Digital Lead Generation
Digital advertising encompasses both performance marketing and brand marketing. Digital lead generation is perhaps the most practical and most pragmatic way to use digital advertising, social media marketing, webinar marketing, and email marketing to seek out and drive new business development. Digital lead generation is generally considered to be in the category of performance marketing, whereby marketing dollars are focused on generating specific new sales leads, and is measured in terms such as cost per lead. This is in contrast to using digital advertising for brand marketing, where the goal of is to raise broad brand awareness, which may be measured in terms like cost per thousand impressions. Both performance marketing and brand marketing are important complementary components of any digital marketing campaign.
Before embarking upon either performance marketing or brand marketing, it is critical to first establish a digital strategy roadmap that maps the sales and marketing goals of the organization to the right digital strategy, the right audience, and the right platform. Once the overarching digital strategy has been identified, the next step is development of specific campaigns and initiatives to execute the performance marketing or brand marketing goals.
When focusing on performance marketing, the digital lead generation process can be conceptualized as a digital marketing funnel, whereby suspects or prospects are targeted and gathered at the top of the funnel, then qualified, and encouraged through the funnel to come out as customers at the other end of the funnel.
A digital marketing funnel consists of three main sequential components:
- Seek, Target, Qualify. At the top of the funnel, the goal is to seek out, target and attract qualified prospects. Those prospects are driven to your website, your landing page, or some other digital call to action. The key to seeking out qualified prospects in a cost-effective way is to leverage digital ad engines on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin to present ads to the right prospects, and ONLY the right prospects, and avoid displaying the messaging to unqualified prospects. Other techniques in this part of the funnel include search engine optimization and content marketing, landing pages, microsites, blogging, influencers, pay per click keyword ads, and inbox advertising. The goal is to place the right digital ad or video ad in front of the right person, as inexpensively as possible, in order to introduce that person to your company, product or service, and encourage them to take the next step, find out more, and drive them into the marketing funnel.
- Engage, Nurture and Educate. In the middle of the funnel, the goals is to engage and nurture suspects and prospects, educate the prospect as to how to choose a solution that is appropriate, create a sense of urgency, and encourage the prospect to take the next step. Tools used in the middle of the funnel include automated email sequences, heatmapping, AB testing, remarketing and retargeting, cart abandonment remarketing, limited time offers, automated follow-up emails and influencers and irresistible opt-in opportunities. Trinet can use all of the above tools to create an effective funnel. Our webinar hosted events provide a unique and effective means to create an evergreen digital lead funnel to seek, engage, educate, convert qualified prospects.
- Call to Action! At the bottom of the funnel, the goal is to convince the prospect why your product, solution or organization is the best solution for them, to encourage completion of a call to action, and get them to choose you. Techniques that may be used at the bottom of the funnel include frequently asked questions, video snippets, interactive question and answer blogs, live customer service chats, product or service reviews and testimonials, limited time offers, technical specification documents, product manuals, free downloadables or special offers, suggestions for related products, services or accessories, labels like "Most Popular Product", or "Most Customers Purchase This". Once a prospect has completed a call to action and has made a purchase, or reached out to talk to a customer representative, then the process switches to customer nurturing and retention.
Digital lead generation funnels require marketing experience, expertise and skill to execute effectively. The Trinet team has extensive experience developing, deploying and tuning lead generation funnels to create an evergreen source of digital leads. If you are ready to get started on building your digital lead funnel, call Trinet today at 949-442-8900 or on the button below and Trinet can get your digital leads flowing!
