3 Reasons Why You Need Digital Lead Generation

There is unbelievable power in operating your company with rapid growth in mind. One of the best ways to fuel that growth is marketing through the web. Unfortunately, when it comes to digital marketing, there are too many EXPLOSIVE, TREMENDOUS, SILVER BULLET growth purveyors out there. They can easily distract us from tried and trusted methods to achieve predictable growth.

Please note all caps and obnoxious styling earlier on was for effect, they make me cringe every time I see them as well.

What is Digital Lead Generation?

To start, by digital lead generation, I am referring to running online advertising campaigns to attract sales leads. It is also important to note that digital lead generation utilizes traditional direct marketing tactics but with an online focus. A digital lead gen campaign should drive immediate results as well as a means to nurture decision-makers as they evaluate their options.

To succeed in a digital strategy, you must understand:

Your Online Competitors
I say online because these specific competitors can vary from whom you view as your typical competition. We hear every day how because my company does X, or because I specialize in Y that I have no real competition. We consider anyone whom a customer may choose over us a competitor. We also consider any of our competitors who are advertising their business online as online competitors. We differentiate our business and our client’s business by how they are positioning themselves across search and social media.

Target Customer Behaviour
You must also analyze your target customers to understand:

• where they spend time online;
• the tone they expect to hear;
• the criteria they use to make a purchase decision;
• how long they typically spend researching a solution before they are ready to talk to someone;
• what they are doing throughout their research process to come to that decision.

Lastly, you must know many leads it will take to generate one new customer and what that customer is worth, both in terms of average revenues and profit. Without understanding these numbers, you can’t make decisions around what you can afford to spend to obtain one new lead, and therefore the strategy that makes the most sense.

All right already, I promised three reasons why digital lead generation is the future of your business – so here we go!

1. Gone are the days of shotgun advertising, and gut-feel decision making
The most significant benefit of digital marketing is that we can ascertain what messaging, channel and overall lead generation process works by relying on real-time data. Measurability is the major shift from putting an ad in the paper, or running a TV or radio commercial where the real impact of each is a consistently grey area.

With digital marketing, outcomes are trackable. The entire process becomes an ongoing series of experiments that contribute to establishing a clear understanding of what works to drive new business.

2. If we can predictably turn a profit, growth becomes second nature
We all know there is no such thing as unlimited funds. But, if we can turn our success into a math problem, we can comfortably predict how long it will take us to reach a positive ROI. Once we hit that ROI, we are playing with the house’s money, so to say and it’s time to get rolling!

Being able to understand how each aspect of your campaign supports your overall marketing allows decisions on how to allocate budget best to get the best return.

For example, if we know that Facebook is excellent for generating initial interest – but these people tend to take longer to buy anything. We better darn make sure that our Search or LinkedIn or whatever other advertising channels we are using are focused on driving quick to close opportunities.

An excellent way to keep your finger on the pulse of your traffic is to implement a live chat feature. Chat has been powerful to understand gaps in campaigns better, and a means to get early indicators of how engaged visitors from specific aspects of our campaigns are.

3. If we don’t change, our competitors will eat our lunch
If you aren’t already on this path of marketing sophistication – the fact is your competitors likely are. The future is now and we need to shape up to effectively compete and start spending your time in dollars where you can build your brand and measure ROI.

Hopefully, with these tips, you’ll become the best you can be, well, at least in terms of digital marketing.