What is Lead Generation?
As Digital Marketers or all marketing professionals, we always use the word so much. Get Leads, Convert Leads, This Lead, That Lead, and so on.
However, what is a “lead” in the real sense?
That’s what we are going to learn here.
There are a lot of people out there in the real world who would want to buy your products and services.
You are here with a product or service that you want to sell.
How are you going to reach out to your potential customers?
A lead is called a lead because it leads to a sale or you can say transaction.
A lead is a connecting link between you (your business) and your prospect who is
out there in the real world, who will buy your products or services.
A lead usually consists of the following 3 things:
- Name
- Email ID
- Phone Number
It depends on you how do you want to collect information from your prospects.
Sometimes the leads do not contain the names. Sometimes it is either the email ID or the phone number.
The Email ID or the phone number helps you reach out to your potential prospect or buyer and have a conversation with them so that you can tell them about your products and services and later you can sell them.
If you want to have a sales call, you need leads.
If you want to invite people to a webinar, you need leads.
If you want to invite people to an event, you need leads.
If you want to grow your business, you need leads.
What are not leads?
When we are talking about what are leads, it also helps to talk about what is not Leads. Nowadays, Many influencers are busy getting followers on social media. But they are not your leads.
All these are not leads:
- Facebook Fans
- Instagram Followers
- Twitter Followers
- YouTube Subscribers
All social media people are visiting all social platforms for entertainment purposes not for buying purposes and you are having a connection in someone else’s platform and that is not going to be helping if you want to sell something to them.
Many times, you will not be able to get 100% reach (or even 30%) because they are the users of the platform and not your users.
Hence you will not be able to reach out to them on demand.
But once you get leads from these people you can easily send them personalized messages and even you can ask them to buy your products and services and they will become your user. And you will be having direct access to your potential buyer.
You can build brand awareness and get people into your platform but do not depend on this.
Ways to generate a lead?
Nowadays, All marketing professionals, as well as Modern brands, make use of various lead generation strategies such as:
- Blogging
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Networking
- Coupons
- Live events and seminars
- Website landing pages
Why is Lead Generation Important for Brands?
If your business doesn’t need lead generation, then there is no point in trying to learn how to generate leads, right? So when does a business not need lead generation?
A business doesn’t need lead generation when it is selling low priced consumer goods that are simple in nature. When consumers need not go through a tough decision-making process to buy something, and when they do not need a lot of time to decide, generating leads is Pointless.
Here are some examples of low priced consumer goods:
- Candy
- Soap
- Pen
- Cookies
- Body spray
These FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) products are simple, low priced, and attract a lot of repeat buyers. Companies that sell FMCG products do not need lead generation. But when you sell something high price product like Home, Car, Insurance, Digital Course etc, you need lead to sell.
The Process of Buying a Home:
If someone is interested in buying a home, he/she will look at an ad and will call the number on that ad. Or they will look at an ad online, click on it, visit the landing page or website and fill out a form with their contact information. This contact information becomes a lead for the seller.
The contact information is a lead because it leads to a sale.
This contact information is the connecting link between the buyer and the seller.
Once the seller gets the contact information he will call the prospective buyer and
schedule a site visit for more information about the home, design, location. Without seeing the house in person, the buyer cannot make a buying decision. This is a complex product and once the purchase is done, it is difficult to reverse the Transaction.
So the buyer will visit the house/location(or a model house if it is still under construction) and then will ask a lot of questions to the salesperson.
- Does it have a good water supply?
- Is this a good neighbourhood?
- What about the facilities in this apartment building?
- What about the security and so on.
These are the questions and objections that the buyer has before he can go ahead with the purchase decision. The decision-making process can take anywhere from 3 to 6 Months.
Generating Leads to Sell Digital Products.
Nowadays, people are selling digital products with the help of digital marketing. But do you know selling digital products is very competitive because, after the pandemic, most of the people are becoming content creators and product sellers?
To sell your digital products, you have to generate leads. And you can generate with a free lead magnet and these are-
- Free Webinar
- Free Ebook
- Free Mini-Course
- Free Templates
After getting leads, you can sell your core product to your prospects. So, Do not rely on your social media fans as well as followers. If you want to grow your company or your revenue you have to focus on lead generation.
Cheers,
Niraj Kumar Singh