Gone are the days when businesses had to place ads on TV, radio, billboards, and other traditional means to reach their target audience. Today, the internet has opened up a new avenue for brands to market products and engage with their customers. From websites, social media, and apps, they leverage numerous digital marketing methods in digital marketing.

One role of digital marketing is lead generation. In this article, we will guide you through using digital marketing for lead generation. But before we do that, let's better understand the terms.

What is Lead Generation?

Leads refer to people expressing interest in a business's products or services. Therefore, lead generation refers to the steps taken to attract business prospects, nurture them to increase their interests, and turn them into customers. Lead generation also involves gathering people’s contact information from those interested in your products or services.

There are different ways of generating leads, including landing pages, referral coupons, blog posts, online content, live events, and coupons. The ultimate goal of lead generation is to turn prospects into customers, which is a crucial part of the digital marketing strategy to bring people down the sales funnel.

Why Lead Generation is Essential in Digital Marketing

Here are several reasons why lead generation is vital in digital marketing:

• Allows precise targeting. Unlike traditional advertising, digital marketing makes it easier to reach your target audience through various means, such as SEO, search ads, and social media. When companies leverage digital marketing methods, they can engage with potential leads interested in their products and services, making the lead-generation process more efficient.
• Faster business growth. As noted earlier, lead generation aims to nurture prospects through a sales funnel and turn them into customers. The continuous stream of customers generated through lead generation results in faster business growth.
• Improved brand awareness. By doing lead generation in the right way, you can consistently appear on people’s feeds, search engines, and email inboxes, helping your brand remain in people’s minds. Therefore, lead generation can quickly improve brand awareness and visibility.
• Cost-effective solution. Digital marketing offers a more cost-effective lead-generation solution than traditional advertising. Cost-effectiveness is particularly important for small and medium-sized businesses trying to maximize their marketing budgets.
• Attracting loyal customers. By engaging with your business leads during the various stages of buying customers, you can quickly turn them into loyal customers. For instance, when you create helpful content that your leads find useful in the informational stage, they trust your brand more.
• Get measurable results. One of the benefits of digital advertising is that you get access to various tools that enable you to see the results of your campaigns. With this data, businesses can keep refining their campaigns to ensure they get high-quality leads.

The Role of Digital Marketing in Lead Generation

Lead generation is a crucial part of an online marketing strategy. If your business is only creating a marketing campaign and waiting for it to achieve positive results, it is missing a lot. Digital marketers need to narrow their prospective customers into smaller subsets of the people likely to become paying customers.

Without a comprehensive lead generation strategy, businesses often use cold calling to reach their target audience, which can negatively impact the brand's reputation. You can consider a situation where you repeatedly receive calls from a company whose services you aren't interested in. You will block them and give the company a poor rating.

A good lead generation strategy can help you to:

• Fill your sales pipeline.
• Identify your top prospects.
• Create an email distribution list.
• Personalize sales and marketing efforts.
• Build an email marketing list.

This is on top of the fact that customers are now becoming wary of blatant sale pitches. They are not likely to buy from a business that only seems interested in closing a sale. On the other hand, lead generation targets customers who have already shown interest in the product, which is more likely to bear fruits.

Top Lead Generation Strategies in Digital Marketing

There are several techniques you can use in your lead generation strategies. These are:

Add a Live Chat Feature

A live chat feature helps in lead generation in several ways. These include:

Provides answers to burning questions

People browsing your website may have questions about your products or services. A live chat feature will make it easier for them to ask such questions and get instant answers. This will ensure that they don't drop out when they lack the answers to the questions they may have in mind.

Capturing  the visitor's attention

One of the most critical steps in generating leads is capturing the visitor’s attention. Once you have attracted visitors to the site, you want to engage them by verifying their interests and turning them into leads. A live chat feature will enable you to do that in different ways through:

• A welcome message.
• A manual invite message to capture the visitor’s attention.
• Pre-chat forms to collect the user’s information.
• Call-to-action messages on chat that will trigger users to engage in the conversation.

24/7 responsiveness

Your bot will be around even when you aren't physically answering the user's query. Besides, when users get their questions answered in a live chat, they are more likely to trust the brand and easily share their information. On your side, it will be easier for you to address any concern preventing them from sharing their details. 

Create High-quality Content

You may not be aware of this, but it's true: the quality of your content affects people's impressions of your brand. Poorly written content will create a picture of unprofessionalism, and people are not likely to engage with your brand or share information with it. On the other hand, when you create high-quality content, you can position yourself as an expert in the niche. This will earn you the prospect's trust and make them easily share their information.

