In simple terms, lead generation in digital marketing are the activities a business executes to generate leads.
As a marketing agency we are continually evaluating and evolving the answer to the question “what is lead generation in digital marketing”? This article shares our approach to digital marketing lead gen based on years of experience working in the digital marketing space.
OnBrand’s Lead Gen Solution.
Lead gen in digital marketing involves 3 clear distinct practices.
Generate interest:
Find, reach and connect with your target audience which becomes your pool of potential leads. To do this you should understand who your target audience is and the behaviour of your existing customers including the sources existing customers came from and their journey to get there(a Google search, social media, paid social ad, google ad etc etc). Assuming you have factored in these things then:
Execute marketing that reaches your target audience and brings them to your online places, your website and your social channels.
Determine your best foot forward marketing plan which is likely to include a combination of activities including; SEO, content marketing, paid and organic social, email marketing, display advertising and other PPC
Your marketing efforts will get these visitors interested in your business and a percentage of them will be potential leads and in turn customers.
Nurture the interest:
Turn these interested visitors (potential leads) into leads through proven lead gen methods including;
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- Retargeting (you may be interested in our article “How to do retargeting on LinkedIn”
- Keep marketing – Keep pushing out quality content across a variety of channels to keep those visitors who now know about you engaged and interested.
Capture the interest:
Turn these visitors (potential leads) into leads through proven lead gen tactics including:
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- Lead gen tactics (offers, promotions, chat bots, surveys, CTA’s, sign ups, downloads, trials, demos)
First off we’ll cover off some definitions
| Term | Definition |
| Lead | A lead is someone who shows an interest in what your business has to sell. |
| Lead generation | The activities you undertake to generate new leads |
| Retargeting | Retargeting is about moving not-yet customers down the purchase path. It usually involves placing an online ad in front of someone who has either previously visited your website (by the use of cookies) or by using a particular platforms in-built retargeting parameters. |
| Conversion rate optimisation | Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the practice of improving the effectiveness of your website and the tactics you employ to convert more visitors to your website into MQL’s (marketing qualified leads) or SQL’s (sales qualified leads) by getting them to perform a desired action on your website. |
Full proof lead generation plan.
Phase 1: attract visitors (AKA potential leads) to you.
Be that your website, landing pages, social media profiles or of course a physical place if you have one through digital marketing activities. Devise campaigns and use the right channels and activities to draw your defined target audience through to your website based on the stage they might be of their buying journey.
How to attract visitors AKA potential leads?
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- Identify the channels you are going to use to reach your target audience utlilising online channels such as organic search, PPC, organic social, paid social media ads to reach your audience.
- Define lead generation campaigns
- Produce messaging, creatives and or content marketing types that will resonate with and attract your target audience like our fab TikTok video (if we do say so ourselves!)
