SEO

Best Online Lead Generation Strategies

Creating and managing an effective online lead generation campaign is not a job for the timid. Internet marketing is a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process. From keywords to conversion, the path to developing an effective lead generation strategy is replete with wrong turns and dead-end streets.

No one can change the fact that a lead generation campaign is largely built on trial and error. However, we can all share our top lead generation strategies and apply those best practices going forward.

Included below are two of the most successful lead generation strategies from the experts at Response Mine Interactive.

Despite the many ins and outs of the Internet channel, the rewards for your business can be substantial. With patience, intense focus, a keen sense of risk management and by adhering to the best practices in lead generation strategy, your lead generation campaign will be a success.

• Use content to prequalify leads Many marketers that embark on a lead generation campaign would say that using landing pages with a series of qualifying questions to ‘score’ each respondent is one of the best lead generation strategies to qualify leads. And they would be half correct. A well-conceived registration form can certainly be a great qualifier. But there’s an even better lead generation strategy that is often more effective--putting the right content in the right places so that prospects can self-select. By responding to relevant, compelling content, prospects qualify themselves.

  When incorporated into your lead generation campaign, content can play two roles. Off your site, content is the bait that attracts self-qualifying prospects. The bait can be in a blog, an email, a syndicated paper, a bylined article in an industry publication, a newsletter, a social networking site or a press release. After watching or reading this content, the prospect typically visits a landing page, which can be on or separate from your company’s website. Then, at the landing page, content amplifies the qualification of the source site, delivers a compelling offer, and hopefully converts the visitor into a qualified lead--making for a highly effective lead generation campaign.

• Avoid forcing the form In your lead generation campaign, time can be one of your worst enemies. An inquiry is more likely to convert if he or she calls a toll-free number instead of completing a registration form simply because he or she is in the mood to shop now. Yet, we know that many lead generation strategies rely on elaborate forms to snare prospects.

  Our advice is to make the online form registration secondary. Your lead generation strategy should be to encourage people to call if you can. If you do this, your chances of converting prospects are much better with a trained human being talking to an interested human being. In fact, you should put the phone number to your call center or other fulfillment service “above the fold” and put the forms below the fold.

  If you use a registration form as part of your lead generation campaign instead of, or in addition to, a toll-free phone number, it’s okay to ask a few qualifying questions. However, let the offer and the value proposition carry most of the qualification load, and you’ll get better leads—again, making for a more profitable lead generation campaign.