How To Increase Your ‘Net New Leads’ With The Right Marketing Strategy
With only a little over a month to go, many businesses are buckling down and prepping for the new year. Smart businesses finding that by having a plan in place, they are 313% more likely to achieve their goals.
Marketing is one of the most important things a business can do. Not only does it help build brand awareness, but it is also essential to generate leads, increase sales and engage customers. When competing against big names, strategic marketing enables companies to play the field.
The efficiency of many core business functions is dependent on a good marketing strategy or plan. But, in case you’re one of those businesses that don’t mind sitting on your hands and procrastinating, here are a few reasons why you get up and start moving.
To begin, here some reasons why you need a marketing strategy:
- Provides a blueprint for navigating the current business environment.
- Helps you gain an edge over your competitors, especially if they don’t have a plan in place for the new year.
- Makes you less reliant on key people of your organization or strategic partnerships to supply leads.
- Ensures you allocate the right resources, both internally and externally, to meet marketing requirements.
- Identifies your target audience’s pain points and how you should communicate with them.
- Differentiates your company from the competition by identifying a unique value proposition.
- Provides the business with focus and direction by identifying where the best opportunities lie and what threats need to be avoided.
- Delivers best practices through smart marketing initiatives.
- Formulates your content strategy and highlights which platforms are most appropriate for your business to generate leads and build engagement.
- Sets key performance indicators that keep your team liable – no more ad-hoc work and hoping for the best!
In short, whether you’re targeting B2B leads or B2C, a marketing strategy provides the strategic direction on how to bring in ‘net new leads’.
Lead Generation
At the center of every marketing strategy is its lead generation focus, which has come to be one of the most important elements of growing a healthy business. A well-developed marketing strategy encompasses not only the steps to attract and convert leads but also the process of nurturing them once converted.
For example, you meet a potential lead at a networking event. Once you have made that connection, you then go through the steps for securing that lead after your initial encounter, namely connecting with them on social media and sending them regular EDMs.
Here are some key lead generation tactics that all good marketing strategies must have:
- Social media marketing
Social media has grown to be an essential element of every business’ marketing strategy. And since it isn’t going away anytime soon, it important to understand how you can harness its power for lead generation.
Crucial to the success of this tactic is first determining which platform your target audience is using.
If you’re targeting B2B customers, LinkedIn needs to be the focus. Built specifically for professionals to network, publish content, and connect with people you’d like to do business with, this platform is an excellent way to generate ‘net new leads’.
If you’re a B2C business, Facebook and Instagram are the way to go. Focus on getting more followers and optimize your page and profile to your specific audience. Publish relevant imagery and content that entices them to convert to your brand.
Often giveaways and contests help with boosting engagement. By inviting people to sign up, you are also able to build your database and further enhance your lead nurturing process through drip-feed email marketing campaigns.
- Google AdWords
In an article written by Autogrow , they share an excellent example of the smart use of Google AdWords. While the company in this case only had 1,000 unique visitors per month, they were still able to perform successfully, considering their traffic.
By using highly relevant keywords on website landing pages through Google AdWords, businesses can create a direct link between what customers are looking for and how their solutions are the best option to meet their needs.
High intention keywords often include the term “service” in them. The intention is that the customer is searching for a service so they can schedule a consultation and/or make a purchase decision.
Examples include, “ERP solutions” or “software implementation service”.
Marketing strategy technologies like Robotic Marketer are able to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to developing a lead generation strategy. Identifying both high intention and low intention keywords, the artificial intelligence behind the technology is able to rank search queries based on their competitive relevance and provide you with an in-depth report (that can lead to a commercial transaction) as part of the deliverable.
- Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most trusted sources when it comes to providing relevant information to B2B buyers. Some organizations see email marketing as providing leads that account for 58% of all revenue.
However, with ever-changing technologies and buyer habits, it’s all hard to keep track of. Well-developed marketing strategies provide you with insight into the current trends of the market as well as recommendations to achieve high open rates and qualified leads.
For example, marketing automation software helps you target a much larger audience – in turn generating twice the amount of business leads than a manual campaign. You’re also able to schedule regular campaigns (to help with consistency) well in advance, which will help you stick to crossing out tasks within your strategy. Your marketing strategy should include a list of topics that are most relevant to your target audience and the cadence to achieving them.
While leads may start at a single touchpoint, the lead generation process involves capturing leads, communicating regularly and converting them into customers. Having a marketing strategy is proven to be successful in maximizing your sales effectiveness.
