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How would you describe your company? Is it a B2B or B2C company? What services do you offer? How does your company generate leads?
Lead Generation is a critical part of every sales funnel. The goal of lead generation is to get qualified prospects interested in your brand or service. Once they are interested enough to contact you, then you can move them through the sales cycle.
There are several ways to generate leads, depending on your type of business. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the top methods.
Before talking about the ways that lead towards multi-channel lead generation let’s talk about multi-channel marketing.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing?
Multi-Channel Marketing is the term used to describe the way businesses market themselves today. In essence, it is the use of multiple avenues to reach potential customers. These are known as “channels”. Channels can be physical locations such as stores, restaurants, etc., or digital platforms like social media, email, text messages, etc.
The multi-channel approach allows you to target specific audiences based on where they live, how old they are, what they do, what they buy, etc.
So, what does this mean for small businesses? Well, it means that they no longer need to rely solely on traditional advertising methods, such as print ads, radio spots, TV commercials, billboards, etc. Instead, they can now advertise across many different mediums, including mobile apps, social media sites, blogs, eCommerce sites, etc.
This type of marketing strategy is called a Multi-Channel marketing strategy because each channel targets a specific group of people. For example, you could run an ad on Instagram targeting 18-25 year old’s interested in fashion while running an ad on Facebook targeting 25-45 year old’s interested in fitness. By combining both channels together you’ll find potential customers that fall into either category.
Why Should One Consider Multi-Channel Marketing?
Multi-channel marketing is one of those terms that seems like it could mean anything. But what does it really entail? Does it involve having separate Facebook accounts, Twitter profiles, Instagram handles, etc.? Or does it refer to having a single profile that serves up different messages depending on where the person is located?
The truth is that multi-channel marketing is about leveraging every channel possible to reach your target market. You want to ensure that you are reaching people where they are spending most of their time – whether that’s via email, social media, text messaging, or even voice calls. Multi-channel marketing allows you to do just that.
By utilizing each of these marketing channels, you can ensure that your brand stays visible and relevant to your target audience. This helps to build trust and credibility among your leads and customers. And ultimately, this can help you generate more sales.
Multi-channel marketing and social media
Social media is one of the best ways to reach your ideal customer. You know what they want and how to provide it to them. But do you really understand how to use social media in your multi-channel strategy? If not, here is some advice about how to start using social media effectively.
1. Start Small
You don’t need to build a whole social media empire overnight. Focus on building up a presence on the networks that matter most to your target market. Once you’ve built momentum there, you can expand into others.
2. Be Active
The key to success is being proactive rather than reactive. Responding to every comment, like, or post takes away from your ability to connect with people. Instead, focus on engaging with those who engage with you. And remember that you don’t always need to respond immediately. Sometimes waiting 24 hours or even 48 hours gives your followers a chance to think about what you’re saying.
3. Create Value
People aren’t looking for sales pitches. They’re looking for information, inspiration, entertainment, and education. Make sure that your posts are helpful and useful. Don’t try to sell anything unless it’s something you genuinely believe in.
Now let’s talk about what multi-channel lead generation is:
What is Multi-Channel Lead Generation?
Multi-channel lead generation is when you leverage multiple channels to drive traffic to your website. It’s important to note that not all online marketing channels will be effective at driving traffic to your site. Some may work better than others. So make sure that you test out various effective channels before investing too much money into any one of them.
The Importance of Multichannel Lead Generation
Multichannel lead generation strategies are designed to help businesses gain qualified leads across multiple channels. This includes email marketing, social media, mobile apps, webinars, phone calls, etc.
Multichannel lead gen strategies must address both sides of the customer journey. That’s because there are many different ways that people find out about what you do. Some rely heavily on search engines while others prefer word of mouth. There are even those who use coupons and discounts to discover products and services.
In addition, it’s important to understand how each channel works. For example, email marketing works best when used to nurture existing relationships. Social media platforms work well for engaging with current customers. And, mobile apps are great tools for getting information quickly and easily.
