What is Lead Generation? Complete Details
Leads are people who indicate interest in a company’s products or services by providing information about themselves.
They usually receive a response after opening communication, and they don’t get cold calls from people who bought their contact information.
After completing an online survey, you might receive an email from an auto company that suggests how they can help you take care of your vehicle. This process would be less intrusive than if the company had just called you out of the blue and told you that they could help you.
The information collected from the survey helps the company identify areas of concern that you might have and improve the communication between itself and you. It also helps them avoid calling potential customers who aren’t interested in buying auto services.
A lead is a part of the customer’s overall lifecycle, which includes the various steps in the sales process. Different types of leads are created based on their characteristics and the stage they’re in.
There are four types of leads:
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL):
A marketing qualified lead is someone who has engaged with your marketing team but isn’t ready to receive a call to make a sales offer. An example of this is a contact who has filled out a landing page form for a potential offer.
Product Qualified Lead (PQL):
A product qualified lead (PQL) is someone who has used your product and taken action that indicates they’re interested in becoming a paying customer. These types of leads usually exist for companies that offer a free or limited version of your product, which allows them to upgrade. Your sales team can then help them identify potential customers who are interested in upgrading. For instance, a PQL might be a customer who is using your free version but asks about the additional features that are only available after paying.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL):
A sales qualified lead is a person who has taken the actions that indicate they are interested in becoming a customer. An example of a lead is a contact who fills out an inquiry form to ask a question about a particular service or product.
Service Qualified Lead:
A service qualified lead is someone who has indicated that they’re interested in purchasing a product or service. They can be either a customer service representative or a potential sales representative. For instance, a service qualified lead might be a person who says that they’d like to get a product subscription upgrade. The customer service representative then raises the prospect to the appropriate sales team.
Need of Lead Generation Process
When a stranger introduces themselves to you and shows interest in your business, it’s more natural for you to become their customer.
The second stage of inbound marketing is lead generation. It occurs after you’ve attracted a potential customer and are ready to convert them into sales leads.
A lead generation process is a vital part of any person’s journey to becoming a satisfied customer.
Lead Generation Process:
Here, we will walk through the various steps in the lead generation process that are part of an inbound marketing strategy.
- A visitor will first come across your website or blog. They will then navigate through various marketing channels to find your business.
- After navigating through various marketing channels, a visitor will click on a call-to-action, which is an image or message that encourages them to take action.
- Landing pages are web pages that are designed to capture leads in exchange for an offer.
- After clicking on the landing page, a visitor will then complete a form in exchange for the offer. These are typically hosted on the page, though they can also be embedded on other websites. Once the form is complete, you have a new lead.
How to Qualify a Lead:
In the previous section, we talked about the various ways in which a lead can be used to show interest in a particular product or service. Now, we’ll talk about the ways in which a lead can actually show interest.
A sales lead is generated by collecting information about a potential customer. This could be done by a job seeker completing an application form, sharing contact information with a fellow shopper, or by someone filling out a form to download educational content.
Lead Generation Strategies:
There are various strategies and tactics that can be used to capture leads online. We talked about the best practices for lead capture once a visitor has come to your site.
Facebook Lead Generation:
Since its inception, Facebook has been a method for generating leads. In the past, companies could use information in their bios and posts to attract potential customers. However, after the introduction of Facebook Ads in 2007, the platform started favoring accounts that used paid advertising.
Facebook has also started developing Lead Ads, which allow companies to create a simple call-to-action button that can be placed at the top of their page. This feature can be used to send Facebook followers to their website.
Twitter Lead Generation:
Twitter’s Lead Gen Cards allow you to generate leads directly within a single tweet. Users’ names, email addresses, and Twitter usernames are automatically included in the card. They just have to click “submit” to become a part of the network.
LinkedIn Lead Generation:
Since its early days, LinkedIn has been investing in the advertising industry. One of the company’s most recent initiatives was the creation of Lead Gen Forms, which allows users to automatically populate their profiles with information when they click a CTA.
PPC Lead Generation:
PPC stands for “pay-per-click,” and refers to ads that appear on search engine result pages. Google gets around 3.5 billion searches a day, and this makes it incredibly valuable for any ad campaign. The effectiveness of your campaign depends on various factors, such as the budget, the target keywords, and the user flow.
B2B Lead Generation:
The B2B model is a particular type of business that requires a specific approach to lead generation. According to a study conducted by Smart Insights, referrals are the most effective way to capture leads, though effectiveness varies depending on the channel.
Conclusion:
After learning how to generate leads for your company, we recommend that you try out the free lead generation tool from HubSpot. This tool will allow you to analyze and improve the effectiveness of your website’s lead generation efforts. It will also help you identify which content and actions are most likely to convert your visitors.
In this blog post, we talked about the basics of inbound lead generation, but we’ll cover some of the more important steps that you should take to improve your lead quality. One of the most important steps that you should take is to regularly monitor and test your lead generation process. Doing so will allow you to identify areas where you can improve and make improvements to your sales.