Everything you need to know about lead generation

11 minutes read
John - 16.05.2017
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Brands who perfect their lead generation strategy with inbound marketing see falling marketing costs, better quality leads, greater client engagement and other benefits that outbound methods simply can’t provide.

Getting those benefits, though, requires a lot of work. You need to research your audience and where it spends its time online, collect data in ethical ways, identify social trends and produce creative content on a consistent basis.

Get it right and put some budget into the mix, too, and inbound marketing can vastly accelerate your business’s growth potential. How do we know? Because we do it every day and write about our experiences with inbound on a regular basis.

For instance, do you know that:

A biddable media strategy can get you a quicker ROI

A bespoke inbound marketing strategy is fantastic for long-term organic lead generation, but your results and returns can potentially be vastly improved more quickly if you introduce biddable media into the mix. Biddable media campaigns over social media channels and search engines provide greater visibility to your brand, position you above competitors, increase engagement with the people who really matter to you and drive leads to the most profitable pages on your website.

Read the blog here: Boost An Inbound Marketing Strategy With Biddable

You can reduce your costs per lead and boost ROI with biddable

Biddable media is a fantastic lead generation strategy, but you’re paying for every single lead, including the ones that don’t convert. By employing some thematic analysis and pinpointing patterns in your data, you can discover trends and learn more about exactly why your leads aren’t converting and how to fix it to not only improve your overall ROI, but to also reduce the costs of each and every lead you generate and stop your sales team wasting time chasing poor leads.

Read the blog here: Bridging the biddable media channels – sales gap with thematic analysis

Lead Generation has a lot in common with Tinder

Lead generation - is like Tinder

Tinder and similar apps are revolutionising the ways in which people meet and how brands communicate with their customers. Can you really create a strong inbound lead generation campaign, though, by using the same principles of the world’s most popular dating app? We explored how you can use elements of Tinder in an inbound campaign to approach new personas, create engaging content and upsell yourself with biddable. Results below.

Read the blog here: Can you build an Inbound Marketing Campaign for Tinder?

Facebook changed the mobile lead gen game forever

Facebook’s social targeting platform just gets better and better. In late 2015 the company launched new lead generation campaigns to improve the customer journey, helping brands and advertisers better communicate with the 43% of UK residents (at the time) that were active on Facebook. Facebook has since improved their lead gen cards and offer more options for those with a biddable media budget: read about our thoughts on the mobile side of things at the time below.  

Read the blog here: Facebook Lead Generation Campaigns just Nailed the Customer Journey

The importance of monthly reporting to reduce your Costs Per Lead

Reporting is one of the most important things to do when investing in a lead generation campaign. The more in-depth the report, the better you can use the data to identify user patterns to alter your strategy and perfect the user journey while reducing your costs per lead. Only, the way you present you data is important too, to educate your clients and staff and show them the bits that are working well and the things that need working on; especially with the changing nature of biddable media.

Read the blog here: How to report on biddable media campaigns and educate the masses!

How to deal with upset customers through social and banish trolls

Lead generation - don't feed the trolls

Social media is hugely beneficial, especially when introducing biddable media as part of a lead generation campaign. It can also pose some challenges, too; brands have to be alert at all times to deal with customer complaints in a professional way in a public arena where anyone can join in the argument. Responding with negative comments in the right way, though, can not only keep customers satisfied but spread your reputation as a company that really cares.

Read the blog here: Keeping the peace with a paid social media strategy

Get a competitive edge and reduce costs by focusing outside London

London is a city that truly knows how to generate wealth, but you’re dong yourself a disservice if you focus your entire lead generation campaign on the big smoke. Diversity pays in inbound marketing, especially if you’re putting some budget into social and search. Targeting other markets across the UK in, say, places like Birmingham, Manchester and others can not only open you up to new markets that competitors may not be focusing on, but can also help to reduce your costs per lead.

Read the blog here: Life Outside the M25 – How to Avoid London-Centric Marketing on Paid Social Media

Considering the legalities and moralities of social media marketing

There’s a lot of hype around social media marketing and the lead generation benefits it can provide. It’s still a form of advertising though, and a very personal and culturally-sensitive way to reach out to a highly-targeted audience. Laws still apply and it’s wise to stay on the right side of the moral compass – that means no spamming, no questionable messages and researching the customs of areas you want to reach out to. The more you research, the stronger your results will be.

