What you’ll learn about building a successful lead generation strategy:

• Lead generation is the process of attracting people to your brand and products.
• Not all leads are built the same.  
• Your lead generation and content marketing strategies will work hand in hand. 
• Lead generation needs to account for different personas.

As a marketer, there’s one primary goal that guides all of your activities: attracting new customers. All the content, targeted communications, ads, and brand messaging you put out into the world are designed to capture people’s attention, showcase how your product can solve their problems, and encourage them to buy it. How you go about meeting this goal can draw the line between being annoying and disruptive or engaging and inspiring. 

This process of getting new customers to interact with your brand and travel through the path to purchase is also known as lead generation. In this post, we’re exploring what lead generation is and sharing our tips and tricks for getting it right. 

Let’s get started.

What Is Lead Generation?

To understand lead generation, you first have to know what a lead is. 

A lead is someone who has indicated interest in your brand by downloading a gated asset after sharing their contact information, filling out your “Contact Us” form, or signing up for a conference or webinar. It then follows that lead generation is the process of attracting prospects so that they actively share information or connect with your brand.

While most leads might engage with your brand in a similar way, it’s important to note that not all leads are the same. 

• A marketing qualified lead (MQL) has engaged with content from the marketing team, but isn’t yet ready to chat with the sales team. This could be someone who’s downloaded a whitepaper about how your product serves their industry.
• A sales qualified lead (SQL) is someone who has actively expressed their interest in your product or service. For example: they have filled out your contact form with a question around how your product compares to your competitors.
• A product qualified lead (PQL) has used a free or trial version of a product and has indicated that they would like to learn about additional premium features or upgrade to the paid version.

As such, your lead generation strategy should account for each of these categories, curating the types of content and communications to these categories and their stage in the marketing funnel. 

Why Is It Important?

The days of cold calling individuals to generate interest in a product or service are largely behind us. What many savvy marketers have figured out is that engaging with prospects who show an organic interest in their brand — one that’s guided by a need to solve a specific pain point — is far more likely to turn that individual into a paying customer. 

With lead generation components like forms, gated content, and landing pages, you ensure that the “attract” elements of your inbound marketing strategy (e.g. blogs, social media, SEO-focused content) have somewhere to point people once they’ve identified that your product might be the right fit for them. This is — in part — is how you lead prospects towards converting.

4 Tips for Getting Lead Generation Right

Beyond lead segmentation, there are a number of other things you can keep top of mind as you deploy your lead generation strategy. 

1. Make the Most of Your Home and Landing Pages 

Your home and landing pages are the face of your brand. It’s where people will ultimately end up once they’ve found you on social, in a search engine, or through a targeted ad. To turn a curious visitor into a qualified lead, you need to make sure your homepage is designed to keep that visitor engaged. 

Here’s how:

• Keep the page clean and easy to navigate. Avoid anything that might distract the reader from learning more about your product or converting.
• Be consistent in your messaging. If the visitor is coming from an ad they saw on social media, they shouldn’t be surprised by the messaging on your homepage. 
• Conduct A/B testing for your landing pages to identify what language choices and CTA button placement leads to the most conversion.
• Have a clear call to action that guides the visitor to the next step they can take in the path to purchase. Eye-catching design can also help here.
• Create a thank you page that includes useful information for the visitor to keep learning after they’ve shared their contact details. This will go a long way to keeping them engaged.

2. Keep Your Content Up to Date

A big part of lead generation is fostering trust — and if your content is dated and not aligned with the current goings on in your industry, it can be hard for your prospects to believe you’re a leader in the space. As such, your content marketing strategy will go hand in hand with your lead generation efforts. Getting this right means addressing any new trends in your space, focusing on your SEO ranking (and updating your SEO-focused content on a regular basis), and answering the questions your audience might have. Once they see that you have a robust publication of reliable and relevant content, your audience will be more likely to trust your product.

3. Understand Where (and How) Your Buyer Personas Operate

As part of your marketing efforts, you’ve likely already developed buyer personas that reflect the typical individuals or businesses that purchase your product. When it comes to engaging these personas organically, it’s important to have a clear picture of where they spend their time online (e.g. what social media platform), the type of content that they’re more likely to read (e.g. infographic vs. blog post vs. long-form whitepaper), and how they prefer to communicate (e.g. phone call vs. email). Factors that can help you determine these elements are the persona’s typical role, generation, and industry. 

4. Use the Right Lead Generation Tools 

As marketers continue to refine their lead generation strategies, we’re seeing a surge of digital marketing tools that are designed to support these efforts. Platforms such as HubSpot Marketing, Proof, and ActiveCampaign all have features that help you capture, track, and convert leads in a way that’s efficient and effective. To learn more about these tools and others, read our insights on the blog. 

Lead generation is a vital part of a marketing team’s strategy, and it’s so important to get it right. As you implement these strategies and iterate on your lead generation efforts, remember to tailor your initiatives to meet the needs of your prospects. By making it feel like a personalized experience, you’ll ensure that the path to purchase is as seamless and organic as possible. And what else can a potential customer ask for?

At Umami Marketing, we’re committed to helping brands enhance their inbound marketing strategy — and that includes lead generation. Get in touch and let’s chat about how we can help you do just that.

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina