Lead generation is the marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing a sales channel. It is useful for any type or size of business, and for B2C and B2B spaces. Potential customers are people who are potentially interested in buying your products or services. Lead generation allows you to reach potential customers early in the buyer's journey, so you can earn their trust, build a relationship, and be by their side until they're ready to make a purchase.
The inbound way to get new leads is based on lead-generation marketing. This involves finding promotional channels that attract your potential customers. Sources of incoming leads vary by niche (the most common are content marketing, social media, and search engines). Social media is the modern playground of the 21st century, with millions of people actively playing daily.
Your ideal leads are on social media, and your job is to find and show them your lead magnets (closed content and event logs) and see how the right leads convert. With social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, you can access powerful ad targeting tools that allow you to target and reach particular audiences. Successful B2B marketplaces use paid Facebook and Instagram ads to drive traffic to their closed content. We only send about 1 to 3 emails each month.
There are all-in-one sales and marketing automation platforms or CRM that combine several tools you'll need to successfully generate leads. These variables can include specific actions, information that the prospect has provided, or any other important data point. Lead management software helps companies generate new leads and keep track of who they are, how to reach them, and how they found each other in the first place. With these options, your business can create hyper-targeted ads that focus on the leads that are most valuable to your business. Since content is often a key incentive to drive leads, experiment with different parts of the content, the location of calls to action, and lead magnets to determine what type of content works best. Online lead generation involves driving traffic to your website and persuading visitors to exchange their contact details with you.
Inbound marketing tactics, such as blog posts, e-books, and social media content, have proven to be a very effective means of generating high-quality leads at a much lower cost than most outbound marketing tactics. Outbound lead generation is interruption-based, meaning you'll find the people who are most likely to become your customers. First, define your ideal customer profile (in B2B) or buyer person (in B2C) and how to identify a qualified lead. There are many lead generation tools available in the market that help you get accurate contact details. You can start generating leads from Google ad campaigns, even when your organic rankings aren't there yet. Using your company's influencers and thought leaders is probably one of the most overlooked lead generation strategies.
And from a business perspective, the information the automotive company gathers about you from your survey responses helps them customize that initial communication to address their existing issues and not waste time calling potential customers who aren't interested in car services at all. Depending on the size of your company, this is likely to be a formal or informal lead generation process for you.