7 minute read
What is Lead Generation in Digital Marketing?
Lead generation in digital marketing is how small- and medium-sized businesses increase sales and build a customer base using digital channels to reach potential customers who otherwise might not know about their products and services.
A lead is anyone that sees your digital content, downloads a product brochure or white paper, or signs up for a mailing list or a special product trail. The more leads, the more potential sales. This is why digital marketing lead generation tactics are essential to the success of your small- to medium-sized business.
Let’s cover some of the best lead-generation tactics you can use to build your sales and grow your business.
- Email marketing
- Website optimization
- Blogging
- Content marketing
- Mobile-first optimization
- Google & Facebook ads
- Google Business Profile
- Social media
- YouTube/TikTok videos
- Tag Marketing
Note that while we are discussing these digital lead generation tactics separately, they are actually interrelated in practice as part of a synergistic digital marketing plan.
Email Marketing
Email marketing may seem old hat in the age of Tik Tok videos, but it is still one the most effective digital lead generation tools. According to HubSpot, email ROI represents an impressive $36 for every dollar spent. Building a targeted email list and sending regular communications to that list keeps your brand top-of-mind, educates your target audience about your products and services, and nurtures leads to facilitate increased sales.
Key to successful email marketing is providing engaging content relevant to potential customers. Attention-getting headlines coupled with attractive graphics consistent with your brand also attract and maintain attention.
You generate leads by offering promotions, free product trials, downloadable brochures, eBooks, and case studies with detailed information that leads to buying decisions. To qualify for these “freebies,” ask leads to complete a brief survey that tells you more about their needs and interests. Most importantly, request an email address to build your targeted email campaigns.
Survey results are used to target leads with emails and messages about how your products and services address their needs. And once they become customers, effective email marketing keeps customers updated on your business and solidifies a relationship that leads to repeat purchases.
Website Optimization
One of the most critical digital lead generation tactics is to optimize your website. A website is more than a landing page to tell people about your business, it’s more than a shopping cart (if you use one). Your website is a lead generation machine.
How does your website generate leads?
Before we even talk about that, it’s important that your potential leads can find you. That means whenever a potential customer enters a search field with a general query about products or services you provide, your business ranks high in the search results. Most people don’t look at any search results ranking below third or fourth, and hardly anyone looks beyond the first page. While you can pay to get a high ranking, organic search results typically result in higher click rates. That means you need effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies — which is a whole other discussion — to achieve a high ranking ahead of your competition.
SEO can help generate leads. Once prospects get to your website, there are a number of ways your website generates leads. These include:
- Chatbot that “asks” how they can assist the lead or answer any questions
- Discount and special offers; leads provide their email address to get a code to qualify for the offer
- Cookies are small files that collect data about whoever views the pages on your website; cookies help both to generate leads about potential customers and determine the effectiveness of specific pages (e.g., how often users put items in the shopping cart but do not complete the purchase).
- CTA (Call to Action) buttons that schedule contact appointments
- Blogs, which we’ll detail more about next
Blogging
Blogs serve several purposes for digital marketing lead generation. For one thing, regular blog posting improves your search ranking. Google and other search engines rank fresh web pages higher than static web pages.
Secondly, blogs are a way to describe in detail your products and services and how they benefit customers. Seventy percent of people prefer to get their information about a product or company from a blog post rather than a traditional advertisement. The more leads click on your blog pages, the more likely they become customers.
Equally important, you can offer something valuable to leads at the end of the blog, such as an eBook or case study, available for free download by providing an email address to add to your targeted email campaigns list.
Content Marketing
Obviously, blogs and websites require content. But just not any kind of content. Content that is:
- Organized so it is easily understood
- Offers accurate, clear, and easily digestible information that persuades leads on the value of your products or services
- Employs keywords that rank high in search results so it is easy for leads to find your content
- Added to create more landing pages; according to a HubSpot survey, companies with more than 1 to 5 landing pages generated more leads
- Consistent with your buyer’s journey from looking for information about a problem or need to get that information that leads to a purchase decision
Mobile-First Optimization
According to Techjury, nowadays, the majority of internet traffic is mobile. Most pertinently, most B2B inquiries are made through smartphones. Furthermore, Google follows a mobile-first indexing approach. All of this means you need to make sure you optimize your website for mobile traffic.
It’s not just a matter of somehow transferring the way your website looks on your desktop to mobile. For one thing, the screen is smaller, so you’ve got less real estate to work with. Even small changes to optimize the mobile user interface—clean appearance, easy to navigate and read, simple forms, not a lot of popups—result in higher traffic, which means higher lead generation.
Google & Facebook Ads
Google and Facebook Ads are great tools for digital lead generation. With something like over 3.5 billion searches conducted on Google daily, Google Ads is a huge opportunity to drive targeted traffic and generate leads and sales for your small- to medium business.
Similarly, there are over 2.3 billion active monthly Facebook users, making it a perfect channel for digital lead generation. Facebook ads can also be launched on the equally popular Instagram.
Google Business Profile (Formally GMB)
A related tool is Google My Business or Google Business Profile, which is a free listing especially designed to showcase small and midsize businesses. Consider the following GBP/GMB listing statistics:
- A typical business receives 59 actions every month
- Clicks to business websites grew 29% on average
- 16% of businesses receive more than 100 calls each month
Social Media
In addition to Facebook and Instagram, other social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter can engage leads and increase web traffic that leads to sales. Just be cautious in the number of posts; you don’t want to overwhelm potential leads to the point where they start disregarding your posts due. Quality, not quantity, is the rule here.
Key takeaways for social media lead-generation tactics include:
- Post no more than twice per day on Facebook, Twitter four times a day, LinkedIn once per day, and Instagram up to 10 times a day.
- Include photos or videos as much as possible
- Place links to external sources or your own web pages in a substantial number of your posts
- Follow the 10-4-1 rule; for every 15 posts, ten should be of other people’s content, four your own non-promotional content such as a blog, and one a promotional post that links to one of your landing pages
YouTube/TikTok Videos
Seeing is believing, and if you can provide visuals of your products and services, you can believe you’ll generate more leads. While YouTube is the gold standard for posting videos, TikTok is increasingly a favored channel for digital lead generation. (Just don’t tell your teenager.) Influencer marketing is huge on TikTok, making it that much easier for your small- to medium-sized business to get discovered by new potential customers and generate leads. To cite just one example, over the last five years, Chipotle gained more than 1.3 million followers across its 100+ TikTok videos
TikTok business accounts get analytical tools, as well as the ability to create an e-commerce storefront. Keep in mind that a video created for TikTok can, in most cases, be easily converted to a YouTube video and vice versa.
Get Expert Help With Digital Lead Generation Tactics
You’re busy running your small- to medium-sized business. We understand if you are wondering if you have the time to do all this. The fact is, you can’t afford to do it.
We can help.
Tag Marketing has the experience and expertise to design, develop and execute digital marketing lead-generation tactics to increase leads and conversions. Our approach is simple, transparent, effective, and adjustable — making it easier and faster to get more qualified leads and increase conversions.
We are a digital marketing agency you can trust and grow with. Contact us to discuss how we can help you with your digital lead generation marketing. Book a connect call for a brief consultation.