Marketing Tips

Digital Techniques for Gaining Qualified Leads

How to leverage the Web to boost your business.

By Yael K. Penn

Over the past few years, the Internet has become a vital fiber woven into the fabric of our day to day lives. The Web has become the most single most used tool for one–to-one and group communication, and millions of people rely on the Web for research and to make purchase decisions every day. Therefore, it’s certainly logical that some of the most effective lead generation techniques leverage online strategies.

When an in-house database is grown correctly, it will house your most qualified and responsive leads. Consider the following when developing your next lead generation strategy.

The first step when developing a lead generation campaign is to create a descriptive profile of your best customer. In addition to considering things such as age, gender, hobbies, and job function, be sure to consider their interactive habits such as what websites they visit, what social networks they may belong to, what type of information they download from the Web, what type of information are they prone to forward to a friend, etc.

Before you develop a strategy, analyze your competition. Be sure to:

1. Set up Web alerts for your competitors so you can follow them closely.
2. If the competition has an e-newsletter, subscribe to it.
3. Research your competition’s websites:
   1. Find out what keywords they value by looking up their Meta data (to look up Meta data, go to their website and right click to choose view source).
   2. Follow up with keyword searches for these words to find out if they are running any PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns. If they are, make note of what their ads say and what their landing pages look like.
   3. Find out what websites are linking to your competitors’ sites.
   4. Pay attention to what information they are capturing in their online forms and what lead generation techniques they are using. Are they offering whitepapers or webinars in exchange for information, what demographic information are they asking for in exchange, etc?
   5. A few resources for both free and paid tools are http://tools.seobook.com, http://www.seomoz.org, and http://www.seotoolland.com
4. Research how they are using social media. Do they have a blog? Do they use Twitter? What social networks do they belong to? What are they talking about?

Once you’ve created your customer profile(s), finished your competitive analysis, and determined the messaging for your campaign, you are ready to develop your lead generation strategy. The most challenging part of your strategy is convincing your prospect to willingly provide you with their information in exchange for something they want. Since the whole purpose of a lead generation campaign is to capture qualified leads so you can communicate with them on an ongoing basis, your offer should be valuable enough that prospects won’t mind giving you their information. Your initiatives can include banner ads on relevant websites, PPC campaigns, e-mail campaigns to partner opt-in lists, etc. You can approach the sites linking to your competition and ask them to link to yours, or search for synergistic partners (not competitors!) and leverage each other’s databases to gain qualified leads.  Creating mutually beneficial partnerships can be a great and inexpensive way to grow your database. Lastly, if you have time to dedicate to creating editorial content, two other great lead generation strategies are starting a blog or an e-newsletter.

As you roll-out your campaign, ideally, each initiative should have a separate landing page; one that mirrors the look, feel and message of whatever is linking to it. If you are offering a complimentary premium in exchange for their contact information, include a lead capture form in the landing page. If you can’t include a form directly in the landing page, then link to one. If you do not currently have a way to capture leads, an easy way to do this is through your email service provider. Most ESPs will provide you with both the lead capture form and a database to house the acquired leads. They will also manage your opt-outs for you.

When determining what information to ask for in your form, consider the fact that most people don’t like to fill out forms. That said, the shorter the better. Besides name and e-mail address, think of including one or two other demographic questions. These questions should be well thought out to provide you with information you can leverage for future campaigns. In addition to the demographic questions, your form should include a check box giving people the option to opt-in to receive information about your company and future promotions. According to the CAN-SPAM Act, if people do not explicitly say that they would like to receive e-mails from you in the future, it is unlawful to send them commercial marketing e-mails.

Also, testing different landing page layouts, images, image placement and copy is extremely important. Simple things can make a huge difference.  You can use tools like the Google website optimizer for this type of A/B testing. Creating a landing page is an art and it could mean the difference between capturing a lead or a very high bounce rate.

By tracking your lead generation efforts, you will be able to pinpoint which initiatives are working the best and focus more of your energy on those. Easy ways to track your initiatives are:

1. Web Analytics: use your current analytics software or sign up for a free Google Analytics account. This will enable you to track how many people are visiting each page on your site and pinpoint which campaign they are coming from.
2. Landing Pages: if possible, create a separate landing page for each marketing initiative. By doing this, you will be able to mirror the message, look and feel of each e-mail, banner, PPC ad, etc. This will increase your response rate and help you track your campaign
3. Dedicated 800 numbers: there are services that will provide you with a range of 800 numbers that redirect to your main phone number. Including a dedicated 800 number on each landing page will enable you to associate each call with a specific campaign. Some services even offer integration with your analytics software.
4. In your lead capture form, include one question asking people how they heard about you with a drop down menu where customers can select from a list of your current marketing initiatives.
5. If you have access to a developer, you can also develop your own tracking mechanism by writing a script to capture a source code that you embed in your URL. This code will pass through to a specific field in your database if the person who clicked on the URL fills out a form.

By incorporating some of the above techniques into your lead generation program, you will increase your response rate and have the ability to pinpoint exactly what is working and what is not. Be sure to spend enough time discovering who your best customer really is and tailoring your message and offer specifically to this audience, because your goal is to capture additional prospects who fit that profile. Also, don’t forget that even if you are accurately targeting your best customer, your campaign will only be a success if your message is relevant and your offer is tempting enough to get them to act on it.

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This article was originally published in the September 2009 issue of Website Magazine, www.websitemagazine.com