Inbound lead generation is a strategy that all businesses should be using to their benefit. It is an easy and effective way to generate business through content marketing. Inbound lead generation is a continuous process. Your strategy should continue to evolve as your business does, ensuring that your techniques and content stays relevant.
Here are some ways your business can create, or improve their inbound lead generation strategy.
What is a Lead?
A lead is a person or a company that could benefit from the services you provide. Leads are potential clients or customers. Most of the time, leads are individuals who interact with the content on your website. Leads can also be individuals who have been referred to you by others. Generally, anyone who provides us with their email address we consider a lead.
How Can You Generate Leads?
There are a number of ways you can generate leads by utilizing your very own website. At VA Partners, we use different methods for obtaining leads, but our most successful methods are our monthly newsletter and white paper downloads. Individuals who take the time to sign up for our newsletter are showing a genuine interest in the work that we do. Those who download our white papers are interested in the services we provide – these individuals could turn into customers.
- Newsletter
- Downloadable Assets
- SEO
- Email Nurturing Campaigns
We send our monthly newsletter out on the first Tuesday of every month. It’s a great way to connect with and share content with our subscribers. We utilize MailChimp to see how our newsletter performs month-to-month. We are able to see where on the newsletter people clicked and get a sense of the content that is interesting to our subscribers. This is useful for planning what to include in the following newsletter and what to remove.
Recently, we added a plugin called SumoMe, which has proven successful for newsletter sign-ups. A pop up is generated once the person scrolls to the bottom of a webpage.
We aim to release a new white paper every quarter. Posting new content, like white papers is another great way to generate leads and showcase your expertise.
In order to download our white paper the individual needs to provide us with their name, business name and email address.
Once the form is filled out, the individual is able to open the document and their information is stored in our CRM.
It’s important to have a great website that is filled with useful content and keywords, which will enhance the SEO. We regularly use tools like Moz and Google Analytics to assess areas of our website that need improvement. Recently, we fixed over 200 high priority link errors, which made it easier for others to find us.
By monitoring where our traffic is coming from we are able to improve our content marketing and how and where we are sharing content. By regularly using social media and writing new blog posts, weekly we are improving our SEO and making it easier for others to find us. For those who contact you directly, it might be worth asking how they found you. This information can be stored in an Excel sheet or within the account information in your CRM.
Recently, we have started spending time using the MailChimp Automation feature. This allows us to easily provide useful information to those on our mailing list. For example, if someone was to download our white paper, Is Outsourced Sales & Marketing Right For Your Company, we could then provide them with other content that is relevant, like a list of blogs. Usually this email would be sent out a week or two later.
Inbound Lead Generation Strategy
We don’t reach out to every lead. Instead, we take our time researching the company and decide if the lead is qualified or unqualified. If we feel that it would be a good fit, we reach out via email in hopes of setting up a phone call or in-person meeting. We utilize our CRM, SalesForce to keep track of the leads, both qualified and unqualified. Any correspondence whether email, or phone call is tracked so we can refer back to it at a later date. Try not to get discouraged if not every lead turns into revenue, it generally doesn’t work that way.
Looking to improve your inbound lead generation strategy, but need help? Send us an email at [email protected]. Or, if you have some great tips for inbound lead generation, we would love to hear from you. Connect with us via Twitter or Facebook.
