Inbound Marketing Insights

Once you have created regular and optimized content for your blog and website, the next initiative to tackle is to develop an inbound lead strategy that will convert your unknown website visitors into qualified leads. Why is this so important? Inbound marketing lead generation enables you to leverage the interest you have driven to your site through content and engage those visitors to request more information. Without optimized lead generation, you would be creating content and sharing your valuable information without the possibility of improving your sales pipeline and revenue potential.

What is Lead Generation, and Why Do You Need It?

Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects who are visiting your digital channels into someone who has indicated an interest in your company's product or service. Lead generation is one of the most critical aspects of your inbound marketing strategy that will enable you to:

• Increase your pipeline
• Communicate directly with qualified prospects
• Generate more customers for your business

Every organization in the world needs to optimize its lead generation to continue to engage and convert its target audience into prospects. I often hear that businesses rely on referrals for their new leads. Referrals will always be a highly qualified lead source, but it is essential to consider when referrals don't come in. You don't want to be a business that needs to start lead generation when it's too late and when you need to catch up to your competitors who are already ahead of you. Having a lead generation program as an integral part of your strategy will help you build a predictable pipeline and improve your sales operations with consistent leads, customers, and revenue.

How Do You Start Building a Lead Generation Strategy?

Lead generation starts with content offers that you provide to your prospects. To ask your prospects for their contact information, such as name, email, or phone number, you need to offer them something in return. Some examples could be an eBook, whitepaper, case study, instructional video, checklist, etc. These content offers are high in value and should not be given away with an exchange of contact information at a minimum. If your business does not currently have any content offers for B2B customers, you can start by offering a consultation or a demo. For B2C customers, you can provide a monetary offer such as 10% off for signing up for emails. When brainstorming these types of offers, think about what you, as a consumer, would want from a brand in exchange for contact information. You can then start to survey your customers to see what they find valuable. This will give you a good starting point, and you can continue to add more conversion and content offers over time.

Are you looking for ways to optimize your inbound strategy? The book "Mastering Inbound Marketing: Your Complete Guide to Building a Results-Driven Inbound Strategy," written by Elyse Flynn Meyer, Owner & Founder of Prism Global Marketing Solutions, covers every aspect of the inbound marketing methodology, including the revenue generation trifecta of marketing, sales, and the customer experience. Check out the book to see how to most efficiently and effectively develop, implement, and maintain your inbound strategy.