Did you know that one-third of businesses usually fail within their first two years of establishment?
There are many reasons for this, but that is not what I want to talk about in this article.
I wrote this article to let you know the main reasons why businesses succeed with the implementation of consistent lead-generation campaigns.
If you are a business owner that is interested in the success of your business, you need to know how to generate qualified leads for your business.
We will dive deeper into it, but first, i want to let you know the meaning of Lead.
What Actually is a Lead?
A lead is an online user that shows interest in your business products or services.
This interest comes in various but most times it is by providing their information (name, email address, phone number, etc) to you through your website lead magnet.
Online users providing you with their contact information is an indication that they have an interest in your business and they want to know more about it.
If you are into software as a service (SaaS) business, your leads can come in form of free trials.
Online users that sign up for your software free trials are your potential leads.
Therefore, lead generation is the process of attracting and converting online users into qualified leads.
After that, you will nurture them by addressing their current problems and building relationship with them, which will turn them into paying customers.
When you acquire high-quality leads, you increase your potential of earning more revenue and growing your business.
But there are different types of leads based on how they are qualified or how you acquire them through your sales funnel.
Types of Leads
1. Hot Leads
These are leads that have shown strong interest in your business products or services.
These leads have problems they are trying to solve and they see you as a solution to their problem.
They are likely to sign up for a free trial if you are into SaaS business or they are likely to call your sales team if your business provides services.
These leads are likely to be your target audience, they fit your buyer persona which is why they are qualified potential customers.
2. Informational Qualified Leads (IQLs)
IQLs are people searching for information on the web on how to solve their problems.
IQLs Leads may be able to visit your website through search engines while they are searching for information on how to solve their problems.
But they are still in the early stage of the buyer's cycle because they want to know if you can solve their problems.
Hence, they might become a lead by showing interest in your business through the downloading of your free guides or signing up to your email newsletter.
3. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
SQLs are people who have indicated an interest to become your paying customers by filling out your website form to request for more information about your products or services.
SQLs fits your business buyer persona, they are people that your sales team will likely call and follow up with.
4. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
MQLs are people who have engaged with your business promotional materials like signing up on your ads landing page but aren't ready to become paying customers.
MQLs have knowledge about your business, they know what you offer and how you can help them solve their problems, but they just aren't ready to become paying customers at the moment.
We are now done with the meaning of leads and the types of leads you should be aware of.
Let's dive deeper and understand the meaning of lead generation.
What Is a Lead Generation in Online Advertising?
Lead generation in online advertisement is the act of attracting the interest of your potential customers for the output of your business.
This typically involves your target customers voluntarily giving you their contact information for follow-up regarding the benefit they want to derive from your business.
For example, before a law firm can generate quality business leads from their potential customers, they might receive:
If you want to find new qualified leads for your business you need to structure a seamless marketing experience that will make it easy for your target customers to engage happily with your company.
Your website lead-generation strategies should always be valuable enough for your target customers to provide you with their contact details, or schedule a meeting with you.
Lead Generation Process
After having an understanding of what lead generation is, it is now time to know the steps to lead generation process.
1. First, an online user discovers your business website through one of your marketing channels, such as social media channels, or blogs.
2. The website visitor then goes through your website and clicks on your call-to-action button to convert into leads.
3. Your website call-to-action button then takes the visitor to a lead capture page that is designed to capture leads.
4. Once your website visitor has been directed to the lead capture page, your website visitor will fill out a form on the lead capture page in exchange for an offer they are interested in.
Hubspot is a good inbound marketing tool that you can use to start your lead-generation campaign.
It is an all-in-one solution designed for inbound marketing and most of your lead-generation processes can be managed through a single platform.
It comes with great interesting features and most of all, it is free to get started, and it also has a pay-as-you-grow model to make it affordable to small businesses.
Strategies to Generate Qualified Lead For Your Business.
Whether your plan is to buy leads for your business or your plan is to build your own custom lead-generation marketing plan.
You need to know that it will be of great benefit to your business if you have a lead generation strategy that will turn your target customers into happy paying customers.
I know that you are a business owner who is interested in generating quality leads that will turn to profit for your business.
To do this you will need to have marketing strategies to generate qualified leads for your business.
So before you build your lead generation strategy, together let’s take a look at the 7 ways that will be easy for you to generate quality leads that will result in profit for your company.
1. Direct Engagement
If you are into a business that sells high-value products or services, or if your business offers a monthly retainer service, engaging with your target customers directly is a great approach you can generate quality leads to your business.
If your business model deals with a low value with high volume sales, it will not be necessary for you to engage in direct engagement.
You can connect directly with your target customers through your social media channels, email, and phone, or reach them in person after you are done creating a good customer relationship.
