Building a “high-level” lead generation system takes an understanding of your customers, a belief in the value you provide, and an intricate, multi-pronged process that utilizes marketing materials and modern technology. Leads generally mean people who have indicated a keen interest in your company’s products or services. That interest can come in a myriad of ways, but most commonly in the form of a completed online survey, subscription to an email newsletter, free trial, or free product. There are many different kinds of leads, and even the quality of the lead can range from casually uninterested to willing to make a purchase asap. Leads can engage with your marketing but be more hesitant to receive a sales call while others could engage from similar material with the intent to become a paying customer. They could have interacted with your product either through a free trial or gift offer, or may already be paying customers but want to level up their subscription or purchases with you. Thus, to build a high-level lead generating system, you must first identify the process you will use to attract potential prospects and how you will keep them interested in your business until they are satisfied enough to make an actual purchase.
Creating a Hybrid Approach to Google
At this time, Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, commanding almost 92% of the worldwide market share according to Hubspot. Until that market share drastically changes, how Google finds and categorizes search results is the industry standard.
To rank high on Google, MGG Digital has found that two key elements are prioritized: search engine optimization and Google’s own Adwords (or GoogleAds). Google’s goal is two-fold – it wants to generate revenue for the company, but it also wants to make sure that a search result returns the best and most accurate answer to a user’s inputted query. Your approach to Google must also be two-fold, or “hybridized” as MGG Digital sometimes refers to it. A high-level lead generation system must include a strategic blend of SEO and paid ads, continuously fine-tuned each month to maximize the number of quality leads.
One crucial starting point for SEO is identifying commonly searched but under-utilized keywords to incorporate into your web content. This goal aims to have your site rank higher on search engines when these words are imputed into a search engine. Identifying these words can be challenging and requires you to have a firm understanding of your customers and the type of value you want your business to create. By creating high-traffic pages like blogs or FAQs, populated with searchable words or phrases, MGG Digital aims to attract organic traffic and establish your site as a valuable resource for customers.
Google Ads operates in a similar fashion. This platform’s purpose is essentially to help businesses reach potential customers by displaying ads across various platforms. To run an effective Ads campaign, you would start by selecting the appropriate campaign type, such as search, display, video, or shopping ads. Each type offers unique benefits for targeting and engagement.
Choosing the right keywords is crucial; these should also align with what potential customers are searching for to boost your site’s ranking. To prioritize your position using these keywords, Google has bidding options, such as cost-per-click (how much you pay per time the ad is clicked), cost-per-mile (how much you pay per 1000-people seeing your ad), and cost-per-engagement (how much you pay when someone engages with your ad). Ad Rank, determined by your ad’s quality and bid amount, affects your ad’s placement and visibility. You can also target ads based on location, ensuring they reach the right audience. At the end of the day, crafting compelling ad copy and using keyword match types strategically can enhance ad relevance and effectiveness, helping you maximize your marketing budget.
High Quality Content
If you want high quality leads, you need to publish high quality content. Great copywriting simultaneously uses SEO-focused keywords in the body of content while letting words flow in an engaging and readable manner. If that content is poorly written, convoluted, or just generally unengaging, people will tune out. Google also takes note of this as it can monitor the usability of a page based on how long people engage with it. Blog articles, for example, are a great way to establish your authority as a product expert while teaching your readers some new concepts and ways to improve their own lives. Social media posts, whether paid or organic, visual or text, can peak lead interest with an attractive offer, an amusing joke, behind the scenes snapshot, or interactive question designed to produce conversation and engagement. These examples of content are not meant for pushy advertisements or disruptive promotions. High quality content is engaging content where the audience responds emotionally without feeling like they are being sold something.
Setting Up Your Lead Funnel
Creating high quality content in a lead generation system should perform the function of sending people to a sales funnel. Somewhere on said content should contain a Call-To-Action (C-T-A). The C-T-A can be a button, a link, or directions to go to a specific address. Regardless of form, its function is to encourage the user to do something.
The CTA will then take the lead to a Landing Page. This could be part of your main website or microsite, but here is where the lead fills out their information in exchange for the thing that was offered in the Call-To-Action. Most likely, the lead will input their email address.
