What is Digital Lead Generation?

Digital Lead generation is a form of marketing where you attract visitors to a website with the end goal of capturing visitors contact details. 

According to Hubspot digital lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service.

This is a crude simplification of course, as you don’t want the contact details of just anyone. Instead, you want potential clients to visit your website and either contact you to buy your service or for those not ready to buy, begin a relationship with your business so you’ll be top-of-mind when they are ready to buy.

We’ll call the second type ‘cold leads’ as they can be considered a lead even if their only interest in your business is education.

Warm or hot leads are what every business needs! People that want your service and are ready to sign up or buy from you.

It’s rarely the case though that anyone who has not heard of your business will be ready to sign on the dotted line the moment they see an ad for your company. So that’s why you need a large volume of cold leads. Cold leads that will become warmer leads and eventually (a % will) buy from you – the ultimate goal!

So, how do you get these leads?

PPC and Social Advertising:

If you have a budget, running ads on either Google or one of the social platforms will get results fast.

Depending on your target market and the service you are offering, one type of advertising might be more suitable than the other.

If you can come up with a list of search terms or phrases people are likely to use in Google to find a service like yours, then Pay per click (PPC) is a good option.

Broad terms like ‘web design’ for example tend to be very competitive and expensive so you will need to come up with more specific terms like ‘web development agency in Reading, Berkshire’ 

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds, but when you get the keywords right, the quality of traffic and conversion rate will be impressive.

Social media advertising

Social ads might be more effective for your business if you don’t know what people are likely to search for, but have a clear idea of who your target market are and have demographic information on past customers.

For example, you want to target Marketing Directors or Business Owners in London who are members of the institute of directors.

LinkedIn tends to be much more expensive than Facebook but is very effective if you want to target people based on job title, industry, membership of professional bodies or professional interests.

Facebook and Instagram are less costly than LinkedIn. Although it’s seen as primarily advertising to consumers rather than other business owners, many companies have seen impressive results with B2B ad campaigns as business owners and decision-makers are people, so usually have a personal Facebook profile.

SEO

Organic search is also a great way of attracting visitors to your website. Aside from the cost of hiring a writer to create the content, it’s the lowest cost method of attracting visitors to your website. The downside, however, is that it can take several months to see any results.

It is well worth optimising your website for search engines and targeting important keywords as a long term strategy but also running ad campaigns to build up an audience and increase brand awareness in a much faster timescale.

Retargeting (AKA Remarketing)

So, you’ve attracted visitors to your website, but what’s the next step? Ideally, they will submit a contact form or at least give their email address. This is a lead.

The majority of visitors to your site are unlikely to take action or ‘convert’ to a lead or sale on their first visit. But this is to be expected and all is not lost if they don’t take action yet!

If people have clicked through to your website, there’s a fair chance they have some kind of interest in your service.

You will need a conversion tracking pixel installed on your site. This could be Google, Facebook or LinkedIn. You can serve them another advert to try and persuade them to visit your site again. You could persuade them with an offer of some kind.

Lead Magnets

One of the most effective offers is a free download or lead magnet. Also referred to as a ‘gated asset’. This is often in the form of a pdf or ebook providing some useful information that your target customers are likely to find useful in return for their email address or other contact information.  This serves two purposes…

It’s a way to get contact details from prospects.

If the lead magnet is highly relevant to your type of business, you know that those who download it are people likely to have a genuine interest in the service you offer.

Email Marketing

As you build a list of people who are interested in your business, but not ready to buy you’ll need to nurture them, to keep interested until they are ready to buy.

One way to do this is by sending them emails with valuable information. Usually something educational related to the download they signed up for.

You can continue to advertise to them on social media too, but it’s important to keep them engaged at least one way. Ideally by providing valuable information and not hassling them with sales emails or calls.

This way they will come to you when they’re ready to buy. 

Public Relations (PR)

PR is about getting media attention and a highly effective way to generate leads. It comes in various forms, including press releases, editorial outreach, participation in events and influencer marketing. The end result is building brand awareness, which is an essential part of lead generation.

Whether you get exposure for your brand through press coverage (TV, newspaper or magazine features), features on other websites or social media channels or sponsoring or hosting events, the publicity will undoubtedly have a knock-on effect to your other lead gen activity.

People who were previously unaware of your brand are likely to search you up on Google or social media and either follow you or sign up to your newsletter. Or, at the very least visit your website to find out more. So, PR tends to work well in combination with other lead generation activities. 

Conclusion

Digital Lead Generation is a great way to automate part of the sales process for your business and eventually save time and money. For most businesses, this is a no-brainer.

It’s usually a combination of SEO, SEM, Paid and organic social media and email marketing and most crucial of all, a well-designed website built to capture leads and provide content for visitors.

If you’d like to find out more about digital marketing please sign up to our newsletter. Or if you’re looking for an agency to build a website to attract and capture leads for your business, get in touch!

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