ZoomInfo has gathered quite informative statistics on lead generation and we would like to share some of them with you.
- Email marketing, event marketing and content marketing are the most popular lead generation strategies among B2B marketers.
- Organic reach, SEM/PPC advertising and word of mouth are the top lead generation sources for B2B software marketers.
- 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales and the main reason is lack of lead nurturing.
Let’s start with the fundamentals of lead generation. In order to acquire a single lead you need to have these 4 core components: Offer, Call-to-Action (CTA), landing page (LP) and a form. We will go over each one with details in order to maximize your understanding of the mechanics and how to use them best.
OFFER
If we think about our job as marketers, technically what we are trying to accomplish is to get our potential customers to say “yes, I want this!” Things like limited time, scarcity of resources or exclusiveness tend to make your audience overcome their doubts and actually fill out the form. You have to offer your target consumers more value in exchange for the information you require in order to convert them from visitors into leads. Let’s see how we can make our offers more compelling: 1. Scarcity – scarcity is a great way to influence your consumers to buy your products/services. In a situation of limited supply, demand naturally goes up and makes people want something more than usual and thus, creates a sense of urgency. You can use 3 types of scarcity: Limited time offers, limited quantity offers and limited time and quantity offers combined. 2. The Social Effect – we as people tend to follow each other a lot. We like being a part of a larger group and community and tend to follow our social circle of people like friends, family, staff etc. A great way to make your offer stand out is to show that other people are taking part in it which makes it more desirable. 3. Newsjacking – when there is something going on in the world regarding for example celebrities, people often tend to copy it to get the feel of the dream they want to be a part of. Be on the lookout for world news and if you see a good opportunity, don’t hesitate to make it into an offer before somebody else does it before you! 4. Title – even if you have the best content in the world about a specific topic, no one is going to download it if it’s got a poor title. Think about it, when you yourself are surfing around the web, the first thing you pay attention to is the title about anything posted for the public to see. If the title doesn’t cut it, the content is losing its value, so take your time to create an amazing title for your content. 5. Content for all of the Buyers Journey stages – An important thing to know is that not all of your potential customers are in the same stage of the Buyer’s Journey. Some of them might be in the decision stage and would rather have a demo or a free trial, others might in the awareness stage and a guide or an eBook might be more suitable for them. It’s essential not to be picky, but create content for each stage of the Buyer’s Journey and include CTAs to guide them through it. 6. Overused phrases – There is a number of overused phrases and words that are used to greatly emphasize an aspect of your offer that have been used so much they are worthless now and might actually even harm your efforts. Here is a list of words you should avoid using in your offers: Next generation, flexible, easy to use, cutting edge, scalable etc. 7. Formats – content comes in many different types of format and it’s important for you to determine which type suits your business most. Make your offers in different formats like eBooks, guides, videos, demos, blogs, demo requests etc. and do some testing to understand which of those works best for you.
CALL-TO-ACTION
CTAs are an essential component of your offer that make people say “yes” to your offers. If the CTAs are bad at grabbing attention and making your audience want to click, the whole offer suddenly becomes useless. You have to make CTAs that will convince your potential consumers to choose your product over your competitors. How to make these effective CTAs? 8. Visibility – place the CTAs in spots that are easy to see. That will usually make the top of your offer, when people can see it with having to scroll all the way down to the bottom. Studies have shown that only 50% of your visitors will scroll down to the very end of the offer page and that is a huge number. It can also be a good idea to put them on the side of your offer, or use both methods. 9. Being Clear – this is probably the most important aspect of any CTA. Marketers often tend to be creative in their work, which results in a loss of potential leads. Always be crystal clear with what you offer with your CTA. If it’s an eBook, say “ Download your FREE eBook”, if it’s a trial, say “ Begin your FREE trial”. Avoid being generic and be specific: “Download Article”, “Download Now” aren’t to the point examples, avoid using those. 10. Contrast – you want to make your CTAs be seen by as many people as possible. Using contrast is a great way to accomplish this task and make your CTAs stand out from the rest of your website design or offer. 11. CTA link to LP – this is really a minor point, but it’s really important and lots of people skip this opportunity. CTAs are meant to take your visitor directly to the landing page that actually contains the offer. Do NOT link a CTA to your homepage or resources page. When people click on the CTA, they expect to see exactly what you mentioned in the CTA, and not to browse around your website to find it. 12. Promotions – not all CTAs are meant to be of the same shape and size. If you have numerous offers it’s a good idea to consider placing CTAs inside your offers to promote additional offers that are relevant to the content they are in. 13. Use Thank You pages – even after a visitor submits your form and becomes a lead, there is still a chance to offer some additional content related to the topic that addresses their needs. Thank you pages, the pages where a visitor is taken to after they submit the information on the LP, are a great way to do it. Use the vast open space of thank you pages to make additional offers to your freshly converted leads. All right! We are half through our guide and it’s a good idea to take a short break and get a cup of coffee. In the meanwhile lets sum up everything we have learned so far: To convert high quality leads we need to have 4 fundamental components: Offer, CTA, LP and a form. To make our offers more valuable we should implement elements of scarcity, use the social effect, stay alert for big news, create content for every stage of the Buyers Journey with amazing titles in different formats and avoid using “overused” words and phrases. Now that we have our great offer, it’s time to make an eye catchy, crystal clear, visible CTA and link it to the corresponding LP. Don’t forget to promote your other related products/services within offers and use Thank You pages to your strengths. Ready to continue? Let’s move on!