For example, let’s say you run an interior design company in Lagos and there are many blocks of duplexes that are built in your office area.
You can call the developers of the property about providing them with an excellent interior service.
This is a perfect example of how you can generate leads in Lagos or any other geographical location where your business can provide service.
2. Generate Leads on LinkedIn
According to research, LinkedIn audience has two times of purchasing power that your online average audience has.
LinkedIn is also known to be very effective for B2B marketing which also yields profitable results.
If you want to generate business opportunities with LinkedIn you need to make connections with your target customers.
Your LinkedIn connections asking for recommendations for a service that your business offers could turn your connection into your next paying customer.
Running LinkedIn ads might be expensive for small businesses to run, but LinkedIn is a great way to generate leads if you have the budget.
You can also use other social media ads to generate leads.
Social media ads have an option that let directly include your lead generation form within your ads.
This ad makes it easy for your target customers to directly fill out your form without taking them off their social media page.
Back to LinkedIn, another way you can get leads on LinkedIn for your business is to connect with your target audience connections.
Engage with their posts by commenting under their posts, and you can also message them directly with your business offers.
Meanwhile, you need to know this approach will only work if it is indicated in their profile and posts that your service is needed.
If not, your messages will be regarded as spam and this can hurt your profile credibility.
3. Make use of search engine PPC campaign
Apart from running social media ads, you can also use Google PPC campaigns or Bing PPC campaigns to advertise to search engine users.
PPC ads campaign will help you to serve your business ads to online users who are actively searching for what your business offers.
For example, let’s say you are a business lawyer trying to increase your law service in Lagos.
You can create a PPC campaign that will target phrases like, “Best business lawyer in Lagos,” or, “best law firm in Lagos.”
Before you run any PPC campaign I want you to know that only 3% of online users convert to paying customers on their first visit to your website.
So what do you do with those target customers that leave your website without making a purchase?
What you need to do is to retarget them with display advertisements that will contain the visual of your business products on any websites that they visited after they left your website.
Online advertisement is the most effective way you can generate leads for your business.
Apart from being effective, it is also less expensive than traditional marketing.
4. Ask for Referrals from Current Happy Customers
You can ask for referrals from your happy customers that enjoyed your products or services.
Customer referrals are one of the oldest strategies that are used for lead-generation campaigns.
You can ask your current customers to share their happy stories about your business products or services with their loved ones who are also in need of the service.
If your business offering is of great quality your customers will refer you to their loved ones for free; another thing you can also do is to set up an incentive system for customer referrals.
For example, let’s say your business is a monthly retainer business.
You can give your current customers a certain percentage off their monthly retainer fee for every paying customer that they refer, or you can give them a coupon code to use on their next payment.
5. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is one of the great strategies to generate qualified leads for your business through the use of content marketing and at the same time to also improve your website traffic.
Guest blogging has many benefits it can provide to your business which include the following:
Guest blogging generates qualified leads for your business from relevant industry websites that don’t compete with you directly.
For example, if you run a law firm, you can guest blog for a news website.
You know that people want to read the news but they might also be interested in legal services, and you will serve as an option to them.
6. Increase your search engine visibility to generate leads
When you increase your website visibility in the search engine you make it easy for your target customers to easily find your business anytime they are actively searching for what you offer.
Keyword research is the first thing you need to do if you want to increase your website visibility.
You need to do proper research on the keywords that your target customers are using to find your business in the search engine.
It might be difficult for you to get these keywords, but with SEO tools like SEMrush it will be easy for you to get these keywords without much stress.
Once you are done with your keyword research, you will write content around it and optimize your website pages with those keywords.
If you are into a business that is highly competitive it will be very difficult for your website to rank organically and become visible to your target customers who are already looking for you, but if you are willing to invest in your business marketing campaign.
You can invest in your website SEO campaign by hiring an SEO expert that will help you acquire consistent quality leads.
7. Offer a valuable resource
Offering a valuable resource to your target customers is another great way you generate leads for your business.
What type of problem can your business help your customers to solve?
Can you offer them a valuable resource like a whitelist, checklist, or pdf file that will help them without eliminating their need to eventually purchase what your business offers.
Let me make this clear by giving you an example; let’s say you are a Lagos-based law firm.
After you are done with your target customer’s keyword research, you decided that your target customers are interested in learning how to file tax refunds for the tax they have paid.
As a result of this, you can compile an eBook that will speak in detail on how they can request their tax refund.
Then you will also write a blog post about it and then request for your target customers to exchange their contact details for the eBook you want to provide to them.
If done properly, your blog post can start generating qualified leads for your business.
An excellent alignment between your blog post, Call-to-action, and valuable resource will result in a higher lead generation method for your business.