While there are plenty of options for multichannel lead generation, some are better suited than others for specific industries or companies. In fact, some are much easier to implement than others. Here are three examples:
1. Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective methods of generating leads. However, it does require a lot of effort to maintain. To keep your list engaged, you’ll need to send regular emails, newsletters, and promotions. If done correctly, email campaigns can generate leads for months or years.
2. Social Media
While Facebook and Twitter are often thought of as social networks, they’re actually owned by massive corporations like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., respectively. As such, they don’t provide the ability to interact directly with customers. Instead, they offer paid advertising opportunities that allow you to reach prospective clients.
3. Mobile Apps
Mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular among consumers. They’re easy to download, convenient, and usually free. These apps make it possible for you to communicate directly with a prospect without having to go through a third party.
What is B2B Lead Generation?
Lead Generation is one of the most important steps in the sales funnel. If you don’t generate enough quality leads, you won’t close enough deals. Most companies spend too much time trying to figure out how to generate leads, and not enough time generating qualified leads.
Purpose
The purpose of B2B Lead Generation is to create a pipeline of prospects that can be converted into customers. Once you have generated enough leads, you must move them down the sales marketing funnel and convert them into customers.
10 Ways to Multi-channel Lead Generation
In today’s digital world, it’s no longer enough to simply place your ads where people already spend most of their time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. If you want to attract qualified prospects to your sales pipeline, you must understand how to leverage multiple channels across different devices and platforms. This guide provides a step-by-step process for developing a comprehensive multi-channel lead generation strategy that includes all potential touch points and channels.
1. Specify Your Target Audience
The first step to lead generation is identifying a clearly defined target audience. You can start by looking at the demographics and psychographics of your most successful customers.
This information can come from your sales team, marketing teams, customer success teams, or even product managers. If you don’t have access to this information, you can use tools like Google Analytics to identify key metrics such as age, gender, location, job function, industry, etc.
Once you have identified your target audience, it is important to understand what motivates them. What are their pain points? How does your product solve those problems? Once you have answered these questions, you can begin to craft messages that address your ideal prospects.
2. Test Your Lead Generation Strategy Against Competition
Step two comes next, which involves diving into competitor research to uncover exactly where your competitors are investing — and where you aren’t.
The good news is, you don’t actually have to know anything about your competitors to see what they’re up to. There are plenty of free tools that allow you to view their ad campaigns and compare them against yours.
Google Analytics Benchmark Reports, for example, allows you to download data on your site’s performance across different platforms, while other similar sites also provide detailed information on your competitors’ traffic and revenue streams.
Once you’ve identified where your competitors are investing, you’ll want to determine what lies between those points. This is where things start getting interesting. You’ll need to dig deeper and ask yourself some tough questions, including:
- What is my spend, and what is their spend?
- How does my strategy stack up against theirs?
- Who are our best customers?
- Where are we weakest?
- How do I win?
3. Facilitate An Enticing Offer
There are many different ways to offer something to prospects, including lead magnets, free trials, demos, etc. However, one thing hasn’t changed since the beginning of time: making sure your offer is compelling enough to entice your ideal customer to take action.
The most common mistake that marketers make when offering incentives is forgetting to include a great deal or value proposition. Your incentive needs to be enticing enough to encourage your target audience to give up personal data. If you don’t provide anything tangible in return, your potential leads won’t be interested.
4. Control Your Sources of Data
There are many ways to track your marketing efforts across channels. You could use multiple tools, spreadsheets, or apps. But how do you see everything at once? A single dashboard that brings together all of your data into one easy-to-read report is essential.
Google Data Studio is a free tool that allows marketers to easily visualize and analyze data from different sources. Using this tool, you can pull in information from Google Analytics, AdWords, YouTube, Bing Ads, and even Facebook Insights. With Google Data Studio, you can quickly build custom dashboards that show you key metrics such as conversion rates, ROI, and much more.
Microsoft Power BI offers similar features as well. For example, you can compare performance over time, segment audiences, and run reports based on data sets. However, unlike Google Data Studio, Power BI does require a subscription fee.