When creating quality content, consider adding lead magnets. These are high-value pieces of content made available to prospects who share their information. For instance, you can have users fill out a detailed form to download an ebook, whitepaper, or templates.

Use Ads for Lead Generation

Unlike some people think, ads aren't only supposed to make sales. You can run PPC ads for lead generation. Therefore, leverage different ad types, such as PPC, Facebook ads, and display ads. You can direct prospects clicking on the ad to a landing page with a lead generation form.

There are several best practices when using ads for lead generation. These include:

• Target the right audience. To succeed with lead generation, you must target the right audience with your ad. Therefore, use the Google Search Console to collect data on your audience's behavior and interests. 
• Use the right keywords. Keywords are the foundation of Google Ads. Therefore, tools such as the Google Adword Keyword Planner can be used to find the right keywords to target. These should consist of a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords. Remember to consider the search intent when selecting keywords for your ads for lead generation and align the search intent with your goal.
• Use compelling ad copy. Remember that when running ads, they are likely to be the first point of contact between your business and potential leads. Therefore, put your best foot forward and create clear, persuasive, and compelling ad copy highlighting your unique selling points. Add a clear call-to-action to encourage users to take the desired action.
• Optimize the landing page. This is where the action will take place. Prospective leads will arrive after clicking on your ad; therefore, we will discuss it in detail in our next point.
• Test and optimize. To improve your ad's performance, continuously test and optimize it. Use metrics such as cost per click, lead, and conversion rate.

Optimize Your Landing Pages

When creating a lead generation strategy, you must also plan to convert those leads. One of the top strategies you can use is a lead-generation landing page. This landing page will encourage users to share information and formally express interest in the business.

By optimizing your landing page, you can improve traffic and conversion. There are several tips you can use to optimize your landing pages. These are:

• Have a value proportion. Make your users understand how they will benefit when they share details.
• Make the messaging consistent with your ad copy. Use the same color, font, and other elements.
• Use an engaging and beautiful design
• Build trust. Show the user how you are going to protect their data.
• Have social proof. Include testimonials, ratings, and customer logos to give users confidence.
• Optimize for mobile devices. Ensure your landing pages are well-optimized and look good on mobile devices. 
• Prominently place the CTA button to increase conversion.
• Add a thank you message. Thank users for submitting their details.

Optimizing Lead Generation Form

You will use a lead generation form to collect the prospect's details. This form is usually the last step of a lead generation campaign, so you cannot afford to go wrong with it. When optimizing it, the first step should be determining the information to collect. 

Balance the quantity and quality of information well. Ensure you have the correct form to make it easy to convert your leads. On the other hand, a complex form is not necessarily bad, as it can help you get high-quality leads. This is because only prospects with much interest and concentration will fill it. They can also help you collect detailed information, which can be helpful in your marketing efforts. 

Generally, using a simple lead generation form in the earlier stages of the customer’s journey is advisable. People who understand your solution better are more likely to provide extra details than someone who has just come across your brand. Whether you choose a simple or a more complex lead generation form, the most important thing is to keep it easy to use and outstanding.

Use SEO for Lead Generation

A digital marketing strategy for lead generation cannot be complete without an SEO strategy. SEO aims to help your brand rank highly on search engines. The goal is to direct traffic to your priority pages in lead generation. SEO will help you get a competitive advantage and more clicks.

Creating highly relevant content that helps you rank on the search engine can help you reach your target audience, create a good relationship with them, and collect the audience's information. You should also optimize your content and website for better search engine rankings. You can use different optimization methods, such as:

• Creating high-quality and relevant content.
• Adding relevant keywords to your content.
• Improving website usability and site speed.

Then, you will need to engage your SEO leads to capture their information. For instance, you can have a quote form to enable some prospects to convert directly to your site. You might also have others sign up for an email newsletter to convert after a few weeks or months.

A/B Tests Different Methods

Also known as split testing, A/B testing is a data-driven strategy used to compare two versions of an ad, webpage, or any other marketing material. When A/B testing a landing page, you must follow these steps:

• Start by testing two similar versions of a copy. These are usually the control and the variant.
• Half of your audience should be shown the control, while the other half should be shown its variant.
• Compare the different metrics to determine which of the two copies perform better.

Combine the best results in split testing with other lead generation methods.

Use Retargeting 

Also known as remarketing, retargeting involves displaying ads to prospects who visit your site without converting. The goal is to re-engage the prospects and turn them into leads. This is an effective lead generation strategy, as people visiting your site are already interested in your products or services. However, you might still need to convince them more about lead generation.

