Lead generation: the hidden truths

The term ‘lead generation’ is what you usually hear from online marketing and digital companies who promise you results that often seem too good to be true. But what is lead generation?

A lead is a person who has expressed interest in a product or service that you or your company offers—and lead generation is what you do to attract those people and entice them into giving you their contact details. It is the method you use to capture the lead. There are plenty of ways of doing this so you might want to keep reading!

In this article, we will try to explain the most popular lead generation methods and expose their pros and cons. Remember that sometimes quality outweighs volume, and this is what you should consider when thinking about lead generation.

Why is lead generation important?

Lead generation is a particularly important part of any successful business. You can try to generate leads by sharing creative assets and engaging content with your audience organically, but this is a long and difficult process that takes time and effort. However, there is an easier way to generate leads and this is by paid promotions. Although this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plan your organic campaign too to support your paid activity. You want your leads to be ‘quality leads’ and to make sure that all the money that you spend on your promotional campaign isn’t wasted. But let’s just say that the more leads you get the more you convert, the more business you get—it’s simple math.

What lead generation strategies are out there?

Nowadays there are many ways to create a lead generation campaign. You can use Facebook advertising, Google Ads/PPC, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter, B2B campaigns and display ads, blogs, product trials, landing pages, coupons etc. There are so many ways to promote a lead generation strategy, it would take us more than one blog to go through all of them, so we are going to concentrate on the most popular ones.

Facebook lead generation

Facebook base their lead generation by using a pre-filled out form with the information they already have about a Facebook user. By doing it this way you can obtain the potential client’s name, email address and phone number (plus other bespoke details you choose). It has proven to be a very ‘successful’ way of getting leads, lots of them, but from our own experience, we know that the quality of the leads is not that ‘qualified’. However, this depends on what type of business or product you are promoting. For some businesses Facebook is the top platform for lead generation as volume of leads is more important than the overall quality.

Facebook also offers another way to generate leads, and this is by redirecting users to landing pages. These pages are designed to provide information and ‘capture’ the interest of a potential client without giving away all the details. By visiting the landing page where you showcase some great images of your product, bullet-point information, catchy slogans etc. you can ‘intrigue’ the user and entice them to leave their details for more information. This way of generating leads is oftenreferred to as sales funnels (we will explain more about this way of generating leads in future blogs).

 

Google lead generation (Google Adwords / PPC)

Google is still the leader when it comes to lead generation strategy as it is one of the most effective and most used platforms. Google handles 3.5 billion searches a day making it a prime platform for any ad campaign. They have recently tightened up their rules and policies making it harder to have the campaigns approved. But this means that Google reviews all ad campaigns with more caution making sure that only legitimate products/services are being promoted, which in the end means you get ‘better’ quality leads’.

Google is constantly looking for new ways to reach more and more people across different, platforms. In fact, they have recently launched Google Discovery Ads which target users across multiple Google products (read more here). These new campaigns let you engage audiences across YouTube ‘Home’ and ‘Watch Next’ feeds, Google Discover (in the Google Search App), and Gmail Promotions and Social tabs, all using a single campaign.

Within Google Search Campaigns they offer additional ways to stand out from the other adverts and increase your click through rates. One of these ways is to add ‘extensions’ to your adverts. Since November 2019 Google has been beta testing a new extension called ‘Lead form Extension’. This is still in BETA and is now being tested across different countries, but already looks like a great addition. It is not available to all AdWords accounts yet, but we see it as a gamechanger in lead generation via Google Ads. We will write more about this new way of capturing leads in a further blog once we have tested it ourselves and can give you a true opinion on the pros and cons.

Most importantly, as we already mentioned, Google leads the way in lead generation and has been proven to provide better quality leads, especially with search campaigns because the people that click your advert are actually searching for a product or service that you offer. Now all you have to do is convince them to get in touch with you!

LinkedIn lead generation 

LinkedIn has grown massively in the past few years, becoming the ‘must-have’ social platform for any successful business—and it hasn’t taken them long to get on board with lead generation. LinkedIn uses a similar method as Facebook, having created a lead generation form with pre-filled areas that use subscribers’ profile details: name, email address and phone number. The good thing about LinkedIn is that it is a ‘professional’ social platform so the quality of leads tends to be better than that of Facebook.

How much does lead generation cost?

This is the question we are asked by most of our clients when discussing a potential lead generation campaign. Unfortunately, this is also a very tricky and difficult question to answer as it always depends on what type of campaign you want to run, what is your target audience, what your goals are and how you intend to handle the leads.

Here at Manifesto we have a set rate for a setting up a lead generation campaign and then we discuss with the client the appropriate budget for it. We, of course, have our clients’ best interest in mind and can advise of the most suitable ways to generate leads.

Grow your business with lead generation

We have covered the basics of lead generation and outlined the most popular strategies. This blog only showcases the tip of the iceberg, as lead generation is a complex process that requires consultation with you, the client to establish the purpose and types of leads needed. However, one thing is true: a good lead generation campaign will bring you clients!

If you would like to discuss the possibility of setting up a lead generation campaign for your business or want to find out more about the often confusing world of leads, get in touch with us today. Our marketing experts will happily help you and your business to get to the top. No commitment, simply come in for a chat and we will see what we can do to make your business skyrocket.

-Oksana Drutsul-