Leads are the fuel required to keep a marketing campaign afloat. It is the most important, and often the most difficult, aspect of a campaign. How do you get a constant flow of quality leads?
Lead generation is about working smarter – not harder. Think of prospecting for gold. You don’t go out and dig everywhere and hope to strike it rich. Instead, you take time to come up with a solid plan to dig in the right spots.
Diversify Your Plan
A good lead generation plan is like a good stock portfolio. You don’t want to have all of your eggs in one basket. Explore all of your options. Consider social media, search engine traffic, and your email lists as different sources for sales leads.
Some experts say the rule is quality and not quantity. Although true to a degree, you need to generate enough leads so you can decide for yourself which leads are worth your time.
Think of commercial fishermen. They don’t try to catch each fish individually with a pole and lure. They cast out a huge net and catch hundreds of fish at once. They then go through their catch and toss back whatever they weren’t fishing for.
Worry about quantity first and then use your plan to decide which leads are quality.
Lead Generation Strategies
One huge benefit of the Sales Nexus CRM software is its partnership with Leadferret, a free B2B database of contacts. The contact information system lets you search for sales leads based on qualities like industry, job title, and location.
You can seamlessly download 500 sales leads from Leadferret each month. It is an excellent primary source to ensure a constant flow of leads into your CRM.
Use this feature to build a solid email list for your email marketing. As your campaigns move forward, use list segmentation to sort which contacts are ready for a sales call. Put the ones who aren’t ready in your lead nurturing campaign.
Social media is another great source of leads. It has become the digital form of word of mouth marketing.
62% of companies say that social media has recently become a more important source of leads
57% of companies with a blog have generated at least one lead from their posts
81% of businesses have reported their blog as useful or critical to generating leads
These numbers show how important social media has become in lead generation. A company blog is a great way to draw search engine traffic. It also lets you provide useful information to today’s knowledge-hungry customer.
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are also great sources of secondary lead generation. Target influencers in your industry who have a high number of followers. Find ways to get them to share your content.
Include social sharing icons in each email. Encourage your email recipients to extend the conversation about your business to social media. When they share, it works as free advertisement for your business.
Implement these lead generation strategies to work smarter and always have a constant stream of leads for your marketing efforts.