If you’re a business owner or a marketing manager, I’d venture to bet that you ask yourself the following question on a daily basis:
How can I generate more leads for my business in a short period of time?
Why do you ask this particular question? Because lead generation means potential growth for your company and your bottom line-- making you and your team look like rockstars in your industry!
You may be tempted to buy a gigantic list of email addresses and shoot out unsolicited messages to unknown contacts or maybe you could create a direct mail piece to send to another list that you bought..
But let me tell you, as a consumer, nothing is worse than receiving a direct mailer for a tree trimming service at your downtown apartment.
These tactics may have produced results for you in the past but it’s time to hang up the hat. Is it really worth the risk of a damaged reputation?
So What Should I Do?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone in relying on outbound techniques to generate leads. We see it all the time, in fact, we even use some of them from time to time.
Recently, organizations have been making the move from outbound marketing techniques to high ROI inbound marketing lead generation practices-- it’s the perfect time for you to get started!
Why does inbound marketing boast a much higher ROI?
The reason for the high ROI is quite simple. Inbound Marketing uses low cost lead generation techniques paired with targeting and segmentation to create a high level of trust with potential customers.
What should I do now?
Use these simple, high ROI tactics commonly used to ignite an inbound marketing lead generation strategy:
Blogging
It seems like every business has a blog these days. And for good reason, blogging is the perfect way to generate more leads and it gives you the opportunity to tell your customer(and the rest of the blogosphere) who you are, how you feel and what you have to offer as a company.
It also allows you to show your prospects that you are the most knowledgeable organization in your industry.
If you don’t have a blog, or have one and haven’t updated it in a few months, consider blogging and blogging consistently. Want more leads, blog more frequently-- the equation is simple.
Social Media
Are you one of those naysayers who has been known to say, “What could my brand possibly say to potential leads on Facebook or Twitter?”If you are, I beg you to reconsider. Your brand has so much to say and if you’re informative while being conversational, your efforts will have a positive effect on every one of your leads and customers
And if you are skeptical about Facebook and Twitter, there are plenty of platforms other than these to engage with your customers on. A little research is all it takes to figure out which messages are best communicated through each channel.
SEO
SEO is a word that still makes CEO’s quiver in their corner office. Often because of it’s ever changing, constantly evolving tendencies.
Optimizing your website for search engines is an important part of any marketing strategy-- but we’ll admit, it can be intimidating and is often overlooked or done incorrectly.
Competition is heating up for high volume keywords in practically every industry so it's absolutely critical to use best practices to ensure your website stands a chance of getting found.
Start by learning exactly how to go about developing a keyword strategy.
Targeted Emails
Are all of your email contacts identical?
Probably not, and they shouldn’t be treated as such. It’s important that you communicate with your contacts in a way that highlights the products and services they are looking for or have expressed interest in. You want to develop a level of trust that will eventually lead to a long relationship. If they show interest in a product or service, you send them relevant information on said products and services… POOF! You’re well on your way to building and maintaining that trust.
Keep in mind, you’ll also want to adjust frequency, messaging and content offers depending on where your prospect is in the buyer journey. Through segmenting your contacts in this way, you’re more likely to increase your lead generation in dramatic fashion.
Are you ready to start generating more leads using inbound marketing?
