Lead Generation How-to Guide:

Tips and Strategies for Lead Gen

Running a business doesn’t look the same as it did 20 years ago (or even five years ago), because modern consumers don’t shop for products and services in the same way. Gone are the days when a simple ad in the paper would suffice. Now, consistent and measurable lead generation strategies are key to finding your customers, getting them interested, and tracking how they interact with your brand over time. Without an effective lead generation strategy in place, you’re likely to miss out on your greatest potential customers, especially in digital spaces.

But while most business leaders today know that a lead generation strategy is important, many of these same businesses don’t have a lead gen strategy in place. In a recent survey from the Content Marketing Institute, 47% of interviewed business owners admitted that they are missing or lacking effective lead generation and nurturing solutions.

This statistic shouldn’t scare you, even if you are among the 47%. Instead, it should excite you and empower you to move forward with a lead generation strategy customized to your business goals. Regardless of when you decide to bring a lead gen strategy into your business, you’ll quickly improve your chances of increasing your return customers and brand advocate pool. These tips will help you get there.

Define Your Ideal Buyer Personas

Who are your current customers? Who are your ideal customers, or the people who you expect would enthusiastically buy from you again and again? Get specific with the demographic data for both of these groups, as it will help you target and identify potential customers more effectively. The buyer personas that you develop through this research will help you focus on existing contacts that you can nurture through your marketing funnel, while also giving you the knowledge to identify future outbound prospects as you encounter them.

Engage in Multichannel Outreach Campaigns

Lead generation works best when you seek out customers through multiple channels. Now that doesn’t mean that you need to have a presence in every channel, but it is crucial that you research where your customers spend their time and do their shopping; from there, work on building up your digital and physical presence in those spaces in meaningful ways.

If you’re not exactly sure what channels to target, or what a “channel” actually is, this breakdown can help:

Understanding Inbound vs. Outbound Lead Generation Strategies

Many companies benefit from a combination of both inbound and outbound marketing strategies. So take the time to look at both sides of this chart, consider where your buyer personas will be most open to your messaging, and then target your lead generation efforts in those channels. It is extremely important to understand who your ideal buyer personas are before engaging in these efforts to ensure you target the right people and see results.

Segment Your Marketing Funnel

A person who has never heard of your brand needs different nurturing than a return customer or someone who has visited your website once or twice. That’s why it’s important to collect as much data as you can about their current engagement with your brand, from any and all channels where they’ve engaged with you before. From there, you’ll want to move your contacts into different segments in your marketing funnel, based on this data and what it indicates about their current engagement level with your brand.

Creating marketing funnel segments, ideally in a CRM, will make it much easier to target personalized content and offers at the right people. For measurable results and easy tracking, break your funnel into these overarching categories, remembering to update your funnel as individuals start to move through it:

Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

Also sometimes referred to as the Awareness Stage of your lead generation process, this is for people who are just finding out who your brand is and what you’re about. They may have never heard of you before, or they’ve heard of you but aren’t familiar with what you offer. In most cases, they have a problem and are looking for a solution that you’ll hopefully provide.

They’ll move to the next stage of the funnel once they start to engage with your content more regularly, which indicates that they are considering whether or not to make a purchase. Many people stay in this segment of the funnel for a long time, so they’ll need repeated educational outreach touchpoints to remember your brand and potentially move forward in the future. You’ll know it’s time to move a contact from TOFU to MOFU if they engage with certain lead magnets, targeted ads, or CTAs in ways that indicate true interest.

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

Also called the Consideration Stage, this is when a person is already aware of your brand and what you offer, and they’re trying to decide if it’s worth it to make a purchase. They may already know that they want or need something like what you offer, but they’re determining if you or a competitor offers the best solution. 

These are the individuals who are more likely to read in-depth research, dozens of customer reviews, and other information to help them make a decision. You’ll know if it’s time to move them from MOFU to BOFU in situations like the following:

• They sign up for a product’s free trial or demo.
• They frequently return to a webpage that includes a chart to compare your product to leading competitors.
• They request to speak to a sales representative.
• They click on a CTA to see how the solution will specifically work for them or their company.

