Every business needs a good lead generation strategy. It allows you to target and grow your audience, expand your business footprint, and ultimately leads to sales and conversions.
But in a fast-paced world where customer loyalty is a rare commodity, even established businesses can find lead generation challenging.
In this guide we will explain how to generate quality leads, what goes into nurturing these leads, and how you can use sales and marketing software to enhance and improve your lead gen strategy.
Why Lead Generation is so Important
Simply put, lead generation is marketing designed to attract and engage with strangers who are not aware of your brand. There are a number of benefits to a robust lead gen strategy (over and above the obvious end goal of closing the sale, of course!).
Benefits include:
Increasing your brand awareness.
Marketing on search engines like Google and social media make reaching either a wide range of people or a very targeted niche segment quick and simple.
Making use of a modern marketing tactic.
Lead generation relies on omni-channel marketing and excellent data management. This makes it far more effective than traditional acquisition methods such as cold calling.
Strengthening the bond between your sales and marketing teams.
It can be tricky to define which department is responsible for generating leads. A good strategy incorporates both, and often includes CRM software for sales and marketing.
Clarity Software’s Marketing module allows you to align your marketing and sales teams, collaborating on leads and making for better internal communication.
Generating Leads
It is important to mention that at a granular level, lead generation will look very different from business to business even when the same general tactics are employed. Every variable will have an impact on your strategy: where you’re based, what you offer, your customer cap, and what a quality lead looks like to you.
However, it is true for almost every business that only a fraction of their targeted audience becomes a customer. This is why it is essential to create a lead generation funnel, enabling you to monitor where drop off happens and tweak your strategy accordingly.
Filling your Lead Generation Funnel
Deploying the right message to the right audience at the right time is crucial. Beginning at the top of your funnel with people who have not heard of you before, each stage requires the correct communication to ensure your leads convert.
Stage 1: Brand Awareness
Work out what will get your business noticed by the customers you want to acquire. Is it a USP (Unique Selling Point) or feature, or do you stand out because of your unique brand tone of voice?
When you are satisfied with the strength of your marketing message, make sure to iterate this across all available marketing channels. This will help you keep track of which leads are coming from where.
Stage 2: Data Collation
If a person has shown interest in your message, the next step involves collecting customer data, such as a contact number or email address. This is usually achieved through CTAs (call to actions) or sign up forms.
Once you have secured this data, load it onto your customer database or CRM (customer relationship management) platform. Our CRM module is perfect for SMEs (small to medium enterprises) looking to get the most out of their customer data.
Stage 3: Qualifying Your Leads
Not all leads are equal. As an example, people who have actively found your website or who are making use of a competitor’s product or service are more valuable than a cold call lead, as they have a higher propensity to convert.
Knowing the quality of your leads ensures their journey through your lead gen funnel remains applicable and relevant.
Stage 4: Lead Ranking and Retention
Some leads may be ready to make a purchase right off the bat, but some may not. Don’t lose sight of the “not yets”. By monitoring and checking in with them, you create the space for these leads to convert when it makes sense for them.
This is where CRM software shows value, tracking conversations and progress in real time.
Stage 5: Make the Sale
Where leads have shown an interest in purchasing, your sales team gets to step up and shine. A good salesperson will match customers with the right products or services, look for opportunities to upsell, and ensure the customer is kept informed and satisfied throughout.
Stage 6: Nurture Your Leads
The sale may be complete, but the job is not. Wherever possible, turn first-time customers into repeat customers.
Customer retention builds a stable revenue stream for your business and creates a blueprint for what your ideal customer looks like.
Nurturing Leads
Few things are more valuable than a lead that has converted to a customer. It is essential you maintain that good relationship to keep the customer coming back, as well as acting as an ambassador for your brand. After all, no advertising offers a better ROI than word of mouth!
While lead nurturing tactics differ depending on your industry and business size, there are always a couple of good rules to follow:
Follow up with your customers.
This might seem obvious, but it’s not! It’s easy to engage with customers that engage back, but in reality your customers on the fringe need the most focus and tact.
Ensuring you remain top of mind with customers that may or may not be considering a repeat purchase is only beneficial. Don’t oversell and come across as pushy, but don’t undersell either.
Always send accurate quotes and invoices.
By passing on branded, professional quotes and invoices to new customers, you demonstrate your credibility and reliability.
However, it is important your sales team work off a current sales list. By making use of quoting software such as our Price Management module, you can guarantee accurate, up-to-date costing.
Keep leads and customers up to date.
Your customer landscape is ever-changing. New leads are generated and customers’ statuses may change daily, so it is critical to stay updated and give your teams accurate information to work with.
Keep your customer database current with sales and marketing software suited to you. With Clarity Go or Clarity Pro, you can update lead information in real time, allowing your teams to work off an up-to-date dashboard containing all the data they need and none of the info they don’t.
Looking to take your lead gen strategy to the next level? Chat to Clarity Software and let us help you place your business in front of the right audience.
