The customer is at the center of designing any marketing strategy, be it inbound or outbound. Efforts are made to get more customers and retain existing customers. In modern times, the traditional methods of advertising be it print, TV or radio is taking a back seat to the digital medium. One major cause is a slow but certain shift of society towards social media and digital mediums. People are increasingly turning to online mediums to find the solution to their needs.

We will discuss the lead generation through inbound marketing, and the best ways to execute the whole process. Idea is that efforts should lead to optimum results. Inbound marketing can be defined as a strategy, which takes advantage of customer interest by providing useful and relevant content online in order to inform, entertain, and entice them towards a particular product or service. Strategies are implemented with the intent of online lead generation. Now, what actually is the lead generation? Lead generation essentially refers to the process when a user shows interest or inquires about the product or service presented online. Lead generation is of utmost importance for any online marketing strategy as this finally contributes to business growth.

Lead generation works both for users and for the brand because the whole process is designed in such a way that the user gets the relevant information according to the need, and the company gets its potential future customer. The objective of getting users/prospects by posting informative articles, blogs, videos, or post on social media, websites and webpages is to get customers. Even if the prospect or the user lands on your site, the task of converting the prospect into a customer remains a challenge.

The main purpose is to target the maximum no of users (prospects).More the prospects (leads), the better the conversion rate(customers).However, it is not easy to generate leads and convert them to a customer.

The Process of Online Lead Generation:

Following are the steps-

• User comes across the business information through any of the marketing tool used like social media posts, Blogs or article.
• Uses CTA (call-to-action). This promotes or encourages the user to take some action.
• CTA takes the user to the main or landing page where all the lead information is given. At this point, the user is asked to share his/her personal information. Sometimes s/he may get some additional relevant/useful information in return.
• Task is over once the form is filled. This is the lead.

Online Lead Generation: Strategies to Use

Online lead generation, being a critical part of today’s digital marketing practices, needs proper planning and execution.

Get your own website ready first:

Before using any other medium, you have to make your own business website ready for the task. The lead pages of your website should be designed carefully with lead magnets(free item or service offered in return of contact details). These magnets should be relevant, for example, if your product is Brown Rice, a perfect lead magnet can be a ‘Healthy Cooking Guide’.

Use of SEO and PPC:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is also very useful to bring traffic. SEO helps your website/content rank high resulting in more traffic and more lead generation. PPC (pay per click) is also another quick way to generate online leads. It is a way of buying visits to your sites rather than organic visits.

Blogging could be a smart move:

Writing blogs is more effective than anyone thinks. Blogging is a powerful tool when it comes to online marketing strategy tools. Business blogs are so common today yet very helpful in terms of prospect attention and lead generation. The content of the blog should be informative and interesting that your reader not only compelled to read them but also relate to it.

Strategically using Social Media and networking sites:

Social Media marketing is helpful in many ways for online lead generation. The ads are wide posted on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Facebook lead ads, Twitter cards or paid cards, LinkedIn lead generating forms. All these help in online lead generation. Networking sites are especially more helpful in B2B lead generation.

Hosting Webinars:

As the name suggests, it is a mix of web and seminar. The webinar is an event held on the internet, attended online by the interested viewers. Sometimes this becomes an effective tool for lead generation. content and the presentation are two major factors for making it successful.

Online Videos:

One very important online marketing tool to be incorporated is the use of videos. This includes all the video ads within the web and app-based video players. These videos usually appear before, after or during any streamed video of that particular platform. The best example is the YouTube video ads. With such a heavy user base, YouTube can be a great medium for video content and online lead generation. A product or service can be introduced through video content using visuals that catches more attention, eventually contributing to lead generation.

Free coupons and discounts:

People usually like to get discounts or coupons. In return, many times they will happily share their information. This not only helps in lead generation but the conversion rates are also high. The above strategies should be implemented through a specialized digital marketing company, having expertise in brand marketing through SEO services, and social media marketing.

Generating online leads is essential and critical for any online marketing strategy. It is critical to generate good online leads; as they say, “well begun is half done”.