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

BOFU is also referred to as the Decision Stage, as people who have reached this point have already engaged with your brand for a while and have shown clear interest in becoming a buyer. They have also concluded that you offer the best solution for what they need and have likely stopped looking at competitors as seriously.

While there are certainly similarities between MOFU and BOFU, a BOFU-stage individual may be someone who has “added to cart” multiple times or has spoken to sales reps on more than one occasion. In other words, their motivations are clear, but they haven’t gone through with a purchase yet. This is someone who may need an additional nudge, like a discount code, for instance.

Create Purpose-Built, Specific Content for Each Buyer Stage

Once you have your buyer segments, it’s time to create content for each of them, rather than one-size-fits-all outreach emails. Start by thinking about the questions and problems people might have at each stage of the funnel. If someone’s new to your brand, they may need more of an explanation about what you do, what your mission is, and what problems you’re trying to solve. On the other hand, if they are a longtime follower but have never made a purchase, they may need content more focused on specific products, services, or discounts that may get them to officially sign on with your company.

Regardless of the buyer stage, your content should feel personalized and like it’s coming from a real human. You can really show off your brand’s personality by getting creative here. For example, effective top-of-the-funnel content might include colorful and easy-to-digest infographics on social media, informative blogs or quizzes, and short videos and podcast clips that develop your image as an expert in this category.

Offer Real Value in Every Communication

Keep your content clear, brief, and focused on your goal. Overly flowery language is unnecessary. Hundreds of emails sent are rarely better than five points of contact done really well, especially since more unopened emails will almost certainly land you in the spam folder.

No matter what, your content should give your audience something “free” to latch onto that benefits them. This might be an answer (or answers) to customers’ most burning questions, a link to a relevant article, or a free download for an ebook that uses your expertise to help with larger problems they may face. Appearing as both an expert and a helpful resource will serve your brand well in developing leads into loyal customers.

Have Clear Calls to Action

Make your call to action (CTA) something that quickly draws readers in and makes it clear what the next steps would be, whether that’s downloading gated content, signing up for a 15-minute call with a brand rep, or adding a specific product to their cart. To make your CTA stand out, consider making it a clickable button. This is also a great way to do a multipronged CTA that goes to a landing page with multiple different conversion options, depending on what the buyer actually wants.

Provide Multiple Touchpoints Over Time

Your content should focus on every stage of the funnel and provide multiple touchpoints to each person, whether they move through the funnel quickly or get stuck somewhere along the way. Your touchpoints should also continue after purchase, ensuring the customer is getting the service and support they need and that they remain in the loop if they want to make follow-up purchase(s). 

Unless a person unsubscribes from your brand’s communications, they should be hearing from you regularly, not just in the short term, but also in the long term. You never know who’s going to return to your brand as a customer in five years because of that follow-up message you send down the road.

Nurture Leads and Track Results With a CRM

Many customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions enable you to automate lead generation work, from templating and sending outreach content across multiple channels to storing data for and then segmenting and microsegmenting your audience based on dozens of data points. Most importantly, they simplify the process of tracking lead gen KPIs, like email opens and CTA clicks.

Some CRMs are top-of-the-line and very expensive, but nearly all of them have a free or low-cost version that is worth experimenting with. HubSpot is a great, approachable option to get started with, especially since it integrates with social media accounts and commonly used business tools.

Partner With Lead Gen Experts

Unless you have an experienced marketing team in-house (and often, even if you do), you may not have the available time, resources, and skill sets to capitalize on all of these lead-gen tips. We totally get it. That’s part of why our mission is to help! 

At Mane Impact, our business is designed to give your business the marketing, lead generation, and strategic branding support it needs to grow while you run your operations. Our strategies are results-driven and have helped businesses across industries to nurture and grow their customer base to new levels. If you’re ready to get more hands-on guidance and support in the lead gen space, contact us today to learn how we can help.