“Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.” – Seth Godin
Lead generation, like any marketing channel, requires careful planning and a well thought out road map. However, time and time again we see projects come through which are oftentimes missing essential ingredients to make them a successful marketing endeavor. Not only that, when objectives are misaligned it results in leads going cold or being nurtured incorrectly. In turn missed or broken opportunities are a common occurrence which could have been avoided. Setting up your processes from the beginning will result in sustainable campaigns and positive results.
Here is some steps you should be thinking about before your lead generation campaign goes live:
- Take your time: Realise that you need to take your time and think before putting together your lead generation campaign, just like any other marketing channel. If you’re unsure speak with your lead generation partner. When choosing your lead generation partner, you should be considering their historical performance and also the relationship which you have with the team. They have the experience, insights and knowledge to be able to advice you on what you need to be considering before setting up your objectives so this relationship is important to consider.
- Define your objectives: Do you want to feed the top, middle or bottom of your sales funnel? Do you want to understand your current customer base or attract new potential customer? How can you support other marketing efforts currently taking place? What information do you want to gather? Answering these questions is a good way to start considering what your ultimate aim is.
- Define your target audience: Once you understand what objectives you want to achieve you can look at defining what that audience looks like. It might be a case of analyzing your current customers to understand what additional customers will look like. Or perhaps you want to understand more about your current client base. Make sure that before going live you have a good idea about what your customers look like, who they are, and what they’re interested in. Having this information will ensure you’re asking the right questions and creating content for the right people. Providing an ABM list is also good way of having control of the area which you’re targeting.
- Nurture your leads: It’s important to know where your leads are going and what the next stage is. Once you have received your leads, knowing the next step is crucial in the success of your campaign. Do you need follow up with an email? Are they being added to a content nurture stream? Are they being called directly by the sales team? These touch points are vital as they ultimately determine the prospects position within the sales cycle. Setting up lead scoring criteria can be a good way to designate leads into the correct stage of the lead lifecycle and nurturing them accordingly with relevant and personalized content. And remember, good content means good conversations.
- Monitor lead performance: There’s only so much insight your lead generation partner can provide if they are not being informed of how their leads are performing. Closely monitoring the process and lead results will allow step by step optimization, by strategically improving the process based on these results. You also need to put in enough time to see the benefits and generate enough data to gather invaluable data and insights.
Overall lead generation campaigns have the potential to provide powerful and insightful results. Ensuring you are taking the above considerations as part of your campaign ingredients is vital for success. Interacting with prospects in a way which leaves them feeling informed, educated and supported in their needs is the end goal any company should have when implementing lead generation campaigns.