5 Steps for Successful Lead Generation Strategy

The ability to attract and convert prospects is what sets apart businesses paving the way forward and those left in the dust. A successful lead generation strategy is the most important tool to help grow a healthy company. But the process of implementing new lead generation requires a few steps. You have to put in the hard work to get results. When you understand this workflow, you will be able to have a great impact on the success of your efforts and achieve your goals.

Lead generation explained

To understand the basics, you need to understand what lead generation actually is. There is no single definition, but when email marketings refer to lead generation it is the process of attracting and converting potential clients to become converting customers. We will give you all the tools you need to have a successful lead generation in 5 simple steps.

Lead generation strategy guide

1. Exploratory stage

To get started, make sure that you have a clear vision of your goals and the tactics that are involved in this process. During your exploratory state, there are three major categories you need to work through before moving forward. Additionally, you should use this stage to calibrate and validate the assumptions within your team and or with the client or stakeholders.

Campaign Brief & Workflow

To be able to run a successful lead generation campaign, you first need to incorporate your client’s needs, while also drafting the first workflow of your campaign. Start by evaluating your product or service and determine which sequence for each tactic makes the most sense. For example, you could be deciding between PPC campaigns, affiliate marketing, content syndication, etc…

Prospect Profiling

Next, define and outline who your target audience is. Whenever possible, work with buyer personas to understand and classify your decision-makers, influencers, and end users.

Targeting

Regardless if you are using advertising campaigns such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, or media partners, make sure that you understand how well you can reach your audience when using these outlets. Developing target profiles for each media will help you estimate results with greater precision.

2. Your Marketing Plan

The first steps of your campaigns have been briefly addressed, now you can start working on a marketing plan for your lead generation. This strategy will dictate the objectives and goals you have, while also providing you an insight into the campaign timeline and how each tactic fits into the overall plan.

Competitive Research

You should be analyzing all your competitors, providers, or vendors that impact your business. This will help you understand the competition gap. By understanding this gap, you will be able to overcome challenges, have a game plan of ways to tackle obstacles, and help you overcome challenges down the road. You will also be able to understand what prospects are most likely to engage with when it comes to your content.

Objectives

Once you have outlined your budget, which should be based on internal data, industry benchmarks, or expectations, you can then start defining your lead generation key performance indicators (KPIs). Work on your short-term goals and long-term objectives to have a clear picture of what metrics you need to measure in order to determine success.

Personas

As we mentioned above, buyer personas will allow you to narrow down your tactics, content, and value propositions to ensure that they are personalized to your customers. Instead of working with a wide and general audience, you will be more successful when you group your list into different categories that address their needs, concerns, challenges, and expectations.

Timeline

Figure out how many resources are needed for each stage of your marketing plan and then determine a realistic timeline for when action items need to be completed. Try to include the roles in your responsibility assessment matrix (RACI) as an overview. Doing so will help paint a clear picture of who needs to complete each task and when.

3. Content roadmap

In email marketing, there is a saying that goes “Content is king”. Remember to keep this in your back pocket when crafting your lead generation strategy. This should never be underestimated. As with every inbound marketing strategy, it is important to create relevant, valuable, and useful content for your potential customers.

Content Curation

If you already have an established brand for creating content and a backlog of articles, whitepapers, infographics, or eBooks, the first thing you need to do is go through and find out what can be repurposed. Decide on what pieces of content you can use in lead generation campaigns by referring to the marketing plan and buyer personas you’re targeting.

Content Workflow

Keep in mind that lead generation campaigns do not mean dumping content on your website or landing pages willy-nilly. It is quite the opposite. You need to have a complete understanding of the three main stages of the lead generation funnel:

• Top of the funnel, where you identify needs and emphasize pain points of the industry.
• Middle of the funnel, where you want to provide value and establish authority.
• Bottom of the funnel. Where the content’s main goal is to build trust get customers to purchase from you.

Structure the content you plan on using in this model and you will end up with a clear and actionable workflow.

Content Creation

This may seem like the most difficult part, especially after you’ve created an entire workflow. But remember that when it comes to content creation for lead generation, you don’t need everything all at once. Start by building a minimum viable prototype (MVP) and generate the content you need for the first interactions with your prospects. Have some emails written out, generate some content, and articles before launching the campaign, and then you can work on everything as time progresses.

Design

Most of the content that’s part of your strategy will need a graphic designer’s input. Regardless if it’s a whitepaper, infographic, or demo video, you will want someone to resolve the design aspect before moving forward. The RACI matrix we mentioned is going to come in handy during this stage because you will be able to delegate tasks accordingly.

4. Website/landing pages

Think of your landing page or the website page as a hug for all your lead generation efforts. There are many advantages to choosing a great landing page on your main website. One of them is that the landing page will provide a unified experience for all of your prospects without distracting them with other products or services.

Wireframe

Ask yourself these questions: what is the main section of your landing page? What kind of content will you need to populate it? The easiest way to answer these questions is to design a wireframe. Decide on sections, element placements, and sizes while also providing a first look at your landing page. Keep in mind your user's experience (UX) and where these placements will be the most beneficial and easy to use for them (UI).

Create Landing Page Content

The content of your landing page is something that will determine the success of your lead generation. You want to make sure that you have a solid value proposition, calls to action (CTA), benefits from using your product or service, and anything else that could help prospects choose to use your business.

Landing Page Design

Design assets that you want to include on your landing page, such as headers, icons, buttons, and images. Try working with a UX/UI designer to reach the most potential for your landing page. Based on your wireframe and mockup, you will need to create your live landing page for your prospects.

5. Email marketing

Now that you’ve finished your content marketing, you can focus some time on your email marketing. Email marketing plays a big role when it comes to the effectiveness of lead generation strategies. You are going to contact your prospects and qualify them via email marketing.

Email Marketing Workflow

For every interaction, there is a reaction. It is important to understand what emails will need to be sent and when. Take into consideration what confirmation emails you send out, what newsletters you schedule, and when emails are going to be used in your lead generation strategy.

Email Design

Remember that there are real people behind the computer screens. Your email design is also an important element when it comes to email marketing.

Email Frequency

How often do potential customers want to hear from you? To answer this question, take a look at the workflow you made above. It is important to decide on a frequency that makes sense to your buying personas. Make sure not to overwhelm your subscribers with too many emails and make sure that they are always providing them something of value.

Implementation

You have made it to the final step, you’ve mapped out all the details and now it’s time to implement the emails that you will be including in your lead generation campaign. Using the design assets, content, and frequency you can start setting up your first emails.

Clean Email Lists

Not every email you have is accurate. Make sure that you are cleaning your email lists before sending your email marketing campaigns out. By cleaning your lists, you are on the right track to having a successful promotional email campaign, boosting your inbox placement, and ensuring that your emails get delivered. Services such as Emailable are a great and affordable way to ensure that your emails get delivered to the right inbox.