In the field of marketing, many anglicisms are handled with ease that constitute a jargon of its own that can be quite dark to the layman in the matter. One of them is the term ‘lead’, if we refer to people, which is the case at hand, a lead is, literally translated, “the one who takes the lead” or “the one who sets the pace of the dance.” They are a fundamental part of any marketing strategy, especially in the online environment. Today we will explain how to get leads.
How to get leads: what is a lead in online marketing
In marketing terms, a lead is a potential customer, understanding as such one who has shown interest in the products or services we offer. If we had a physical store, a lead is the person who visits the store and asks us about a product but has not yet decided to buy it.
In the field of online marketing, the lead is the intermediate step between the target audience to whom we direct our message and the final buyer. This is someone who has filled out a form, answered an e-mail marketing campaign or interacted with us through the , and who “takes the lead” with respect to the rest of the public to be interested in us.
How to get leads: the process
lead generation It is, therefore, a primary objective in marketing for eCommerce, since we want visitors to our online store to arrive with at least some interest in what we offer that can be converted into a buying impulse. Hence the ‘conversion’ from lead to customer.
The process of how to get leads is more or less as follows: We use the term lead in a broad sense. Many authors break them down calling ‘leads’ only the people or companies that have given us their data and ‘prospects’ those in which we have identified a sales opportunity.
Here we will use ‘leads’ to encompass this entire category of potential customers. At each stage of the process the number of people is reduced, so it ends up taking the shape of a funnel (known as ). The is the strategy that is aimed precisely at attracting leads that “ahead” the target audience we are targeting. So, attraction and conversion are the two keywords that we must handle in relation to a lead.
Obviously, I can’t force someone to be interested in my products. The lead is, generally, on their own initiative. Hence, the attraction strategies towards my brand or my products are essential in relation to eCommerce. The difference between a lead and people who simply visit my online store is that the lead has “done something” by responding to my suggestions or calls to action.
In most cases, this means that we will obtain data from the lead and that we can address him or her directly. That is, once attracted, I have to develop a strategy to convert leads into customers, and even into promoters of my brand.
How to get leads: channels to get it
If we want to transform part of our target audience into leads, we must study how to attract them. In online marketing we have three fundamental ways to do this:
1. The website itself
Someone visit our website it doesn’t make you a lead. We need that person to want to communicate with us or, at least, to allow us to communicate with him or her in a personalized way. For this, our website must be well oriented from the home page with calls to action. Why would someone want to leave us their data if they haven’t bought anything yet?
This is the key question for lead generation. To achieve this, it is necessary that the fact of registering supposes a value contribution for the user:
- Economic value: Registration may mean receiving a discount code or access to special offers only for registered users.
- Intangible value: Registered users can access restricted areas of the web or, more commonly, receive one by email. In that case the provision of useful content or interest for the user is what generates value.
Ideally, both are combined.. A newsletter should not be just promotional, just as it should not be limited to providing interesting content. You must have both. A very useful element for the generation of leads is the These “landing pages” suppose alternative entry doors to our website and allow us to focus on a specific audience segment that may be interested in a specific product or service.
The landing pages serve, therefore, to “fish” in the Google universe for those potential buyers who carry out searches related to that specific product. And, like the rest of our website, they have to be prepared to facilitate the conversion of visitors into leads.
2. Social networks
Lead generation is, or should be, one of the main objectives of any company or brand that is present on social media (at this point in the film, almost all). Therefore, our content strategy on social networks must be very well oriented to achieve this goal.
A follower on social networks is not a lead. It is not enough that they follow us, the important thing is that through social networks we manage to interest a part of our followers enough so that they ‘take the lead’ and decide to interact with us in those contents that are directly related to our products or services.
3. Advertising
The best thing about online advertising is that breaks the barrier of one-way communication. An advertisement on the Internet can be the way for a user who is exposed to our advertising to become a lead. That is why it is important to design this advertising so that it is striking for the segment that interests us. If what interests us is capturing a lead, we have to include calls to action.
We can even turn an ad into a form in certain cases. A classic scheme, but quite effective, is the one that interposes a landing page, which is the one that we really advertise. This landing page is designed with the sole purpose of capturing leads.
I already have a lead. And now… What do I do with him?
Once we have captured a lead comes the complicated part of the matter: the conversion into a client. That’s where you play it, since The fact that you have captured a lead does not imply that they are ready to buy your product.
There will be a small part that does it, and a majority that does not. But that does not mean that the effort has been in vain: that is where the strategy of (literally, “lead nurturing”). In a future post we will talk more deeply about it, but today we will give some brushstrokes.
A lead is like a , but in reverse. If the troll does not have to be fed, the lead must be fed so that it continues to be a lead. That’s what he’s about, maintain a living relationship with your leads so that they remain so. If you have a permanent ‘lead cushion’, you know that there will always be some of them who become customers.
And how do you feed a lead? Well with a relationship as personalized as possible. For that you have two fundamental weapons: email and social networks. Once again, newsletters, personalized discounts, flash offers and many other similar systems are of paramount importance.
But that is the subject of another post.
In any case, there is a wide range of lead qualification tools oy that allow you to qualify the lead before it reaches the sales team. They can be of great help for you to complete this process effectively.
Image: and DepositPhotos
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