Growing your customer base is a vital element of running a business but filling your pipeline with leads that are interested and ready to convert can be difficult.
Digital technology can provide you with the tools and insights that you need to compete in busy markets to find and engage potential leads effectively.
Here are our 6 top tips to improve your lead generating techniques:
Use relevant social media platforms
Using social media platforms to attract leads isn’t a ground-breaking technique but it’s certainly an effective option. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or one of the many growing numbers of platforms available, the key is to target specific communities and audiences that will be receptive to your messages. You could share useful content, monitor conversations that are happening in your industry, connect with key influencers and develop your online presence. Start developing value based relationships before moving in with sales messages.
Use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to identify key characteristics
Use the data you hold on your existing customers to identify the key characteristics of your high- and low-value customers. Understanding these characteristics will help you to focus on generating leads from the customers that are going to be most valuable to your company rather than those that will cost you more to acquire than they are worth.
Use email marketing automation to establish best practice
Email marketing automation systems are not only valuable for saving you time and effort in how you manage your campaigns but they can also help you to determine best practice such as how and when you send your communications. Test out different sending times, subject lines, key messages and days of the week. You can determine when your different marketing messages are most effective and shape your email marketing strategy around this information.
Improve team communication for lead nurturing
Is there an issue arising in how you generate leads or how you transfer them from a lead into a customer? A communications system such as Voice over IP or live chat could enable more effective communications between the marketing and sales teams. Direct, dedicated communication methods and specific marketing criteria for their value, urgency and needs requirements can help them team to handle leads more effectively throughout the entire process.
Use marketing automation to score leads
Marketing automation can help you to score your leads based on their activity with your brand. You can shape and target your marketing activity accordingly to deliver targeted messaging via email and social media channels until those leads are ready to convert.
Use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to create awareness
Just a few changes to how you optimise your website for search engines can help to drive higher volumes of interested traffic to your website and improve your ranking in the search engine results pages. Read our top tips piece on how to improve your brand’s online visibility and attract a greater number of engaged leads for you to follow up on through your site.