Carefully consider your remarketing campaigns to minimize cost and maximize conversion. For instance, if prospects visit your site, you can retarget them. If you use an advertising platform like Facebook or Google, create a look-alike audience. That way, targeting people who look like your previous customers will be easier.

Host an Online Event

One way to collect data is by hosting an online event that requires participants to register in advance. This will also create commitment and anticipation. Choose a topic that will interest your target audience for the best results. Remember that if you are holding an event related to your industry, people who pre-register already have a high search intent. You can continue the conversation through email marketing to try to convert them.

Use Social Media to Connect with Prospects

One way of capturing prospects on social media is by running ad campaigns. However, organic social media is still an excellent choice to help you connect with your target audience. There are several tips when considering best practices for social media marketing plans. These are:

• Create social media profiles on the platforms where your audience mostly hangs out.
• Publish content that appeals to the target audience.
• Create native content while linking to your site.
• Start conversations and ask questions to engage potential customers.
• Keep monitoring the engagement metrics to determine posts performing well and adapt accordingly.

Leverage Positive Reviews

Since many people still look at their peer reviews before buying, positive reviews can be essential to improve lead generation. This is especially important for local businesses, as positive reviews will impact their Google Maps listing rating. If you have some previous customers who are satisfied with your products and services, encourage them to leave reviews.

When people leave reviews, take time to respond, as it will be a sign of your good customer service. If there are negative reviews, you will have an opportunity to respond to them.

Run Giveaways or Contests for Lead Generation

People love to win things, so providing incentives can be a powerful tool for lead generation. Contests and incentives work because they satisfy people’s need for instant gratification while creating a sense of urgency. However, you should ensure you target the right audience, collect the right data, and follow up. 

Also, choose the right prize to attract the right kind of participants. For instance, many people will join if you give a cash prize. However, giving a year's subscription to your software will reduce the number of participants and provide you with high-quality leads. Ensure that you have a well-defined timeline of events.

Have a Referral Program

Ensure you have a referral program to reward current and new customers. This strategy works well because customers will help you generate leads, so you won't have a lot of work to do. However, it will only work if you provide strong incentives.

One approach you can consider is incentivizing the person providing the referral and the one receiving it to increase the chances of success. A good referral program should also be accompanied by good customer service. You can even take referrals to another level by using affiliate marketing for product referrals on TikTok and other platforms.

Use Well-timed Pop-up Ads

Pop-up ads can be very successful with lead generation. When they appear on the user’s screen, they have no option but to focus on them. You can use various pop-up triggers, such as behavior-based triggers. You can time the pop-ups immediately a user lands on your site. Alternatively, they can appear when they try to scroll away from your site or even a specific section of the site. This strategy will help you capture the user’s contact information before they leave your site.

Provide a Demo

Let's assume that some of your leads know their problems and that your product can help solve them, but they are still unconvinced. Demos can be an excellent way to convince them to convert, enabling them to experience the product. 

Sometimes, prospective customers only need tangible evidence to decide, and demos provide just that. You can offer the demos on your web pages or as lead magnets for your landing pages. You can include them in your blog posts before the call-to-action.

Create a Course

To help your customers benefit from your product, consider creating a course related to it. This can work magic because it shows prospective customers that you are committed to their long-term success. Many customers go through the product knowledge base before they can make decisions.

Tips and Tricks in Lead Generation Using Digital Marketing

No matter the strategy you use, there are several best practices you should not forget. These are:

• Focus more on quality over quantity. No matter the number of leads you get, low-quality leads can waste your sales team's time. Therefore, you should focus more on higher-quality leads that can quickly generate revenue.
• Analyze the data. Instead of collecting lead generation data, analyze it to better understand the target audience. You can also improve the preferred market segmentation strategy.
• Use data responsibility. Ensure that you collect and store data with care. This can help prevent legal implications and build trust. Ensure you only collect the needed data with a clear explanation of how you will use it.
• Track results. Determine the critical lead generation measures you think will work best for your business and track them.
• Review your approach regularly. Remember that audiences, businesses, and markets change regularly, so you should periodically review the strategy to improve it.

Conclusion

No matter your industry, you want to see high-quality leads, primarily because lead generation is a crucial driver of business growth. However, getting those leads is tricky as you must determine where to target your audience, the strategies, and more.

Fortunately, you can leverage digital marketing to create a healthy lead-generation pipeline. If you are unsure where to start, our top lead-generation strategies will help. We recommend you also read our guide on using LinkedIn for lead generation.