You can also run campaigns in insolation, so if you get enquiries, you know it was specifically from a magazine campaign etc.
Broadcast: TV and radio is one of the most respected and established forms of lead generation. The cost of producing and running the adverts is not always the cheapest, but as respected mediums, it can provide you with strong branding exposure for your company.
Digital: Online brought about new paradigms of lead generation, notably through search engines such as Google. This includes pay-per-click advertising (PPC), search engine optimisation (SEO), email marketing, text message marketing and social media marketing (both paid and organic). There are specialists that offer these services or agencies that can provide all services in one package. Your language, tone and brand messaging should be consistent throughout all communications.
Tips for maximising lead generation
Quality over quantity: Getting leads is a good thing but being able to assess the quality over quanity is always key. Can being on TV bring you a lot of enquiries? Yes, most likely, but will the quality be better through word of mouth and cost you less?
Cost per acquisition: Good marketers are able to quanitfy the cost-per-acquisition of a lead. Something in insurance or loans is usually around £50 for a good enquiry but for gambling this can be £100. To know which is your most effective source, you should consider what your lowest CPA is and what yields the greatest return.
Retention: Once you have got the customer and acquired them, consider carefully how you are going to keep them. Is this through follow up emails, future incentinves and discounts?
Understanding warm or cold leads: If you are dealing with hundreds and thousands of leads daily, which is common for a call centre, you need systems in place to analyse your warm vs cold leads. This includes who you spend the most time pursuing, how often you follow up and what you can do to close the deal.
Engage in affiliate programmes: Good companies can offer incentives to other brokers, comparison sites and directories for making introductions. Known as affiliate marketing, this type of lead generation should reward introducers with commission and better margins based on hitting bonuses.