Lead Generation
Every company has to find the right customers for its products or services. It is one of the most challenging tasks in the marketing and sales departments. The first step is to draw attention to the company’s own offer with various advertising and marketing measures, for example via a website. If the website visitors signal their interest by leaving their contact details, we speak of leads.
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Leads are data
A lead, or in the plural leads, is contact information that a prospective customer voluntarily provides to a company. This can be, for example, the name and the e-mail address for receiving a newsletter. If the company is not initially aware of any further information, this is referred to as a cold lead. The task of lead management is then to further qualify this data. If the interests of the website visitor become clearer through further measures, one speaks of a warm lead or qualified lead. If a purchase intention is already apparent, this is called a Sales Accepted Lead. In the company, this means that the information is transferred from marketing to sales. The lead generation was successful.
Generating a qualified lead from a cold lead is the task of lead management. Their primary task is lead generation. This task can be done internally by the companies or by using a lead generation agency.
The long road to the Qualified Lead
In most cases, the starting point for lead generation is the so-called customer journey. This describes a typical customer behaviour, for example on a website. All points of contact that are suitable for lead generation and enable communication with the interested party are referred to as touchpoints. Leads can be generated or qualified at each of these touchpoints. Signing up for a newsletter is one of these important touchpoints.
In order to offer added value to the website visitor on his customer journey and answer his questions, requirements for user-friendliness of the landing page, informative content, compliance with data protection standards and low-threshold contact options must be offered. The potential lead must feel comfortable and informed. Then the willingness to provide contact data increases and subsequently the purchase intention.
The path from the first contact of a potential customer with the website to a qualified lead is divided into a four-stage process. Each individual phase has its own characteristics. For this reason, some companies also rely on the support of a lead generation agency.
At the beginning, there is almost always the cold lead as the starting point of lead generation. Marketing is usually responsible for this. This is why these leads, which usually contain only a few contact details, are also called Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL). The information is not yet sufficient for sales. Therefore, the second phase of lead generation begins with so-called lead nurturing. This refers to the lead management measures that help to qualify the lead, i.e. to collect more information. An informative and comprehensive content offer is particularly suitable for this. For example, further information can be collected via an offered download link for a white paper. In addition, the interest in a white paper can provide information about the intentions of the lead. A cold lead becomes a warm lead, which can then already be called a Sales Accepted Lead (SAL).
However, the leads in this category still have very different purchase intentions or interest preferences. Therefore, in the next phase, lead scoring, they are categorised and prioritised based on various parameters. All the information collected so far is assigned point values, the scores. Good scoring quality depends on a valid database and a flexible and intelligent scoring system. Leads with the best scores are then passed on to sales as so-called Sales Qualified Leads (SQL).
Generate leads
To generate leads, specially created landing pages have become established in practice at most companies. A landing page is therefore the linchpin of professional lead generation and should be the subject of accompanying marketing measures. This includes, for example, an accompanying social media campaign in which reference is made to the landing page. For the page to function in terms of lead generation, it must fulfill some basic conditions. For example, the advertised product or service must be the focus of the page and it must be able to answer all of the visitor’s questions. In order for the page to offer high-quality content, it is necessary to know the needs of the visitors. According to the old marketing motto “The bait must be to the liking of the fish, not the angler”, the relevance of the content is the primary goal.
The next step is to encourage the visitor to take action, also called call-to-action. This can be achieved by subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a whitepaper or brochure, or by offering direct advice. It is important to have a clear contact form in which only the most important data is initially entered. If a company wants to ask for too much information at this point, there is a risk of losing the visitor and the lead generation was then unsuccessful.
Successful lead management constantly optimises
Generating leads is a demanding task for marketing departments. Therefore, it is important to permanently analyse and adapt the measures. The focus of lead generation is not the quantity of generated leads, but their quality. The use of a lead generation agency can help here. In addition, various tools have proven to be useful supplements in practice, such as a professional CRM system. Social media platforms also offer great benefits in lead generation. Depending on the target group, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are particularly suitable. On the one hand, the platforms can refer directly to the landing page via posts as part of a social media strategy. On the other hand, the platforms also offer paid lead generation models.
Professional lead generation offers companies the chance to significantly increase their sales figures and achieve their sales goals. For this, lead management must proceed with a clear strategy, defined goals and customer-oriented measures. Studies show time and again that companies that perform worse in competition usually neglect their lead management or don’t do it at all.