If your business is going to sell the products and services you offer and grow, you need to generate a sufficient volume of quality leads, period. Leads are the energy which fuels sales—without leads, your business is like a car with an empty fuel tank. The question for business is not whether lead generation is important, but rather, what are the most effective strategies to generate the number of leads you need to succeed?
According to Hubspot's State of Inbound 2017 survey of more than 4,000 marketers around the globe, lead generation tops the list of the marketing challenges they face. On average, for example, marketers spend more than half their marketing budgets on lead generation, but more than 80% of those same marketers report their lead generation efforts are only "slightly or somewhat effective."
Why the disconnect? How is it that otherwise savvy marketers are coming up short in meeting their lead generation goals? The simple answer is that the strategies they employ to secure new leads are not resonating with their prospective customer base.
Increasingly, inbound and outbound marketers understand the need to provide compelling incentives to turn visitors to their websites into leads, typically by providing them with the contact information they need to nurture them and move them through the buyer's journey. And, increasingly, the most successful marketers are harnessing the notion of creating effective "lead magnets." What is a lead magnet? Here's how Entrepreneur defines the term:
"A lead magnet is content given away to someone in exchange for their email address. Instead of purchasing an ebook, for example, they simply sign up for your email list and then receive a link to download the ebook free."
In other words, prospective customers have problems they need to solve. Your business can help them solve those problems by providing relevant information (content). If the information you provide effectively aligns with the problems they face, they'll be willing to provide their contact information (especially their email address) to get it. If you do it right, you'll have a new email subscriber, and a new lead you can then nurture through the buyer's journey and who will eventually purchase your products and services.
The problem, of course, is that many other companies are also trying to connect with your prospective customers. In this competitive environment, it's not enough simply to ask someone to subscribe to your emails. You need to give them a good reason to do so. In other words, your lead magnets need to be compelling. Although every business is different, some lead magnet strategies work for most, including the following 5:
Generating leads continues to be among the most pressing challenges facing marketers today. Creating effective, compelling, and valuable lead magnets can help, but it's not the only solution. To learn more about the ways our web design and digital marketing, photography, search engine optimization, and marketing automation services can help you generate leads, boost conversions, increase profits and help your business grow, contact us today.