Good lead generation brings in traffic. Great lead generation brings in quality leads. Good or great, there are three major barriers to lead generation that could derail your efforts. Remove these barriers, and you are on the way to Lead Generation greatness.
Of course, it is not as simple. But eliminating these obstacles will definitely put you ahead of many. Let's start with the most important one - your customer.
1. Poor Understanding Of The Online Customer
Who is your customer? Many companies have a short answer to this question. For example, "My customers are small business owners with 10 to 100 employees." This is a good start, but if you get more specific, you will see your lead generation efforts pay off much better. For example, "My customers are small business owners with 10 to 100 employees, who are struggling with the quality of their phone service. They want their customers to reach them 24/7 and receive help promptly, during business hours."
Once you understand who your customers are, learn about the problems your product will solve for them. If your prospects are looking for a solution on line, what queries are they using and with which intent? What does their research look like? What pushes them to start looking for a solution? Your prospects' motivation will dictate the content you will deliver to them as well as the message that would persuade them to choose you over your competition.
Understand the customer buying process. If somebody signed up for your webinar, it does not mean that they expect a call from your sales person. It is too early in the process to make a purchasing decision. However, if they requested a demo, a follow up might be in order. The more you qualify your leads, the more effective your efforts would be.
Segment your customers. Find out where they go online, join those channels to gain a better understanding of what they are struggling with. Strengthen your authority by helping them solve their problems. Take into consideration multi-device and multi-channel world we live in and help your potential leads to reach you regardless of the device, channel, or session they are in.
Use comments and reviews from customers who had similar issues as your prospects and who are happy that your company resolved them. Voice of customer is a powerful way to re-enforce our company's authority and reputation. A brand that is recognized for superior customer service will always be popular and successful.
2. Weak Communication
Value proposition is the main reason that your visitors become leads and leads become customers. You need to communicate your advantage quickly and at the right time. Value proposition should be easy to understand. Only then your visitors will believe your message and accept it. Provide just the right pieces of information for the visitors to draw their own conclusion that your company is the only possible solution for their problem.
Communicate your value proposition in multiple channels - on your website, in paid ads and campaigns, on social media, at conferences and events, press releases, etc. Include them in your emails for better targeting your existing customers. Showcase them in your newsletter for interested prospects. Distribute them through advertising networks for unaware candidates.
Your messages need to be relevant, consistent, and persuasive. Make the offers relevant to a specific segment of your audience by focusing on benefits that are important to them. Make those offers appear site-wide keeping them in front of your customers. Make your offers more persuasive by showing off your authority or making the offers available only to "elite members" or "for a limited time." Help visitors by recommending a choice based on your experience solving the same problem for the same type of customer.
Once the visitor clicks on the offer, make the experience consistent. Re-iterate the offer on the landing page. Use the same graphic, same trigger words and phrases, same colors to indicate to the user that they landed on the right page. Make call to action descriptive.
Make it clear what to expect after the action is completed. Tell visitors that the sales person would contact them within an hour. State that they would receive logins to their demo account in an email message. Sending a form from a website does not complete a visitor's mission. Only when they receive a call, a paper, a newsletter, etc. would the transaction be complete. Provide an extraordinary experience by guiding them through the whole process.
Optimizing your landing pages is just the first step. You need to optimize the whole visitor journey in order to be successful in lead generation. In order to do that, it is imperative that you integrate all company efforts, winning big with a consistent message across all communication channels.
3. Technical Issues
Technical issues are the easiest to fix. Check your forms from submission to fulfillment in multiple browsers and on mobile. Consider usability problems: poor readability, difficulty using on mobile, too much text, too many form fields, too much manual input, poor or inconsistent navigation, etc. Check for broken links. Go through error logs. Improve speed on desktop and mobile devices. Read customer feedback. You will always find areas for improvement.
Simplify your forms, make them engaging. Test them, optimize for conversions. Make it easy to complete the process. Do not require to open an account; wait for the Thank You page to ask a visitor to start a relationship with your company. Thank You page is a good place to offer an up-sell to returning customers or give them a relevant offer. Do not forget to include social icons so visitors can follow you on your social channels.
Check your ad campaigns. Check all links to landing pages to ensure you have no broken links. Improve continuity between the ad and the landing page. Rise your quality score. Do a technical site audit.
When sending out an email campaign, consider technologies your subscribers will use to process your messages. Put all relevant information in the first paragraph. That way, if email preview is enabled, the recipient will be able to see the offer right away and make a decision about it.
Understand your CRM platform and how your company is using it. Work with the people who manage the system to ensure that your leads are delivered to the right people with the right information for them to move them into lead nurturing systems or call right away.
Lead Generation Process Without Barriers
Functional, accessible, and usable web site is the foundation of your online lead generation process. Achieve excellent user experience with intuitive navigation, clear and persuasive messaging. Make your website about your customer and your visitors will reach out to you.
Understand your customer and their buying process. Use the problems they are trying to solve as a guide for content development. Offer your prospects solutions in a simple and persuasive way so they can believe that only your company has the solution they want. Use your website to create an expectation of compassionate helpfulness, of a positive user experience. And finally, eliminate all technical issues on your website allowing visitors who believe in your message, to reach you.