There are many ways to generate leads. Some methods like Pay-To-Click or Pay-Per-Click can offer virtually immediate exposure. Others can take long time to develop before you start to see the benefits. generally speaking, it's a good idea to include an element of short term and longer term lead generation strategies.
Lead Generation Via PPC & PTC
Pay-Per-Click advertising, involves bidding individually on keywords in such a way as to out-bid your competitors to win the clicks of people searching fro your chosen keyword. To understand bidding basics, the Google Guide is very helpful and informative. Targeted carefully, starting with small budgets, low bids and regular meticulous optimisation, PPC can yield good results. The obvious benefits are a very quick launch to the top of the search engines, creating maximum visibility in the shortest time.
The main players in the PPC arena are Google AdWords and Bing. In my experience, the customer profile of the two is very different, so that you cannot assume simply copying a campaign over from AdWords into Bing, or vice versa, will necessarily work. However, both platforms, when optimised properly, can indeed produce fantastic results, over time. The disadvantage of these platforms is that competitive keywords can be extremely expensive, costing anything up to €10 per click or more. Obviously if a campaign is not set up carefully, a large budget can be burnt through in minutes for little return.
Compare this with exchange platforms, which also offer PPC and in addition, PTC (Pay-To-Click) advertising, both of which which can be extremely cost effective. LikesXL for example, offers extremely competitive pricing structures, and bidding set up in such a way that more competitive keywords are no more expensive than others... in fact there is a flat rate charged across the board.
So for example, bidding on a keyword on one of the top two PPC platforms may cost you €10, whereas on LikesXL it will cost a tiny fraction of this. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most of the keywords you will bid on using likesXL, you will pay a fraction of the price normally charged by other PPC networks.
This is a massive advantage for companies operating in competitive marketplaces, and many are yet to wake up to this golden opportunity.
The other unique advantage of LikesXL, is that chances are you will be benefiting from advertising alongside top brands and household names.
Targeting systems on LikesXL are being continually improved, and the audience is growing rapidly every day. Watch this space!
Compare this with exchange platforms, which also offer PPC and in addition, PTC (Pay-To-Click) advertising, both of which which can be extremely cost effective. LikesXL for example, offers extremely competitive pricing structures, and bidding set up in such a way that more competitive keywords are no more expensive than others... in fact there is a flat rate charged across the board.
So for example, bidding on a keyword on one of the top two PPC platforms may cost you €10, whereas on LikesXL it will cost a tiny fraction of this. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most of the keywords you will bid on using likesXL, you will pay a fraction of the price normally charged by other PPC networks.
This is a massive advantage for companies operating in competitive marketplaces, and many are yet to wake up to this golden opportunity.
The other unique advantage of LikesXL, is that chances are you will be benefiting from advertising alongside top brands and household names.
Targeting systems on LikesXL are being continually improved, and the audience is growing rapidly every day. Watch this space!
Lead Generation Via On-site Optimisation
It seems that the most popular method of lead generation by
businesses the world over, remains getting their website to the top in the
natural rankings by optimisation.
Why? If your site is at the top, more people will find it,
and you will therefore normally generate more leads. The beauty of this
technique, is that the leads you generate are free.
FREE? Yup. Once you are at the top for specific keywords or
phrases that convert well for you, you will inevitably enjoy a stream of leads coming
through that won’t cost you a cent!
Getting your site up the natural rankings for your chosen
keywords is an art. Conduct keyword research to find keywords that are not
competitive, but are the kind of search terms your target market will be typing
into search engines.
You need to select your target keywords carefully, choosing
those that are not too competitive, and therefore where you stand a chance of
getting to the top. If you choose a keyword that has massive competition,
chances are that all your efforts will be a waste of time, because you’ll never
get anywhere near page one, let alone position one on page one!
Once you have a strong keyword list, you can structure your
on-site optimisation around it.
For example, choose short, concise page titles, and include
one of your important keywords in each title, making sure that you keep the
content on the page relevant to the page title.
- Regularly update your content, keeping it fresh, unique and interesting
- Make sure your site is easy to navigate, so that visitors can easily move from page to page
- Keep your site uncluttered so that visitors can find what they are looking for easily… Google calls this having a “good user experience”
- Use lots of images to break up blocks of text
- Keep a Blog and post regularly. Make sure your content is useful and unique
- Keep text short and punchy. Long, rambling blocks of content are a real turn-off
- Feature site-wide, multiple calls-to-action. Every visitor is valuable, so entice your audience as much as you can to subscribe, download, contact you or make a purchase. Have Call-To-Action buttons in main content, in side-bars and your footer
- Ensure your Call-To-Action buttons are large with bold colours and compelling text prompts
- Make sure it is very easy for your visitors to understand your pricing structure
- Help your prospects keep within their budgets by categorizing your products according to price ranges
- Access to lead generation forms should be present in both your main content and sidebars
Lead Generation Via Off-site SEO
Off-site SEO is also a vitally important part of the marketing
mix, to help your site climb to the top of the natural rankings.
One of the most effective things you can do is to find high
ranking websites and link to their Home page, or better still, persuade them to
link through to your site from THEIR Home page.
Also:
Also:
- Find broken links on your site and either mend them or remove them
- Remove toxic backlinks, as these will have a big negative effect on your natural rankings
- Make sure you have lots of outbound links that go to Authority websites. For every piece of content you publish, link to at least three sites that offer quality, relevant information.
Lead Generation Via Email Marketing
Although email marketing seems to have been around for eons,
it continues to be extremely popular with all businesses large and small. Email
marketing now involves high tec. targeting methods and tracking software, which
when you are on the receiving end, can feel a little bit like Big Brother is
Watching You!
Automated email generation is big business, with B2B systems thought to be increasing revenue generated in this way by approximately 50% year on year, with eMarketer.com stating that some companies have seen conversion rates from email campaigns up to a remarkable 50%!
If proper email marketing techniques are used and executed, with
relevant emails sent to your database at the right time in the buying cycle, this
form of marketing exercise can be a highly effective method of lead generation.
Lead Generation Via Social Media
Research tells us that both SEO and content marketing via Blogs and Social Media are becoming increasingly important, and are now perceived as vital parts of the Marketing Mix for the vast majority of companies wanting to generate leads, increase sales or build brand awareness online.
A great way to benefit from the huge popularity of Social Media channels is to have links to your pages on all the major platforms from your footer. Linking your site in this way provides visitors with a quick and easy route to your Social Media pages and posts. Maintaining a steady stream of new posts and unique content on these platforms will help support your SEO and improve your position in the natural rankings.
In addition, paid ads on Social Media channels is now a massive growth area, that many businesses are using as efficient methods of lead generation.
Summary
If you are in business, lead generation will undoubtedly be at
the heart and soul of your daily activities. Whether online or in a traditional
shop on the High St., you will be looking to convert visitors into paying
customers.
The key to success, is to get up close and personal with as
many digital forms of lead generation as you can. To side step digital
marketing is a mistake I’m not sure anyone can afford to make these days, if they
expect to survive. Grab the bull by the horns and utilise all the tools available
to you.
Start today with LikesXL targeted ads. Utilise the platform properly,
and you’ll be generating more leads than you can handle!
