What is Lead Generation in Digital Marketing?

As a business owner, you would do everything that you can get the key to your business’ growth — but what if it’s something that even the biggest corporations struggle with?

Today, I will present you with the ultimate guide to growing your business through local lead generation!

When you own a business and someone tells you that a certain aspect of your marketing strategy is the ultimate key to your company’s growth, you would relocate all of your energy and resources into prioritizing that matter. But in reality, despite knowing the answer to every question about their success, certain companies still struggle with leveraging local lead generation to their advantage.

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A recent Forbes article about Lead Generation revealed that despite the important role the strategy contributes to the overall success of a company, acting as its lifeblood, several businesses around the world struggle with it severely.

So much so that a survey conducted by lead generation solution Prospex.ai found that 58% of business leaders see it as a key challenge for their business, adding that traditional sales methods no longer work. If businesses want to ensure growth and conquer lead generation, they need to explore modern techniques.

But besides tedious and outdated tasks, there are other reasons why most businesses — especially those relatively newer to the game — struggle with local lead generation; the lack of understanding of the strategy itself.

Local lead generation is not entirely new but that doesn’t mean everyone has a great grasp of what it is, how it works, and why it’s the ultimate key to the growth of a business. So, to help you guys out in leveraging the strategy to your advantage, I will break down what local lead generation is and how you can start your own campaign!

WHAT IS LOCAL LEAD GENERATION AND HOW IT WORKS?

Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers as well as prospective consumers into someone who has an interest in your business’ product or service.

Who are your leads?

Basically, anyone who showcases an interest in your product or service in some way, shape, or form. People usually go through different stages when transitioning from a visitor to a customer called the buyer’s journey.

Take, for example, User A is hoping to look for a nearby car shop for window tinting services. So, he goes online and finds a site of one provider near him. He requests the pricing of their products as well as services and a few days later, User A receives an email from them discussing how they can help him. User A went from being a visitor to a prospective client — that’s how lead generation works.

Unlike before when businesses used to do cold calls that sometimes feel intrusive to other people, the Internet has provided marketers with newer methods of gaining leads!

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO LEAD GENERATION

Now that we’ve explored what lead generation really means and how it works, let’s get you started on your campaign!

Starting with knowing your audience!

UNDERSTANDING THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

As we’ve mentioned earlier, one of the more common reasons why businesses, even bigger ventures, struggle with lead generation is the lack of understanding of the modern buyer’s journey.

Technology and the internet have changed a lot of things for us — and that includes how we shop as consumers! People nowadays go through three stages in transitioning from a visitor to a consumer; awareness, consideration, and decision!

During the first stage, prospect leads to identify a challenge or a need they want to pursue. They might do some research to have a better idea of the problem they are facing and how they can solve it.

When they reach the second stage, they have figured out their need and have made alleviating them their main goal. They’ll continue to look for solutions that satisfy them!

And when they hit the last stage, prospect leads have come up with a solution and now have a list of possible businesses or companies to choose from. These three stages are how a prospect lead — site visitor — becomes a prospect lead.

Gaining an understanding of how consumers go through these three stages is important when creating a sales funnel that generates accurate leads. Without it, all of your other marketing efforts will be for nothing.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE

Now that you know the different stages your target market goes from becoming a visitor to a loyal consumer, you need to dig a little deeper to get a better idea of how you can reach out to them. Figure out the people you’re actually trying to attract.

Who are they?
Where do they spend most of their time?
What do they like and what are some of the concerns they have that you can alleviate?

Knowing who you’re trying to reach is the first step towards learning how to actually connect with them. While target market and audience research take time, it basically acts as the foundation of your entire campaign.

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF GENERATING LEADS

Lead generation can happen in almost any platform thanks to today’s technology and the internet! But generally, there are four commonly used ways to get leads!

One, there’s content.

Content marketing has never mattered more than it has today, providing businesses with increased web traffic, improved visibility, as well as an abundant source of, leads — if used correctly. Now before you jump into creating your very own blog, you must always take into consideration the stage your leads are currently in.

The content you value may not be so useful to someone who just learned of your company’s existence this week. Additionally, you must also keep in mind who your audience is and what they actually like. While people make it seem like content marketing is this easy strategy that everyone can master within weeks, it’s really no magic trick. It’s the work progress of creating content, releasing content, and enhancing content for better results.

Second, on our list is emails!

Email marketing is one of the oldest and cheapest ways of generating leads. While it’s true that emails are only great for enriching your existing database, it’s also a great tool for retargeting! Say some consumers visited your site last month and have left their details for updates but it’s been a while since they visited you, send them an email with an appealing CTA! Remind them that you’re still here waiting for them!

The third common way of gaining leads is an online advertisement

Now, just like content marketing, ads can be pretty tricky. Your eye-catching advertising would all be for nothing if it leads to a sketchy-looking landing page. If people refuse to stay on your page, your bounce rate increases —meaning your prospective customers become nothing but a number.

So instead of just focusing all of your energy on your ads alone, don’t forget to optimize your landing pages and ensure that it aligns with your advertising and the rest of your brand!

Thanks to recent updates around the three major social media platforms— Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter— you can now share URLs on your stories and other posts! Use engaging CTAs to invite your followers to your landing page or your site all with one swipe-up motion!

Now that we’ve covered the basics of starting your very own lead generation campaign, let’s talk about some of the do’s and don’ts!

ADVERTISE CORRECTLY

Digital advertising on both search engines and social media platforms is one of the most effective ways to reach new clients. Now, it’s true that catching the audience’s attention is one of the priorities of your campaign— but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to stick to click-bait titles.

Remember to advertise correctly

Share how your services can help your prospective customers and pick out eye-catching and original photos!

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW UP!

Let’s say a prospect lead has clicked on your ad and has filled up the form on your landing page— now what?

Follow up!

Contact those who have expressed great interest in your company and stay in touch with them!

Now you’re probably thinking, why does lead generation matter so much to businesses? Because today, it’s one of the more legitimate ways a business can guarantee growth. A majority of today’s population has changed their spending and consumption habits. They are now spending less and less time shopping outside.

Whenever they need anything, they go straight to the internet to look for it. If local businesses aren’t there, they are surely missing large numbers of traffic that could potentially become leads— which can then lead to increased conversion rates. You need to be where your target market is or else, you’ll risk losing opportunities like increased conversion rates and huge profits.

With the continuously evolving nature of the Internet and with newer generations becoming today’s main consumers, the ways we can generate leads as businesses will always change. But if there’s one thing that we’re sure of, it’s that companies who take the leap to follow their target market where they are, are more successful than those who don’t.