Acquiring new customers is a priority among most marketers today, but it can be difficult to know how to find and engage new leads.
Here at The Motion Agency, we build lead generation programs from the ground up. We’ve spent years engaging new leads and customers for clients across industries, tapping into key and niche audiences to drive results. And through it all, we’ve learned a few things.
Here is what you need to know to strengthen your lead generation program and drive success.
1. Know the goal and define it.
The importance of establishing goals cannot be stressed enough.
Start by asking internal stakeholders, including sales and the executive team, what success looks like. Then, quantify as much as possible. Everyone should agree on the campaign objectives, goals and KPIs to ensure the remainder of the strategic planning process is efficient and effective.
The planning phase is a critical time to be realistic with projections, establish criteria and tiers for leads, and set metrics that will measure results. Remember, quantity rarely wins over quality when it comes to new leads. Although there may be times when your company aims for high lead volume, such as during a trade show, qualified leads will move through the sales funnel more easily and can be turned over to the sales team more quickly.
What’s more, when companies are looking at lead generation numbers, they are really thinking about converting them to sales. That means a big part of this step is ensuring that everyone agrees on exactly where lead generation activity stops, sales conversion starts and who is responsible and accountable for each step.
2. Determine criteria for lead scoring.
Historical data is the best place to start when figuring out how to score leads for your business. Look at the firmographics of your best customers along with the behaviors of your current leads.
Current customers are a great source for understanding the characteristics of what will make an ideal lead. You can define company size, geography, functional titles and more. Look for how much engagement you get from your email outreach, website visits and social media followers. This information will drive insights into what will make a lead more likely to convert. That is, determine which attributes matter most and assign a numerical score to each lead accordingly.
3. Expand media channel choices.
When determining your media strategy, look at the widest variety of sources that might drive traffic to your landing page or website, and incorporate them into your media plan. The more fully integrated your campaign is, with multiple strategically placed touch points, the better your odds of achieving engagement—which makes your lead more qualified.
Consider the advantages of a strategy that includes paid, earned and owned media. The idea is to establish a test matrix and optimize accordingly.
4. Develop content and offers to refresh the messaging.
Unless you’re promoting a specific event, chances are your campaign is scheduled to be in market over an extended period of time. Be sure to keep it interesting by refreshing the messaging at regular intervals.
One of the best ways to engage target audiences previously exposed to your campaign is to introduce new content and offers that include an added sense of urgency. For example, a current client campaign we have in market includes gated content, a sweepstakes and, finally, a rebate.
5. Report and optimize often.
Keeping in mind the KPIs you established with your goals, you will need to set up tracking tools such as Google Analytics or other marketing automation platforms to monitor the performance of your campaigns. You will also need to implement tracking codes or pixels on your website and landing pages to collect data on visitor behavior and conversions. Additionally, you should create unique URLs for each campaign to track traffic sources and campaign effectiveness.
Pull and display data monthly in a way that is meaningful. That way, you can analyze the data collected to help you detect insights and optimize your campaigns.
Gaining traction and keeping up the momentum of a lead generation program, let alone starting one, can be challenging, but keeping these tips in mind will set your campaign for success—and deliver new, highly qualified leads in the process.
Reach out today to strengthen your lead generation program with Motion.