Generally, the content to landing page process is the basic formula for a solid lead generation system. The trick is creating a strategy that is not only compelling enough to attract prospects and turn them into interested leads, but to have your system constantly running so that leads can turn up almost automatically from any time or place.
Using a Customer Relationship Management System
The information a lead puts into your landing page needs to go somewhere. For a high-level lead generation system, that somewhere should be a central database where all prospect and customer information is organized and accessible. There are commonly three types of CRM software. Operational CRM streamlines business processes like sales and customer service automation, saving time on repetitive tasks. Collaborative CRM integrates communication across departments, keeping data up-to-date and accessible. Analytical CRM focuses on data analysis, helping businesses understand customer behaviours in order to refine their strategies. Companies can use these CRM types individually or together to optimize efficiency and achieve specific business goals.
Perhaps the most popular CRM system is Hubspot. When looking for any CRM software, however, you want it to offer seamless integration with your existing software, allowing you to manage everything from data organization to payroll tracking in one place. This eliminates the need to switch between systems, streamlining your processes and enhancing the customer experience. It also facilitates collaboration by enabling all departments to access the same information, whether in the office or remotely, ensuring consistent and unified customer service. Many CRM’s like Hubspot contain built-in analytical tools to report insights into customer behaviour, helping you tailor marketing strategies, identify leads, and strengthen customer relationships. Perhaps most importantly, especially with contemporary concerns about cyber attacks and data mining, you want your CRM to have robust security features like encryption and data backups to safeguard your business and your customer data. Regardless of what software you choose, a CRM is crucial to managing the leads you generate.
Post-Lead Generation Follow-Up: Emails & Social
Creating content for your new leads is as important as creating content to attract leads. Following up with prospects via email as well as on social media (to your existing subscribers) involves creating valuable offers that align with your target consumer’s needs. These offers should address common questions or problems, positioning your business as a helpful resource. This strategy is often referred to as value exchange. The business provides the lead valuable content, and the lead either subscribes to the business or enters contact information to be followed up on with offers. Value exchange can build trust and encourage prospects to engage further.
Email is a great way to stay in contact with those leads who have subscribed to your brand. You can include in emails to your prospects many offers to encourage a purchase at a reduced price or even free of charge entirely such as an ebook, webinar, or some other form of exclusive content only available to your email list. Informative content can also be included to keep nurturing the lead’s interest in your brand. As long as you don’t overdo it, consistent communication through email newsletters is a rewarding strategy to keep your customers engaged until they are ready to make a purchase.
Offers can also be made on social media. To be most effective here requires an understanding of the customers you want to attract. What problems do they have that you want to highlight? What kind of lifestyle do they have that you can help improve immediately? Pain points, financial situation, common behaviours, interests, buying patterns, and trends are all elements that you can cover to entice your subscribers to engage. A/B testing these posts with keywords can help you maximize conversions with the best content.
Post-Lead Generation Follow-Up: Outbound Sales
Equally important is the creation of a personalized sales outreach team or follow-up strategy. Tailored, direct communication to each prospect should contain the most relevant information about their industry, pain points, and goals without seeming like information dumps. If your team is calling or even emailing prospects, you don’t want to sound like a telemarketer or spam. The more personalized your outreach, the more valued the prospect will feel. Just as you would A/B test marketing materials for effectiveness, you can also set key performance indicators (KPI), such as conversion rates, form optimization, lead scoring grades to prioritize what type of outreach your team can focus on. It is important to regularly review any data collected to identify not just areas of improvement, but that you are hitting as many avenues that would lead to your targeted leads. The better you get at this, the higher level your lead generation system will be.
Building a high-level lead generation system requires a meticulous and strategic approach. Focusing on creating valuable, high-quality content and optimizing it for search engines will attract potential leads and guide them through a well-structured funnel. Consistent and personalized communication followed by a robust conversion strategy to nurture and convert leads to paying customers contribute to a high-level lead generation system. At the end of the day, you know the value of your company through the pain points it is designed to solve. The trick is to make both your current customers as well as potential leads see your company through your perspective and understand how you can make their lives better.