Lead gen­er­a­tion

A lead is basically a data record with relevant personal data and contact in­form­a­tion that the potential customer has vol­un­tar­ily provided. Lead gen­er­a­tion promotes active ac­quis­i­tion of these contacts in the B2B as well as the B2C areas.

Lead gen­er­a­tion is the start of the lead man­age­ment process and is central to how potential customers are won over. It all begins by ad­dress­ing those who have shown some interest in your product or service. Before you even begin to work with the leads and qualify them as “sales ready” and hand them over to the sales de­part­ment, you first need to contact them.

Merely acquiring these data records is rarely the goal of lead gen­er­a­tion, since the quality of them also plays a part. It deals with high-quality contacts and qualified leads, which are very likely to develop into new customers. While those taking part in com­pet­i­tions often leave their contact details without any interest in the company or its offers and services, signing up for a news­let­ter shows, more often than not, that the reader does actually have an interest in the company. This marks the dif­fer­ence between so-called “cold leads” and “hot leads”: The cold lead has - at least at the beginning - no interest in a product or company, while a hot lead is in­ter­ested in what you have to offer and is actively searching for a certain article.

There are different ap­proaches and practices in lead man­age­ment that later determine which methods and strategies to use. To begin with, you should decide on the strategic direction of your campaign, which will determine which lead gen­er­a­tion tactics need to be im­ple­men­ted. The key questions that need to be answered are:

• Which media and channels can be used?
  Which media should you use to com­mu­nic­ate with your customers? It could make sense to centre these around more tra­di­tion­al methods, such as telephone ac­quis­i­tion and print ads, or it could be that potential customers are more likely to be found online i.e. on social networks.
   
• Should you follow the push or pull principle?
  How do you plan to implement the campaign in principle: according to the classic push or pull principle? How are leads actually generated? Direct marketing is when you contact the customer, but inbound or per­mis­sion marketing is when the customer comes to you.
   
• Should you put more emphasis on the quality or quantity of leads?
  The answer to this question depends on the nature of the products and offers. While a single, high-quality lead is worth a lot when it comes to expensive products, in other areas it makes more sense to have a large number of leads to make the process prof­it­able. The point of lead scoring is to assess the quality of leads. Eval­u­at­ing the quality of leads is the task of lead scoring.

Even though marketers are always coming up with new methods to establish contact with potential customers, certain variants have proven to be par­tic­u­larly promising over the years. Here are a few examples:

• Direct post: Leads are spe­cific­ally written to by letter. They can use a form including a return envelope to show their interest in the product and request further in­form­a­tion.
   
• Giveaways: In order to take part in a com­pet­i­tion, many people willingly provide their contact in­form­a­tion. If they give their consent, a company can also use this data for further contact.
   
• Landing pages: A potential customer has reached the landing page via the search engine and can leave their data in order to obtain ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion about the offer.
   
• News­let­ters: Leads can also be addressed via regularly sent e-mails about the company and any new offers.
   
• One-to-one con­ver­sa­tions: Par­tic­u­larly at trade fairs and in B2B business, sales rep­res­ent­at­ives can collect customer data this way.
   
• Social media: Via social networks, users can follow the online profiles of companies. Fans and followers can then be addressed via the ap­pro­pri­ate platform.

There are different types of lead gen­er­a­tion – they differ sig­ni­fic­antly when it comes to the type of com­mu­nic­a­tion. The basic types include:

• Face-to-face: when it comes to face-to-face lead gen­er­a­tion (also known as “offline lead gen­er­a­tion”), it concerns the classic efforts used to attract prospects e.g. par­ti­cip­at­ing in trade fairs, pro­mo­tions, com­pet­i­tions, or events. Company employees or promoters are often the ones who approach passersby or trade fair visitors in the hope of turning them into customers. This form of lead gen­er­a­tion is very complex and often proves costly.
   
• Print: leads can also be generated using ads in news­pa­pers or magazines. Response ad­vert­ise­ments con­tain­ing a prom­in­ently placed telephone number or a reply section are often used. Mail sent out in bulk is also a classic way of lead gen­er­a­tion in the print sector.
   