If you’re looking for something simple, try out Excel. You can download a copy here. Then, simply add columns for each source and import your data. Once you’ve collected all of your data, you can begin analyzing it. To help you do this, we recommend leveraging Google Data Studio and Microsoft Excel. Both offer powerful reporting capabilities.
5. Examine Responses To Advertisements by Users
Video advertising is one of the most powerful forms of digital marketing. But while many marketers are familiar with the concept of measuring ROI, few know exactly why they’re doing it. In fact, there are five main reasons that marketers measure video ad performance.
- To determine whether an advertisement worked.
The first reason that advertisers measure video ad performance is to make sure that their advertisements actually work. If a viewer watches 30 seconds of your ad and doesn’t convert, you want to know why. You might find out that the ad didn’t load properly, or that the viewer just wasn’t interested. By understanding why an ad failed, you can improve future lead-generation campaigns.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of different formats.
The second reason that advertisers measure video is to figure out which format works best. For example, some videos perform better when viewed on mobile devices versus desktop computers. Other videos do well when played multiple times during a single session. Understanding which types of videos perform best allows you to optimize your budget across platforms.
- To understand the demographics of your audience.
The third reason that advertisers measure video performance is to learn about the demographics of their audiences. Knowing who your audience helps you develop strategies to reach them effectively. For example, knowing that men aged 25–34 watch the most YouTube videos per day could help you craft messages that resonate with this demographic group.
6. Promote Your Irresistible Offers
Once you’ve decided on your irresistibly irresistible offer (IRI), you must advertise each of your IRIs and track them from micro conversion to macro conversion. You may also consider advertising customers’ testimonials, pinpoints, and answers to common Q&As. Additionally, there are three different types of video formats that can help you create and publish high-performance advertising campaigns.
The Explainer: A strong problem statement sets up your product as the solution.
The Product demo: Make the product shine from the beginning.
The straight offer: This approach is “All Offers.” It’s designed to get people to click with an irresistible deal.
7. Utilize Your Data To Your Benefit
Many companies want to know how B2B leads gen, but they might not realize just how critical it is to the process. Make no mistake you cannot achieve the big picture results without having good data.
Data-driven approaches are six times more likely to be successful than non-data-driven approaches. And although many organizations struggle to make sense of large amounts of data, there are ways to use data to your advantage.
While some people think that leads are dead, the reality is that they’re alive and well. They’re just being generated differently.
For example, 70% of salespeople say that they generate qualified leads. Yet, only 33% of salespeople actually understand what “qualified” really means.
8. Enable Sales
Multi-channel lead sellers must keep track of the leads to their sales teams and make sure they have the necessary support system to propel said leads over the line. They have to have conversations which apply to the audience they’re targeting, which influences their sales and traffic to increase considerably.
9. Nurture Your Potential Leads
The most important part of nurturing leads is knowing what to say.
If you’re just starting out, you’ll likely want to focus on building relationships with your prospects. This includes reaching out to them via social media, email, phone calls, etc.
Once you’ve built rapport, you can start talking about the value of your product or service.
You’ll want to make sure you don’t talk too much about yourself. Instead, keep things focused on how your solution can benefit them.
Here are some examples of things you might say:
– “I noticed that you had a problem X.”
– “We solved Y for Z customer.”
– “I’m excited to tell you about our latest feature.”
– “We’d love to help you solve your problem.”
10. Use Email Marketing to Promote Your Business
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach out to leads and prospects. But it doesn’t end there. There are many different types of emails you can send to keep your audience engaged. Here are eight tips to help you determine the power of email marketing.
- Capture Leads with Pop-Ups
Pop-up forms are one of the simplest ways to collect contact information. They’re also effective because they don’t take up much room on the screen. If you want to make sure you get every single person who visits your site, pop-ups are a great way to go.
- Use Social Media To Promote Your Campaign
Social media can be used to promote your marketing campaigns. For example, Facebook ads allow you to target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviours, and age ranges. This gives you the opportunity to connect with people who might be interested in what you offer.
- Send Push Notifications
Push notifications work well for reminding visitors about upcoming events, special offers, and other things related to your brand. These messages usually include a link to your landing page where the visitor can sign up for the product or event.
