Lead generation: how to generate leads effectively?

Lead generation occupies a central place in the life of a company’s marketing team and its goal is to always improve its lead management. The aim is to pass the hottest leads to the sales team and achieve your marketing goals! 

As a reminder, a lead is a potential customer who is looking for information and who could qualify if the strategies implemented by the marketing teams are relevant. 

Webmecanik gives you its best tips to improve your lead generation effectively with the right tools. Follow the guide?

What is lead generation?

Lead generation, or “lead generation” in English, is the process by which a company attracts and converts strangers and prospects into someone who has shown interest in the company’s products or services. It is a fundamental step in the sales funnel, serving as a bridge between marketing and sales. The ultimate goal of lead generation is to increase the number of high-quality prospects who will then be converted into customers by the sales team.

As part of lead generation, the strategies used can vary widely, but they all rely on capturing the attention of the target audience through relevant and engaging content. This can include creating useful content such as blog articles, white papers, webinars, and using social networks to share this content and interact with prospects. The goal is to provide added value that encourages prospects to voluntarily provide their contact information, generally via an online form, to learn more about what the company has to offer.

Lead generation is not limited to collecting contact information; it also includes qualifying leads to ensure that they match the profile of the company’s ideal customer. This allows marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts on the most promising prospects, thus increasing the effectiveness of marketing and sales campaigns.

Webmecanik highlights the importance of using suitable tools and strategies to optimize lead generation. The use of marketing automation software, for example, makes it possible to manage and nurture leads throughout their journey, from the first interaction to conversion into a customer, by automating communications and personalizing messages according to the needs and interests of each prospect.

How to generate leads effectively?

Define your persona

Before generating leads, it is essential to have a clear vision of your persona: who are they? What are their needs? Where are they? The more precisely your persona is defined, the more effective your lead generation strategy can be. For example, if your research shows that your lead is a big podcast fan, you will naturally direct your efforts toward this type of content and not waste your time creating content that does not interest them. 

Define your goals

Developing any strategy first requires defining the goals to be achieved. Once your personas have been defined, it is time to think about measurable goals before finding a lead generation method. How many leads do you need to achieve your sales goals? What conversion rate are you hoping for? 

Once these figures have been decided, you can take action and think about a good lead generation method.

The most effective lead generation methods

Generating leads means attracting visitors to your site. Once visitors have browsed your site, the goal is to collect their data and then move them into the sales funnel.

To attract them to your site, a mix of inbound and outbound marketing is necessary, which means investing in advertising and in content strategy.

These two complementary marketing strategies will attract visitors, then allow you to collect their information and qualify them. Once qualified, they will become part of your lead management strategy.

Lead generation methods with inbound marketing: 

• SEO and content marketing: writing high-value articles that could truly answer your leads’ questions will allow you to rank well on Google. They must contain relevant keywords (phrases or questions that could be asked on Google). For example, if you sell kitchen utensils, it is a good idea to publish many recipes and include links to the product pages for those utensils. The key? Create useful, SEO-friendly content.
• Social selling: social networks are a boon for marketing and sales teams looking for leads. Thanks to Linkedin, it is possible to find highly qualified profiles and connect with them directly. On other networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even TikTok, community managers must make the effort to comment, tag and join private groups to (subtly) highlight the company’s product, while keeping in mind that the essential thing is to provide added value and answer a question. Advertising posts on the company’s page are not enough; it is good to enter directly into a conversation with potential leads.
• Lead magnets : white papers, invitations to events and webinars, simulators, forms, private groups, mini-courses and training, templates… A lead magnet is content that must attract the reader to the point that they agree to share their email address to access it. Once this valuable data has been collected, it is time to bring the lead into a sales funnel and observe them in order to nurture them with the content best suited to their case.

Lead generation methods with outbound marketing: 

• Ad campaigns: Google is not only a search engine but also acts as an advertising agency since it is possible (and necessary) to create advertising campaigns that are inserted directly into Google searches. The American giant also manages the ads that appear in YouTube videos. Thanks to cost per click and an auction system, lead generation progresses quickly since your product appears at the top of the searches, which encourages the visitor to come to your site and stay there if your content is rich enough.
• Physical events: they make it possible to meet your customers outside traditional meetings, in a more relaxed atmosphere conducive to a stronger relationship between the salesperson and the lead. Round tables, conferences, breakfasts, shows, trade fairs… Even if physical events seem to belong to the past, they are in fact a source of lead generation that should not be overlooked. The relationship between you and your prospect begins in real life and not, for once, through a screen. The result? The foundations of a more personalized and warmer relationship.
• Phone prospecting: a conversation by phone is practical and easy, however it has evolved and we prefer it with a camera so that we can put a face to a lead and once again humanize the relationship. The salesperson picks up the phone (or books an appointment via a videoconferencing platform) once the lead already knows your company well. Analysis of their behavior should have made it possible to see when the time was right for the salesperson to schedule a phone appointment.

