How To Make The Most Of Your Lead Generation Efforts
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Need to organize your lead generation efforts but aren't sure where to start? Whether you work with a large marketing team or outsource your marketing efforts, you need to communicate your vision for the upcoming year. This handy list of top lead generation tools and methods will help you accelerate your marketing efforts.
Marketing Calendar
First, you need to create a marketing calendar for the entire year. A variety of tools can help you capture everything you plan for the year, from an Excel spreadsheet or Google Calendar to your marketing automation platform. Whatever tool you choose must help you provide a summary of all lead generation activities for the year.
The benefits of creating a marketing calendar include:
• Helping everyone involved visualize your lead generation program and how it will take shape over the year. Share your marketing calendar with every stakeholder in your organization and your outside marketing agency, if applicable.
• Breaking down activities by month, week and day. You can see at a glance what lead generation activities you have coming up. This helps everyone involved stay on track and accountable.
• Showing your salesforce how your marketing efforts add value.
• Helping you plan. Use a marketing calendar to plan your lead generation activities and show to higher-ups you are on top of organizational planning.
Advertising Calendar
Your advertising calendar helps you organize your advertising budget across the year. Similar to your marketing calendar, you can use Excel or some other platform to help track lead generation advertising on a monthly basis. Plan out your advertising campaigns, sponsorships and other paid media programs, then share your calendar with your team and executives.
Part of your calendar should include an advertisement evaluation matrix and a return on investment tracker. You can easily set it up in Excel or your marketing automation software. Determine how well your advertising performs over the year when you track and measure your results. You can change advertising tactics based on concrete data that shows you what is working and what is not.
Sales Productivity Metrics
Your inside sales representatives need to measure their effectiveness and need a tool to track their productivity. You can use your CRM or even an Excel spreadsheet. Help them learn which metrics to track and what they need to do daily to be successful.
Your sales productivity metrics should track activities such as:
• Dials per day
• Emails per day
• Demonstrations scheduled
• Sales won
• Appointments set
• Sales lost
Tie these to your marketing metrics and you’ll have closed-loop marketing and sales metrics to help you make better decisions.
Lead Generation Dashboard
Collect metrics on your lead generation activities and report on their success. Some metrics you should measure are:
• New leads by channel
• Opportunities in pipeline
• Contacts in CRM
• Cost per lead
• Landing page conversion rate
• Email marketing click-through rate
Weekly, during each campaign, review it and find ways to improve. While the above tools are excellent lead generation activities, always audit your existing lead generation strategies to help you build a more effective program.
Marketing Channels You May Not Be Leveraging
Podcasts
Develop a podcast program to nurture leads and interact with prospects along the buyer’s journey. A solid podcasting program lets you add a new layer of interactive content to your lead generation strategies. You can use podcasts for:
• Branding: Your customers are more tech-savvy than before, and podcasts help you introduce your brand and position it as an industry leader. Make sure your content is timely and relevant based on where your prospects are in the funnel.
• Lead generation and nurturing: Give your leads value-added content and industry best practices to help nurture them along the funnel. You can easily capture personal information with a subscriber form for your podcast.
• SEO: Generate a high download demand for your podcasts because search engines rank websites with high activity as more "important." A popular podcast can increase your organic search results.
• Third-party podcasts: Some companies are sponsoring third-party podcasts and including advertising before and after popular podcasts to extend their reach. You could encourage third-party advertising on your podcast to generate a revenue stream.
Webinars
Like podcasts, webinars are a great way to share valuable information such as product demonstrations and more with your leads. You can offer a wide variety of educational webinars, and if you offer a service, you can introduce your team and how you work. This builds trust and positions you as an expert.
You can use webinars to accomplish the same objectives as podcasts such as branding, lead generation and nurturing, plus more. Make sure the content is helpful and a great use of your audience’s time.
Industry Trade Shows
Industry trade shows are an effective way to generate leads because you can reach prospects in person. Some companies have stopped exhibiting for cost reasons. But if you can make your presence stand out, salespeople consistently rate trade shows as a top channel for opportunities.
Create an events database to help you track trade shows happening in your industry. Then score each trade show to help you decide the best ones to attend. Use the following criteria to help you weigh each consideration:
• Advertising
• Attendance
• Location
• Competitor presence
• Previous attendance and leads generated
• Any additional incentives
• Booth location
• Reputation
• Cost to attend
Then, make sure you have a solid tool in place, like a CRM, as well as training for your salespeople to capture leads at each trade show.
These are lead generation fundamentals, but I find that many companies miss them. Auditing your efforts here will help you improve your lead gen results.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/08/08/how-to-make-the-most-of-your-lead-generation-efforts/
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