LANDING PAGES
LPs are an important element of your overall lead generation. Their main and only role is to direct your visitors to the offer you provide and have them complete the form and get converted into a lead. Let’s dive in and understand what key aspects a great LP should have: 14. Elements – every LP should include the following elements: A headline and a sub headline, short, to the point description of the offer, 1 or more relative pictures and a form to get the information of the visitors. 15. Navigation – Once a visitor arrives at your LP, you want to keep them there without getting distracted by anything. Any links to your website pages or other offers might avert them and decrease their chances of getting converted. Make sure you simply remove all navigation from your LP. 16. Consistent headlines – Make sure that both your CTA and LP headlines read the same text. This might seem something general, but in reality it’s a crucial step to take. If for example your CTA says that your offer is free and LP requires any amount of money, even a tiny bit, you will instantly lose trust and people will just close your LP. In another case if your CTA and LP headlines are different, this can create a confusion and misleading thoughts that maybe your CTA is linked to a wrong LP. So make sure you get that one right. 17. Less is effective – remember that your LP is there only to convert your visitors. Include some brief information about the offer, add some bullet points along with an image and don’t go too far in your explanations. You don’t want to distract your visitors with anything until they actually fill out your form. 18. Bullet points – Always include a few bullet points regarding some main features of your offer under the short description. You want to make sure your visitors understand the value they get in exchange for the information they provide you with. 19. Social Sharing – Always include social media sharing buttons somewhere on your LP (usually on the bottom) and don’t forget about email, since your visitors might have different sharing preferences. The more people visit your LP, the more leads you will generate! 20. More LPs! – pretty straightforward right? The more offers and LPs you have, the more visitors and potential leads you can acquire. Keep them coming!
FORMS
Forms are the most important part of your LP. If you don’t have a form, you can’t convert any leads. Let’s find out what should great forms look like: 21. Form Length – when it comes to the length of the form, there is really no right or wrong answer. My advice will be to have as much as you need to get the necessary information. Also consider the stages of the Buyer’s Journey: if it’s an awareness stage offer, you may want to include less fields so it’s less work for the visitor, but if say it’s a decision stage content, you may require some more. Experiment with different lengths and find what suits you best. 22. Submission Button – Never have your submission button actually read the word “submit”. None of your visitors are willing to submit their information to you and reading that word will decrease your conversion rates drastically. Put a word that matches your offer best, for example if your offer is an eBook, say “Download eBook” or if it’s a free trial, say “Start your FREE trial”. 23. Security – Nowadays more and more people are unwilling to submit their information anywhere due to lots of spam happening around. Try to reduce their concerns by adding security signs and get them to know that their shared information will remain private. 24. Smaller Forms – Research shows that a visitor might be reluctant to fill out the form simply because it looks long. Including 3-4 fields (name, email, position, company in case of B2B sales) are maybe the best option both for your lead and your company as the visitor will save time and you will receive enough information to qualify your new lead.
MULTICHANNEL LEAD GENERATION
You should never focus on one particular channel. Remember that different people have different preferences and you should at least be using all the most popular channels out there. Let’s see which channels are those: 25. Blogging – Blogging is an effective lead generation technique. Research has proven that companies which blog have higher conversion rates. Write blog posts for your corresponding offers and include CTAs that will direct your readers to LPs. 26. Email – Lot of people think that email is only good when communicating with existing customers, but they are wrong. Emails are a great channel to generate new leads. Focus on sending valuable offers, include sharing buttons and avoid being spammy. 27. Social media – Social media is a great channel to greatly increase your reach and find more people that are in need of your content. Take advantage of it and follow these steps to make the most out of your social media campaigns:
- Build followers with the help of the great content you share. Be consistent about it and you will get them.
- Remember that you are posting for people not machines. Take your time to write your post so that people will want to click and read it.
- Use your connections to influence sharing. The more people see your content – the better chance for you to convert leads.
28. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – it is very important for people to be able to find your content and LPs with search engines. In order to make this happen you should pay a good amount of attention to the keywords you use for each LP and invest quite some time in research. Pick a keyword that describes your LP best and construct everything around that keyword. Also include keywords in your headlines, the body of your text, any related images and Meta Description of your offer. 29. Offers within Offers – Do not miss out the opportunity to make an additional offer to your visitors, while they are viewing something else. Related links and CTAs that offer something regarding the same topic can greatly increase your lead generation efforts. 30. A/B Testing – your final step should always be testing. Until you test something out, you cannot be sure if it’s doing its job or not. Consider A/B testing in your LPs, forms, CTAs etc. Okay! What a fun read right? Let’s sum up the second part of our guide and see what we learned: LPs should include 4 key components – a headline, which corresponds to the CTA and sub headline, brief description of the offer followed by important bullet points, 1 or more relative images and a form to complete. The LP should not be over packed with information, but be to the point. All navigation and links must be removed and social sharing buttons should be included. Lastly you want to have as many LPs and offers as you can! Do not forget about the first impression: your visitors know whether they like your LP or not from the 1st second they see it, so make sure whatever you create is visually appealing. The length of our LP form should be as long as we need to get the required information taking into consideration the Buyer’s Journey. Security signs should be applied to reduce visitor anxiety and our submission button should read exactly what our visitors will get after filling out the form. Again, remember the visual part: make the form appear as shorter and as appealing as you can. Finally, you should utilize all the channels you can reach your visitors with. Blogging, Emails, Social Media, keyword research and SEO, more offers within your existing ones are solid ways to accomplish your task. Lastly do not forget about testing! Test out as much stuff as you can and as frequently as you can to achieve the highest results! With this, our guide is over and I hope that you learned a lot from it. On final note I want to stress the point that those aren’t the only techniques you should utilize to improve your lead generation. Test and experiment with different methods to find out new ways of improving your results! If you have any comments or suggestions you would like to share, please leave them in the comments below!
Next Steps
If you would like to learn more about these techniques and get some visual examples download our free Ebook: 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips ( FREE eBook)
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