Read the blog here: Navigating the Legal, Cultural and Moral Landscape of Paid Social Media Advertising

Collecting social data and information to better plan your campaign

The expansion of the internet and its global uptake is creating enormous data sets by the minute. Collecting that social data in ethical, transparent ways and analysing those trends and patterns (as well as the emotions people are expressing) will help you develop a greater picture of your personas and the habits of the market you want to reach. It can also help you to predict future trends, better plan your lead generation outlay and allow you to create content that provides greater engagement.

Read the blog here: Predict the Future and Rule the World with Paid Social Media

You can avoid holiday blues with paid social targeting for a sales spike

Seasonal decline is something that affects all industries but the right inbound lead generation strategy will help you to better identify market trends, when to pause biddable campaigns and how to gather consumer data sets to learn more about your consumers’ purchasing habits during major holidays. Over time this will help to refine your organic and paid efforts to improve lead quality during special occasions, reduce costs per lead and boost short-term sales during these times. 

Read the blog here: Seasonal decline or opportunity for paid social media campaigns?

The fantastic returns paid social offers are well worth the cost

Social media is great for outreach, but the real power of platforms like Facebook and Twitter are their incredibly deep targeting tools which are lead generation Godsends. Some worry about the expense of biddable media; a bespoke strategy, though, can help brands build a strong, converting audience of fans and followers. It’s worth the spend if it’s making you more than double what it costs, especially if you focus on the lifetime ROI of your biddable social media campaign.

Read the blog here: Social media advertising costs a lot – is it worth it?

It pays to know the publishing laws surrounding social media

Fake news isn’t the only danger brands face when they invest in social media. Social media sits very much in the publishing realm as well as the world of advertising, and you have to be extremely careful you don’t write anything libellous, publish sensitive customer data, collect it in transparent ways, don’t infringe copyright and more. Facebook and Twitter can be fun, but if you’re using it for lead generation you have to have sound knowledge of the social media dos and don’ts.

Read the blog here: The Legal Ins and Outs of a Paid Social Media Strategy

For quicker results, small businesses need to consider paid social

Depending on your budget and the bespoke nature of an inbound lead generation strategy, doing it organically can take some time to generate serious results, especially if you’re a small business in a competitive industry. Putting some budget into your social media marketing strategy can help you to see almost instant results and better target the people who will grow your business. It can also help you accumulate invaluable data while the organic side of things begins to take root.

Read the blog here: The Price is Right: Why Social Media Advertising is Worth The Expense For Your Startup

Strengthening your high-street presence with a local social campaign

Facebook and other social platforms are fantastic ways to target people, and their call-to-action cards are essential to converting interest. Local awareness ads, too, are great ways for smaller more local businesses to attract footfall and generate interest amongst the local community. Combining those local awareness ads with local content can also boost an inbound social lead generation campaign, helping the business to grow into new nationwide and international territories.

Read the blog here: Think Locally, Buy Locally – Using Paid Social Media to support your store

Build better relationships with your perfect clients with inbound

The power of social media and inbound lead generation gives you a much better chance of working with the people you desperately want to, especially in the B2B arena. Account-based marketing combined with social targeting on platforms like LinkedIn can get you in front of decision makers, helping you to build a smaller list of dream clients you can provide serious benefits to instead of general leads of much lower quality.

Read the blog here: Whale hunting with account based marketing and creative inbound

Introducing live video and what it means for your social strategy

Live video is spreading thanks to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social networks. Will it really take off, though? And what does it mean for the average social lead generation campaign? Adapting to live video could offer some serious benefits for brands looking to grow their business, to better engage with their community of followers, create exciting content and more. Is live video the best fit for your social strategy?

Read the blog here: Will live video kick the s*** out of my paid social media campaigns?

Reducing your costs per lead by focusing on pay day data

When it comes to biddable search, it’s worth keeping an eye on the conversion data during the last and first weeks of a month. For lead generation, certain brands see larger uplifts during times when the average worker is paid. This is invaluable information to reducing your costs per lead and improving conversions; the same goes for paid social, and approaching your audience in the right ways can make you their first port of call when they have money to spend.

Read the blog here: Pay Day Predators - Boost conversions with Pay Day bid modifiers

Conclusion

So, there you have it a mini library of resources to help you find quality Leads. If you are interested in the affect that lead generation has on a business, then look at our case study on how we helped an investment company get a 3,000% ROI in the space of six short months. We also futureproofed the company against future EU data regulations and helped to boost their authority amongst sophisticated investors in the alternative sector.

Read the case study here: Online Lead Generation and Nurturing Achieves ROI of over 3,000%

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