By: Craig Spooner
Are your lead generation strategies frustrating your sales team? Are they consistently asking for stronger leads? Fear not! Inbound marketing is all about the process of implementing, analyzing, and refreshing campaigns based on performance, then altering your strategy based on what your decision-makers are looking for and when they want it.
Having an answer for these 3 questions will ensure increased lead quality and quantity!
1) Are you giving before asking?
This may seem contrary to the mission of marketing, but it is extremely effective. One of the most important things to consider on your landing page is—does the value of the content you are offering match the value of the information you are requesting in your form?
All too often, marketers fall into the trap of using one form for multiple pieces of content on their site. The pitfall here is that not all content is created equal. Make sure your content is worth what you’re asking for, and take the extra step to customize forms based on each piece of content. (The same goes for the lead flows behind them!).
2) Are you using lead magnets to gain more information from your visitors?
What does it mean when a visitor neglects a form on your site? Most likely, that visitor just wasn’t ready to commit to anything because he or she is still in the discovery phase of the buyer’s journey. However, even if visitors are not ready to fill out a form, it doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to show interest in your content by watching a video or sharing useful content on their social channels.
Below is a list of popular lead magnets that will deliver important data on your visitors without requiring too much from them:
3) Have you created and implemented a lead-scoring strategy?
An astounding 79% of B2B marketers have not established a lead-scoring strategy. Some of you may be thinking, “Our company isn’t in the right place to launch a lead scoring, strategy,” but I assure you, that’s not the case! Regardless of the size of your marketing team, volume of content offers, or amount of traffic your site generates, an effective lead scoring strategy will better align your marketing and sales teams to produce more qualified leads.
Some questions to ask in order to establish these criteria: Who are you selling to? Who within a school or district is actually making the purchasing decision? The best way to start building your lead-scoring strategy is to start small. Try implementing a scoring strategy based on the four items below and you’ll be on your way to building a tight-knit Smarketing team in no time!
Having trouble with that last bullet? Check out an engaging post from one of our partners, Overcome the 5 Hurdles to a Successful Email Marketing Campaign
The big question that brings this all together is this: What is your content worth to your visitors? By examining your content offers top to bottom and prioritizing them based on their perceived value to the visitor, you’ll be able to identify opportunities often missed by other marketers and bridge the gap between traffic-generation and lead-generation. If you are having trouble assigning a “value” to each piece of content, put yourself in the visitor’s shoes. How much would you be willing to give for this content?
Thank you for sharing!