Generating leads is, for many businesses, the sole reason for their digital marketing efforts. The business needs to make sales, and for that it needs more people to whom it can sell. That means getting your product or service in front of fresh eyes, or enticing old, unfulfilled leads that once showed interest.
If your profits rely heavily on the work of salespeople bringing in new business, then lead generation in digital marketing is going to be at the top of your priorities when looking for ways to grow the business.
What is lead generation?
To generate a lead is to find a potential customer. In essence, it’s as simple as that: finding more people to sell to, whether it’s from a brief chat at an exhibition or a message showing keen interest that arrives in your agency inbox out of the blue.
Digital marketing seeks to generate leads at any point in a person’s journey through a business. It could be that your digital marketing introduces customers to the business at their earliest interactions, or it could be that persistent digital marketing finally convinces somebody to make a purchase after months of indecision.
How to generate leads for business
Lead generation in digital marketing is somewhat of an art. It happens through a mixture of good timing, well-chosen technique, and a planned, stratified approach that builds its way up to a lead conversion.
Generating leads starts by identifying potential business prospects. Exhibitions and shows are an easy starting point for many businesses, as they bring people of shared interests together and put your audience at your feet. If you’re a business working in metal fabrication, then attending a metalworking industry trade show is a no-brainer.
At these in-person events (though virtual shows have become more popular in recent years, thanks in no small part to COVID) your salespeople are in the prime position to act on visitor interest, hand out business cards, and hopefully capture names, phone numbers, and email addresses.
Digital marketing can help to convert these leads, but where does lead generation in digital marketing come into the business’s overall lead generation efforts?
Digital marketing is able to capture the interest of your invisible prospects. Not everybody who will come to be an eventual customer will make their presence known, and though AI tools can now reveal a lot about the digital footfall of your adverts, you can never be completely sure who has interacted with your marketing.