Also read: Marketing strategy: generating leads on the internet & inbound marketing

Following up with existing customers

Lead generation is not only about potential customers. To generate leads effectively, you must not neglect your existing customer base, which could be interested in your new offers or continue collaborating with your company.

To do this, small gestures will always be appreciated and remembered. Generate leads by creating, for example, a personalized calendar in your client’s colors at the beginning of each year. Sending small gifts, remembering the anniversaries of the collaboration between your company and your client’s company… All these commercial gestures help strengthen the customer relationship and generate leads from existing customers.

Bet on the right tools for lead generation

Congratulations, you have managed to attract many visitors to your page thanks to your content and you have collected their contact details. Now is the time to equip yourself with high-performance tools to get in touch with them, namely: marketing automation software and a CRM (contact management tool).

The right mix: marketing automation software with contact management software 

They work together! Marketing automation software coupled with high-performance contact management software (CRM) are essential for marketing and sales teams for managing and generating leads. Among other things, they allow you to directly access your contact database. A look back at the definitions of these two essential software tools for managing your leads: 

• Marketing automation software ensures automated communication with your contacts via email campaigns, sales notifications or SMS.
• CRM software makes managing your contacts and daily tasks easy. You can manage your pipeline according to your schedule and closely monitor the progress of your sales and marketing actions.

Webmecanik offers these two complementary and easy-to-use software solutions. Other non-European solutions also offer them; here are the advantages of an all-in-one French solution?

Identify suitable methods with test and learn 

Thanks to marketing automation and CRM tools, tracking your leads’ journey is far more visible and makes it possible to identify the content and marketing actions that worked or not. So, which method generated the most leads? What improvements can be made to increase the number of contacts? 

“Test and learn” must be a habit for every marketer. Excellent knowledge of your prospect combined with an action aimed at them makes it possible to identify what works. Action must always take priority over overthinking. The holy grail? Getting your prospect to respond, whether favorably or not.

Some companies achieve much better results by creating white papers, for example. But to do so, they had to try other methods such as sponsored articles, podcasts or webinars. It is up to you not to limit yourself when it comes to content creation.

Segment and nurture your lead

Following this analysis, it is possible to segment leads even more and refine their needs in order to nurture them further with even more relevant content. The objective is now to warm them up and convert them. 

Lead segmentation: not all leads have the same needs or the same level of maturity. It is necessary to segment them, that is to say divide them into several groups (top of the sales funnel, middle of the sales funnel, or bottom of the sales funnel), then place them into different campaigns by offering suitable content. 

Lead nurturing: once the profiles of future customers have been refined through segmentation, you can send the right content at the right time and to the right person. Depending on their place in the sales funnel, the nurturing strategy will be different. 

For example, a simple visitor to your site will need a good article, a prospect who stays on your page for a long time and clicks on many links will need an invitation to a webinar, and another contact who often returns to your content and is subscribed to your newsletter could be more open to getting in touch with a salesperson via social networks, for example.

Monitor and convert leads

Enable faster lead conversion 

Once the right content has been sent, you can help convert leads on your site thanks to various lead generation tools that make the visitor want to stay longer on your site and share their contact details because they trust you and see you as credible. Lead generation tools are actionable levers that encourage your visitor to take action. If you are equipped with good marketing automation software, they are then easier to implement. Contact us if you need advice on implementing these ultra-effective levers?

Measure reactions to content and adapt to the need

Once the nurturing strategy (content creation) and mailing strategy (email campaigns) have been carried out, you can measure your leads’ reaction and improve your actions. 

Your Marketing Automation and CRM software created by Webmecanik allow ultra-precise tracking of your leads’ behaviors, which give you the means to refine your lead management strategy. Creating content is a waste of time if leads’ reactions to that content are not measured. 

Test & learn must be the methodology most used by the marketing team when it comes to lead management. Not being afraid to test different content and analyze the effects they produce ultimately makes it possible to learn more about your leads’ tastes and strengthen your relationship with them. Once a good relationship has been established, converting these leads becomes obvious, and you as a marketer or salesperson get even closer to your goals!