In the world of marketing, PR and comms - brands go head to head to get noticed. And, when it comes to gaining new customers, connecting with consumers and standing out among the crowd, it’s easy to get left behind. Savvy marketers get ahead by setting clear objectives, understanding their audiences and creating fresh and relevant content that gently guides new viewers along the funnel. But it’s not as simple as just showing up. Amidst the chaos, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of passing trends and vanity metrics - when the real war is over new leads.
With such a highly digitised battlefield, that has so much room for public commentary and engagement, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. So, it’s never been more important to have a clear strategy for effective lead generation.
The good news?
The fight is worth the reward, as generating high-quality leads affects every aspect of your business, positively.
- Grow your brand
- Seed your messaging
- Create loyalists for life
- Increase ROI
Get started
By following a strategic approach you can start to experiment with new ways in which to grow your customer base, with the right consumers.
- Understand your audiences. The first step in creating quality leads is to know your consumer(s) better than they know themselves, by turning to the data. With the right consumer research tool, you can start to gain an in-depth understanding of your market’s interests, sentiments towards specific topics and behaviour online. You can even go as far as collecting insight into the why behind their actions. Once you’re aware of the challenges they face, the product features they love and their most prominent needs, you’ve got a starting point for connecting with them in a meaningful and valuable way. From here you can grow your audiences, which 70% of marketers consider more important than converting sales, according to Small Biz Genius.
- Automate smartly and with purpose. The best lead generation strategies have an element of automation supporting direct efforts. This allows for greater reach and reduces dependencies on the team, while the business continues to grow in the background. Chatbots are a good example of where machine learning and automation can help you drive leads by providing instant customer service automation and support. They can also play a key role in social selling in the long-term. Plus, chatbots can be used to qualify leads and to nurture and convert these leads (SmartInsights).
- Embrace multimedia. Short-format video is a hot topic in marketing and comms right now, because we’re seeing phenomenal results from it on all fronts. In fact, “54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support” (HubSpot, 2018). Experiment with video courses, offer free access to valuable content, in exchange for information, and focus on that value as a first priority. This can quickly help you generate high-quality leads and provide engaging content for your social media platforms.
- Use tracking and analytics for key insights. The key to adapting your lead generation strategy effectively is to learn from what you’re doing. Testing assumptions, monitoring metrics and experimenting with adaptations can increase content performance. And, it can help you find smarter ways to reach out to the markets you want to reach most.
Want practical examples of what works and what doesn’t?
In collaboration with Hubspot, Meltwater recently released a comprehensive Lead Generation Playbook with a number of experimental use cases that had incredible results.
Find out how Growth Tribe achieved a 287% increase in on-site conversions, how AB Tasty increased demo requests by 33% and how we effectively increased our event revenue by 20% (YoY) - despite COVID. It’s all laid out for you in detail so that you can experiment with the tactics that work, and 'lead gen' your team to victory.
