Lead generation: the complete guide

How to generate high-quality leads? Lead generation is the first step in the customer acquisition process. It's one of the most important steps in capturing a share of the market. So what techniques can you adopt to generate more leads? This comprehensive guide gives you all the advice you need to successfully implement your strategy.

What is lead generation?

" Lead" is an English term used to designate a sales contact. On the one hand, it's a direct interaction with the salesperson at the point of sale. On the other hand, it's an indirect contact via a site, a call ...

This term is generally used in B To B (Business To Business) and B To C (Business To Consumer) marketing during the buying cycle. What's more, some marketers confuse leadership with perspective. On the one hand, the lead implies an upstream sales contact. On the other hand, the prospect is a potential customer capable of becoming a customer.

While the lead is excluded from marketing objectives, the information leads It is used to designate a person who seeks information before making a purchase. Finally, the main sales representative designates a person who expresses the will to buy the product.

Lead generation: full definition

Visit leading generationalso known as "lead generation" or "lead generation", is a term used in the world of B-to-B marketing. Lead generation refers to a marketing strategy package designed to capture the details of contacts who have expressed an interest in the company's services or products.

These techniques are linked to digital technologies. However, lead selection is carried out using a technique called prospect evaluation. Today, digital technology facilitates lead generation by creating e-books, organizing web conferences, sending scripts by e-mail, and so on.

Based on this data, we could evaluate a contact according to various criteria and assign a score that could improve as the various marketing initiatives progress. Ultimately, lead generation aims to maximize a company's sales department.

Reasons to set up lead generation

There are many benefits to lead generation. Whether it's to differentiate your business from the competition, increase the number of your customers or even convert your prospects into customers, there are many reasons to establish lead generation.

To win new customers

Lead generation brings benefits in terms of Marketing strategy. In fact, clearly affordable, it doesn't require major investment to target new prospects. As a result, lead generation is one of the marketing strategies. the cheapest while remaining between The most important. It's cheaper than other traditional techniques. This hypothesis is confirmed by a Hubspot survey, underlining that lead generation generates 62% less cost than other more traditional techniques. A comparison between an investment in a TV campaign and an investment in an advertising campaign via social networks or even in an e-mail campaign confirms this hypothesis.

This method converts a considerable number of potential customers into customers. In fact, it's essential to get to know the future customer right from the start of the buying process, before any other marketing strategies, to better convince him or her to acquire the product. This support enables you to better understand the prospect. In this way, it will be easier for you to follow up with them, influence them and, ultimately, get them to commit to the purchase.

Stand out from the competition

Competition on the web is fierce. However, opting for a lead generation campaign is an effective way to establish your reputation. It's also the best technique for develop leads. A good lead generation campaign guarantees better visibility in search engines. This visibility implies a high traffic and better targeting (including new prospects outside your product). As a result, your company will be able to dominate new markets and confirm its position in the current one.

In addition, lead generation involves the creation of unique, high-quality content. As a result, offering relevant and useful content to Internet users enables them to beat their competitors, and even capture a share of their market.

The lead generation entry strategy

Visit inbound marketing strategy ensures improved traffic acquisition. SEO is an inbound marketing channel. Thanks to this strategy, your site's visibility is optimized in search engines and social networks.

This strategy guarantees better-qualified traffic, all the more so as it seems essential to attract the public in order to stand out from the competition. In fact, this strategy aims to maximize conversion ratesbeing the ultimate interest increase your sales.

Entry strategy automate your marketing actions to identify and select the right leads. This technique creates an efficient conversion tunnel for better targeting.

To generate more leads, the inbound marketing strategy needs to be divided into 4 successive stages.

Step 1: Attracting visitors

This first step is designed to attract attention and captivate potential customers on your site. It is essential to offer quality content and always in line with web users' expectations. Visit content media It can be varied (white papers, e-books, coupons, articles, etc.). Adapt your concentration techniques to your budget and the offers you provide.

Step 2: Convert visitors into leads

The second stage is convert visitors into leads. The aim of this approach is to encourage visitors to make arrangements depending on your objective (filling in a form, providing your contact details, etc.). At this stage, it may be appropriate to integrate a video or articles to arouse visitors' curiosity and encourage them to fill in a form.

There are several ways of doing this:

• First of all, use a visible and easily perceptible call-to-action button
• Next, prioritize the content to highlight the most relevant information.
• Finally, use a form that asks for as much information about visitors as possible.

Step 3: Turn prospects into customers

This step allows you to evaluate your prospects. To do this, consider offering content that complies with questions raised by the 3 stages of engagement (discovery, consideration, decision) before the act of purchase. This method encourages potential customers to buy your product. Also consider feeding lead. This term is used to designate a technique focused on prospects who have not yet decided to buy your product or service. The aim is to quality educational contentto guide them towards decision-making.

Step 4: Turn customers into ambassadors

This final step involves get the customer to work for your product or brand. This process involves identifying customers with a particular attachment to their product. Encourage these customers to talk about your brand or product. This step requires a close relationship with your customers.

There are many ways to generate leads.

Thanks to demographics.

Among other things, lead generation will improve the proportion of sales made and sales lost, and increase the company's turnover.

Demographic data are generally collected train (request a demonstration, download a white paper, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.). This information provides information on status and identity of prospects You're likely to become a customer. The form includes: email, first and last name, company, sector of activity and the position or title of your contact. This data enables us to identify target profile for a resolutely effective approach. For example, it will be more judicious and productive to approach a decision-maker, such as a sales manager, than a trainee, even though both would have reacted in the same way in their place.

In addition, the score assigned to a prospect depends on link information to your target audience. Avoid multiplying the number of fields to be filled in, to avoid tiring the perspective. There are various tools available to help you retrieve the data provided. For example, after you've finished, you can offer a free ebook while finding out the size of your prospect's business. This way, you get even more information without straining your perspective.

Thanks to behavioral data.

Qualifying potential customers takes into account Data on how potential customers behave on your website. These data measure the positioning the user in the purchasing cycle. In fact, persistence on your product pages and pricing pages, and downloading your e-book are all signs of interest. Therefore, contact this prospect without delay to finalize a purchase. During the visit, take a look at the topics of greatest interest to the user.

Check also number of pages visitedit time spent on each page just like him amount of content downloaded. This analysis requires knowledge of the sales cycle. Then assign a score to each behavior. For example, downloading your ebook while providing demographic data is worth the most points. Conversely, subscribing to newsletters by providing only an e-mail address generates minimal points.