• Telephone: a dis­tinc­tion is made between inbound and outbound calls when gen­er­at­ing leads over the telephone. Service hotlines and call centres play a central role, since they accept inbound calls and can then attempt to win over pro­spect­ive customers. Outbound calls are also possible, but you must make sure that customers haven’t re­gistered their number with the Telephone Pref­er­ence Service, meaning they can’t legally be targeted by cold callers.
   
• Online: online lead gen­er­a­tion takes place on virtually all channels: via e-mail, social media, on one’s own website or blog, or via banners and ad­vert­ise­ments that lead to specific landing pages. Central elements include various content formats, such as white paper, e-books, or other in­cent­ives.

Every company can benefit from lead gen­er­a­tion. Those who actively establish contact with the target group have a better chance of expanding their customer base. But this ad­di­tion­al step in marketing and sales can cost small companies important resources that are actually needed elsewhere. Elec­tron­ic and online-based lead gen­er­a­tion in par­tic­u­lar can help: computing has made it much easier than ever to make contact and can also be done passively.

A simple way to un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence between pull and push marketing measures is to ask yourself who takes the first step: the company or the customer? In the case of direct or dialogue marketing, the company makes the first move, addresses potential customers, and starts the dialogue. In the case of pull marketing, the marketer takes the indirect route by investing in high quality content, which aims to pull the customer in.

Dialogue marketing is a form of direct marketing, whereby company employees approach potential customers directly with in­di­vidu­al offers. In the past, contact was made almost ex­clus­ively by telephone, therefore dialogue marketing is almost always as­so­ci­ated with call centres. Dialogue marketing generally includes all measures that are taken to establish a con­ver­sa­tion. This includes e-mails and snail mail, as well as attempts on social media. It’s crucial for the customer to have a response element i.e. a way for them to answer.

Unlike tra­di­tion­al ad­vert­ising, the main aim of dialogue marketing is to get a reaction from the customer, which makes them want to start a con­ver­sa­tion. If dialogue or direct marketing is used during lead gen­er­a­tion, the aim is to gain access to a potential customer’s contact in­form­a­tion.

E-commerce is an in­creas­ingly important industry in the UK. The shift in revenue from sta­tion­ary to online trading is con­tinu­ing. The e-commerce boom has also in­flu­enced lead man­age­ment and created new op­por­tun­it­ies.

Instead of directly and actively ad­dress­ing potential customers, the aim is to try to gain interest through indirect marketing measures.

With inbound marketing, the aim is to attract the attention of potential customers through good content. You publish valuable, in­ter­est­ing, and useful content online, and make sure it’s easy to find. If a potential customer is looking for in­form­a­tion or answers to specific questions, you can help them by using e-books, white papers, advice articles, or videos, to respond to their queries and their needs.

It is therefore all about being easy to find and about con­vin­cing potential customers of your company’s expertise, as well as about in­dir­ectly showing off your products. The right content strategy and pro­fes­sion­al search engine op­tim­isa­tion are the main success factors of inbound marketing. However, if the strategy is suc­cess­ful, the first result of suc­cess­ful inbound lead gen­er­a­tion is a high-quality, qualified lead.

Apart from tra­di­tion­al push channels, per­mis­sion marketing is also an option. The term describes a marketing approach where you first need to get the recipient’s per­mis­sion before you can show ads to them. In this day and age, it’s not a good idea to bombard customers with unwanted ad­vert­ise­ments. Many internet users have become very sensitive to ad­vert­ising messages. The barrage of ad­vert­ising in recent years has led to banner blindness, which is when readers con­sciously or sub­con­sciously hide and ignore ads or anything banner-like.

To increase the chance of customers accepting your marketing measures, and to be able to reach customers again and gain their attention, it’s becoming more common to ask for their per­mis­sion. In­cent­ives play an important role here. Using giveaways, discounts, free samples, and com­pet­i­tions as in­cent­ives, the user may be more willing to enter their contact in­form­a­tion. The user should feel as if they have benefited from dis­clos­ing their data. If a company succeeds in doing this, then suc­cess­ful lead gen­er­a­tion is possible.