What Type Of Businesses Need Lead Generation?

Lead generation is a significant contributor to the growth of any business. It is a process of spotting potential customers or prospects who are interested in buying a product or service from your line of business. Even if you have a brilliant product or service, it’s futile as long as you spot potential buyers for the same. Hence, companies spend a lot of money and resources on lead generation.

What type of businesses need lead generation? Rather, if we may ask, what type of business does not need lead generation? The fact is that there is no business that doesn't need lead generation. Right from a business owner who sells home utility products to a school, a healthcare unit to even a Non-Government Non-Profit Organisation, everybody needs to lead to earning their revenue.

There is no business without a sale. Every business unit that aims to sell needs leads. However, lead generation does not necessarily mean conversion to sale. However, it is very much the first positive step towards it. Once a potential customer is spotted through lead generation, the sales team takes over to follow up and convert it into a successful sale.

Lead generation is a thriving business in itself. There are several independent consultants as well as companies that provide lead generation services to businesses. And with the advent of the digital era, this business is increasingly gaining momentum.

How does Lead Generation work?

It is a top priority for any business to identify a quality lead. And as digital media has accentuated the opportunities to reach out to a larger ambit of your target audience, it has at the same time made it difficult to spot quality leads that can eventually turn into a successful conversion. So how does it work?

Much before digital media became so influential, lead generation primarily took place through cold calls. Now, there are several digital vehicles such as emailers, social media marketing, blogging, webinars, etc., that lead your prospects to the landing page of your website. Every touchpoint has a mandatory process to either subscribe to the newsletter or fill in their name and contact details into an online form. This information is then directed to the sales team or the digital marketer, who then tries to engage the lead and convert it into a sale in due course of time.

However, not all lead generation campaigns run through the digital platforms turn out to be successful. First, they may not produce enough leads. And even if they do, the conversion rates might be very discouraging. Marketers have to be constantly on their toes and bring out smart ways to engage potential customers.

Why is Lead Generation Significant for Business Growth?

There are some basic parameters that help businesses to grow. We can never emphasise enough of these parameters. First, to know your target customers, second, to bring your product or service to their attention through brand awareness, third, to fish out newer valuable prospects, and last, to keep a tap on your existing customers and tracking their changing necessities and preferences through effective deployment of brand loyalty programs. And all these three parameters can be met through an effective and disciplined lead generation campaign.

Most lead generation campaigns generate a large number of leads. But here, it is significant for a business owner to understand that just mindlessly collecting the name and contact details of anyone and everyone will not help in sale conversions. Successful conversion of leads depends on the quality of leads. Hence, if you are out in the market to sell a steam iron, pitch your communication in such a way that attracts people who are in the need of a steam iron and not something else.

Getting quality leads may be time-consuming, but it gives an improved conversion rate that further amps up the ROI. It also ensures higher customer satisfaction, chances of referrals, stronger brand loyalty, and accelerated business growth. Some of the most effective social media platforms that provide good lead generation opportunities are Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram.

According to industry reports, a successful lead generation campaign will have the following outputs:

• Improve the leads in both qualitative and quantitative manner
• Improve the effectiveness of the strategy
• Enhance lead data analytics and segmentation
• Improve conversion rates
• Upgrade ROI measurability

Some of the Effective Digital Lead Generation Campaigns in Recent Times

• The big and established brands are capable of investing in extensive marketing campaigns. But it is not the same with start-ups or small businesses. Considering most of the start-ups in India are bootstrapped, they have to be very careful about their investment. Hence, lead generation campaigns have to be extremely focused. They have to make sure that each viewer they reach is looking for the service or product they sell.
• Innovative advertisement campaigns backed with machine learning and artificial intelligence to track the trigger points of each prospect followed by a compelling effort to push them to the landing page. Marketers have to be relentless and consistent in their efforts.
• In the recent past, a little-known brand arranged a lead generation campaign for fundraising. All they did was this – they created a fun quiz that eventually led their target audience to their landing page. It was a successful campaign that helped them to achieve their goals.

• Another brand that has successfully received a generous amount of quality leads reveals that placing their contact number on the top of every page of their website consistently has helped them to achieve that. Usually, the ‘contact us section is mentioned at the end of the page which gives out the message that the company does not want to hear from the customers. Just reversing this order by placing the mobile number on the top of the page helped to communicate with the prospects as well as customers that the company wants to hear from them. This strategy worked in the favour of the company.
• A global e-Commerce major revisited their branding exercise through cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for mobile users, cost per click (CPC), and cost per action (CPA) for computer users. These advertising strategies entail the advertiser paying an amount for each interaction or engagement from the user. The e-Commerce company has reportedly increased its leads by 150% and conversions by 100% within six months.
• A go-to lead generation campaign for e-Commerce brands is the free shipping facility. Some brands offer free shipping for the first one month along with other membership benefits, same-day delivery, place-the-order-at-midnight, and get-early-morning-delivery, etc., to lure the customers. Such lead campaigns have been incredibly successful during the lockdown period when mobility was restricted.
• Also, webinars have gained popularity in the lead generation segment. Several marketers are giving a small peek into their product line and/or services to the customers through webinars on the social media pages and many of them have reportedly had commendable conversion rates as well.

Also read:

1) Best Tips for Customer Retention for a Small Business
2) Tips to Understand Your Market while Starting a Small Business
3) Tips for Businesses to Overcome the Covid Blues - Revival Tips for Businesses
4) What are the keys to success when operating a small scale business?
5) OkCredit: All you need to know about OkCredit & how it works.

FAQs

Q. What is the lead?

Ans. Any person who is interested in a company’s product or service is a lead. For example, if a person walks into the market to purchase a pressure cooker, he is a lead for a business owner who deals with kitchen utensils.

Q. What is lead scoring?

Ans. Lead scoring is a score you can give to your leads based on their action or engagement level when they visit your lead generation campaign, website, open your email newsletter, click through your promotion, participate in the webinar, or register for a free trial. The lead score helps you to analyse the possibility of conversion for the lead.

Q. How much is cold outreach effective in the current times?

Ans. Cold outreach activities like cold calls or a customised cold emailer constitute a sizeable part of lead generation activities. It is considered to be an effective strategy to fish out quality leads.

Q. How to generate quality leads?

Ans. The best way to generate quality leads is by tracking inbound leads through website forms and response to marketing campaigns.