In business promotion, there is the concept of lead generation. This is the collection of contact data of those users who are interested in a product or service. Thanks to this, the company receives a base of contacts of the target audience. All contacts in the collected database are leads, potential customers who haven’t yet made the deal but expressed interest.
Types of Leads
In marketing, leads are divided into three groups.
Cold leads are potential customers who have already left their contact information, but do not yet have a formulated need for the product. They visit the site or company group out of curiosity, attracted by successful advertising.
If a person is already familiar with the company, knows its pricing policy, competitive advantages, he is considered a warm lead. However, he hasn’t yet chosen a company where he is ready to buy a product.
When a person studies the terms of purchase, assortment, benefits in more detail and decides to go to this very company, he becomes a hot lead.
If the company has already gathered enough contacts, it’s necessary to classify them, categorize them into groups. To do this, potential customers are evaluated. The marketer evaluates how many marketing steps influenced the person. The more of them, the hotter the lead.
After dividing the leads into groups, the marketer continues to work with each group. Hot leads can be sent immediately to the sales department so that managers can offer them a deal, a meeting, and send them a commercial offer. Cold and warm leads are further warmed through posts, mailings.
Lead Generation Process
To make leads more willing to leave their contact information, build the contact-gathering process correctly. Here’s what positively influences site visitors:
- Visually appealing design.
- Ease of use of the site, the ability to open the page from all types of devices, fast loading.
- Acceptable price for users.
- A simple form for making an application.
Besides, for successful lead generation, it is necessary to attract only targeted visitors to the site. The visitor must meet certain criteria. First, have a real opportunity to use the product. For example, if a company allows you to play real casino slots online, then gambling enthusiasts should be led to this site. Second, potential customers should be financially able to buy a product or pay for a service.
When the criteria are defined, it is convenient to use contextual advertising to attract visitors. When properly configured, contextual advertising will be shown only to those users who meet all the criteria.
Lead Generation Methods
To add a website visitor to your contact database, you can use several methods:
- Direct marketing.
- Online tools.
- Personal interaction.
Personal interaction is used when a manager has the opportunity to talk to a customer individually. A sales employee can call cold clients and meet with them in the office. This type of lead generation includes event marketing. This is the company’s communication with potential customers at any themed events. For example, at conferences and exhibitions. During such events, the representative of the company can establish useful contacts and get acquainted with potential buyers.
This type of lead generation has an advantage – the leads received will be warm, so it’s easier to translate them into hot leads and bring them to the deal.
Online tools are quality content that constantly catches the eye of a potential customer and brings them closer to the range, prices, and values of the company. Here are the main online tools:
- A corporate website, a lending site.
- Accounts in social networks.
- YouTube channel with useful videos.
- Contextual advertising.
The greatest level of personalization is distinguished by direct marketing. This tool includes:
- Mailings by email.
- Mailings through personal messages on social networks.
- Messages in messengers.
Messages should be personalized, that is, correspond to the real interests of the visitor. For example, if a person is browsing through a catalog in an online store, and then adds a product to the cart, then the letter should talk about that product. So, direct marketing makes the user return to the online store and buy the product he likes.
Lead Generation Channels
There are several effective channels that can help you collect leads faster and warm them up.
Chatbots
Chatbots can be used in online stores. Most potential customers ask the same questions, so it’s enough to make a typical conversation script for a chatbot to work. Here is what a bot can do:
- It will be in touch with the user on any given day and time.
- It will ask what the customer is interested in and direct him to the appropriate section of the online store.
- A chatbot will offer a trial version of the product.
- It sends you extra product images.
- Ask follow-up questions to identify a lead’s needs, recommend a product or a pricing plan.
Mutual Aid
Another way to gain potential customer contacts is to use cross-promotion. This is the mutual promotion of two companies that are not direct competitors, but work with a similar target audience. To use this channel, you need to gather your own base of contacts and exchange with the other company.
Advertising
Contextual and targeted advertising don’t directly collect contacts from users, but bring people to the site. Contextual advertising is only shown to users who have entered a relevant search query and shown their interest in the product. Such people are considered already warm or even hot leads, because they have already realized the need for the product and are actively looking for where to buy it.
Targeting attracts the attention of a cold audience. As with contextual advertising, you can set specific criteria – gender, age, location and customer interests. This will screen out all the people to whom the product is definitely not suitable. However, the leads who come across the ad, will not necessarily move to the site. It depends on the quality of the ad and the right benefits, the offer.
Forums and Third Party Sites
You can also use thematic forums and sites to attract interested people. For example, you can use such methods:
- Banner advertising.
- Expert publications on behalf of the company.
- Native advertising directly within posts.
These techniques warm up the audience on the forum and they come to the site already warm or hot.
