Lead generation funnel
Website visitors does not become customers right away. The chances are they would like to learn more about your company and products before they make the final decision to purchase.
Experience showed marketers that instead of selling right away they have to start building relationships with potential customers first. In other words: they should get leads first which latter they will try to convert into paying customers.
What is a lead?
A lead is a person or entity that has innitial interest in a product or a service. He (it) has the potential to become paying customer. This is everyone who has visited your company’s website and decided to stay connected with you in some way: by subscribing to your blog or for your newsletter, by connecting with you on social media channels or even by bookmarking your URL in his browser for latter visit.
Why do I need leads?
For some types of products people can make fast decisions whether or not they would like to purchase or not. Ordering pizza online is a really easy choice to make, especially if you’re hungry. However, buying a marketing software for your company often involves discussing it with at least your CEO or/and several other board members before to make a decision.
7 easy steps for building qualified leads:
1. Know your audience
First thing first. You must know who are your target customers and you have to be every specific about it. This means being aware what are their biggest concerns, desires, interests, where they are searching for information and looking for help (search engines, forums, friends, etc.). This will allow you not only to understand what to offer them as a product/service but you will also get a clearer idea of how to reach them.
2. Let potentional customers learn about your existance
If you know your customers, you will know where to find them.
Ask yourself what are the communities and forums where they gather to interact and exchange information. Are there any Facebook or LinkedIn groups, Google+ communities, subreddits or Twitter hashtags somehow related to your business? Is there a media or a blog covering your industry? Are people using search engines to find solutions to problems you’re solving?
The next step is to reach those people and to introduce yourself. Try to learn as much as you can about them. Let them know how you can solve their issues but without forcing them to purchase. Invite them to your website so they can get to know your business better.
3. Build your website easy to understand
There are so many companies that are doing this step wrong. Website visitors should be able to learn what is your business all about just from one simple look at your homepage. If you can’t explain your product in 1-2 sentences then you’re in a serious trouble.
Make the navigation as natural as possible for the visitor. If he’s inniatially interested in your product, make it easy for him to find sections such as “features”, “pricing”, “blog” and “contacts”.
4. Show credibility
By credibility I mean “trustworthiness”. People should believe that this is a real business they can trust. They need to be sure that your product or service is really as good as you’re presenting it.
Ways to do this is by:
- highlighting the media where your company has been featured,
- publishing quotes or interview of people using your product
- showing statistics and trends proving the usefulness of service.
- providing good customer service and fast response to questions
- presenting your team on your website
- adding your business on various directories
- setting up the physical location of your business on Google Places, Facebook, Foursquare, etc.
5. Give something valuable for free
To make your visitor wanting to stay connected with your business, you should provide him with some kind of value for free. This might be a free trial of your product, educational and interesting blog posts, e-books, webinars, etc. Whatever it is it has one purpose: to keep your leads engaged about whatever you’re offering.
6. Ask to connect in return
Every time you offer something, you should ask for something in return that leads to deeper engagement. Tell your visitors to subscribe to your blog, register for your webinar or to download your e-book. If somebody wants a free trial, ask for his details first: name, company, occupation, etc. Know your limits of how personal you are allowed to go, however keep in mind that a better understanding of your leads will bring you higher conversion.
7. Provide more value and build relationships
Simply keep doing what you’re doing. Blog often, imbrace innovation, share your passion and build real relationships with people. Leads are converting into customers with time. This is why you need persistence.
Great tips Martin. Business leads in order to grow. It is important that you fill your pipeline with leads, this will get you ahead of your competitors.
Thanks for the comment! The next step is converting leads into to paying customers and I believe this is a challenge for many companies as well. I will try to write a blog post about this soon enough.