What are the main steps to a great lead generation campaign?
Like we said, some things are basic, as in you absolutely cannot bypass them. Content creation, for example, is one of them. However, other steps might be optional, even though they are important to elevate the chances of success.
Keep that in mind while reading through the next topics. We will let you know when a stage is mandatory, but you will do better if you gather all the info we’re about to share and apply them in full!
Knowing your persona
Talking about mandatory! Getting to know your persona is a must in nearly every digital marketing strategy, so you must not be surprised. After all, you can’t build a customer journey if you don’t know anything about the customer.
There is no secret to creating a persona, although you should make sure you do it correctly. Just remember that a persona is a semi-fictitious representation of your ideal client. They can have a name, age, job, family, and hobbies, just like a real person.
To get all those details, you need access to information about your company’s actual customers. Data is key because a persona is nothing but an easier way of understanding how your target public thinks. If you want to learn more, you can understand all about buyer personas here!
Setting campaign goals
As usual, when we talk about any marketing plan, we emphasize that defining a major goal is one of the very first steps. Even if you get more out of the campaign than you imagined, there needs to be a primary objective. And it has to be specific.
Yes, you want to generate leads — but how many? How qualified? What percentage do you wish to grow, as related to previous benchmarks? If you don’t get started with a goal, there’s no way of comparing results in the end. So how will you know if you achieved as much success as you could?
If you’re not sure where to aim, we can help you decide. The most important point is that the goal must be measurable. It’s easy to fall for mind tricks when we are thinking about what we want. For example, you probably want to see a profit increase, but how will you know if this campaign is the reason why it increased (or didn’t increase)?
Instead of looking at the company’s general gain in the same period, you can look at conversion rates. If that is your objective, everything you do from now on will be constructed to raise those rates.
On the other hand, if you have materials that already have great conversion rates, but you feel there aren’t many leads going through it, your goal may be getting to a specific number of leads to access that content.
There are other aspects of a lead generation campaign that you can measure, depending on your business’ segment. You can monitor subscribers, trials, and even revenue per lead. Base your decision upon the company’s history and go for what you need the most at the moment.
Creating relevant and engaging content
The internet has been around for quite some time, now. Getting information in exchange for content is not as easy as it once was — majorly because people are more selective, but also because it is hard for them to find materials that fulfill their needs.
Your campaign’s job is to prove them wrong. It won’t be a simple task, but it is essential. The content you provide has to be good enough so that users will willingly give their e-mails, maybe even other data, to get to that pot of gold.
The first stage is understanding your public’s pain and issues. For that, you’ll use the personas you created beforehand. It should have a list of challenges that your audience is often facing and that can be assisted by your services. Answers will likely come from these questions:
- what was the biggest problem you had before meeting our company?
- how did our solutions help you fix or reduce that nuisance?
- what were you looking for when you discovered our products?
- did we help with other issues besides the main one?
Information is everything
By having all that information, you will be one step ahead when it comes to finding what your customer is searching for. The next phase is to figure out what you can and can’t share with the public, even in a lead generation campaign.
Each market sector has its secrets, so it’s plausible that you won’t hand over all kinds of answers in a content. Be careful, since anyone can eventually get to it, including competitors. Don’t disclose anything that can teach clients to find their solutions, either.
However, you can get as close to that as you want. Like we said, people are more selective — they won’t consume your content if it’s not relevant, or if it is just as relevant as other materials online.
Therefore, once you find the line you can’t cross, go all the way up there, even if you divide that into different objects, such as e-books, blog posts, and more. The good news is that you can build a lot of other campaigns based on the same idea, and perfect it at each round.
Just one more thing before we move on to the next topic: remember you want to stand out. There is another way of doing that, even more than any other tip we gave you so far, and it is called interactive content.
The best way of getting users engaged is to give them something to do. Times have changed and, now, everyone wants to have a say on what is being sold and what is being consumed.
So make sure to be engaging by whatever makes the most sense for your target public. You can offer interactive white papers, infographics, quizzes, contests, or even lead generation calculators! There are a lot of possibilities and they all put you one step ahead.
Building a killer landing page
A lot of time was spent creating the perfect content. Does that mean you can relax when building a landing page? No! The exact opposite is true: you must only feel satisfied with it when it looks just as good as the offer you’re making.
Landing pages are the door to the material your client is looking for, and they should be inviting. Remember people are more suspicious about quality and safety than they were a few years ago.
We have a few tips on how to make your landing page amazing and effective, but there is one word to sum it all up: tests. More specifically, A/B tests. You can try it out on pages you already have on your website, or wait to try it on the page you’re working on right now. Either way, tests are fundamental.
Don’t overlook the small things in this process. Even the color of a button may change the conversion rate. There are tiny details that can be changed over time with little effect on the user’s experience, so you can keep track of the results with no problem.
Now, the aspects your landing page design must have to improve chances of conversion are:
- SEO, to cooperate with the efforts on blog posts and other pages;
- Focus, to help the user navigate;
- Smart forms, to smooth the user’s way into converting;
- Interactivity, to engage the public;
- Responsiveness, to make the landing page mobile-friendly;
- Thank you page, to orientate prospects through other types of content.
In this last instance, we mean you can use your “thank you” page like that. Even if you don’t, it is still a useful page to let the user know how they will get the material they want (will it be sent via e-mail? Will it download automatically?).
Choosing the right channels
This is another stage that can be easily prepared by using the persona (see why it was essential?). While creating yours, you must have learned about their preferred websites, social media, and other channels through which they consume media.
Use that information when you choose where to post and where to promote your landing page. Publishing it everywhere may not be as effective as it seems, as it will fall flat on many people that are not interested at all. That will mess up your metrics, and we don’t want that!
Why should you invest in a lead generation campaign?
All of the topics we covered, essentials, or optional, only really work if dealt with professionally. As you may have noticed, they involve several talents, from data analysis to web design. It is very unlikely that a single person can perform all of those tasks and still deliver a great result in each one.
Thus, investments must be made, whether on a team of experts or on a lead generation software or platform (that should come with a team of experts anyway). Is it worth it? See some of the benefits below to help make up your mind.
Prospects will trust you
Consolidating a relationship with your audience is one of the most challenging tasks in a marketing strategy. Building brand trust is just as important as it is hard, especially in times where there is so much information — and misinformation.
Going through the consumer’s journey will help people slowly become loyal to your brand, even if they don’t recognize it immediately. They will see your company as a specialist in your field and believe you have the best solutions to offer.
Leads will be easier to convert
Precisely because of the trust you’re building with the public, it will get a lot easier for them to convert and qualify as hot leads. At the bottom of the funnel, they will find your landing page and realize there’s no problem in giving their information because they know the content they will receive is relevant.
You will become an attention owner
Before the internet, marketers used techniques that required a lot of rented attention. That means attention was hard to get on their own, so it was worth it to get an ad on a magazine or television, because people were already focused on those channels.
Nowadays, attention is even scarcer. You can still rent it, but if you don’t have your channels, it will probably not be enough. By creating a good lead generation campaign, you become an owner: customers will come to you and drive their focus to what you (and only you) have to offer.
Those are just some of the reasons why lead generation campaigns are treasured among every digital marketer. It is a way of adapting to the times and taking the best of it. In no time, any company that falls behind on this will fall behind in commercial aspects as well. Be prepared!
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