Get the Most out of your Online Lead Generation Efforts | Getting Started [Part 1]

All too often, we’re told of the horror stories of the growing gap between marketing and sales teams, mostly due to a lack of communication and coordination. In an environment where we’re all struggling to increase conversions this can result in disaster. In the online lead generation space, this communication gap tends to rear its ugly head at one very specific point in time. A time that we fondly refer to as “The Hand-off,” but more on that later.

Here’s the first part in our 3 part series outlining the specific steps you can take to increase conversions.

Generate your leads.

Define your audience. One of the most fundamental aspects to a successful marketing process is identifying and categorizing your target audience by establishing clear and concise buyer personas. A buyer persona is a detailed description of the quintessential person for whom your product or service was designed for. It’s an oversimplification of sorts, similar to a typecast for an acting role. A successful buyer persona exhibits not only the subject’s job title and industry, but also their behaviors, character traits, goals and affirmations. Taking the time to meet with your sales team to suss out specific buyer personas is a fast and easy way to keep both marketing and sales efforts on the same track.

“Content is King.”- William Henry Gates III

As the saying goes, without desirable, original, and most importantly, marketable content, your campaign is headed for disaster. The goal is to generate content that is a resource, and if all goes well, your reader will associate your brand with the compelling content that assists your audience with a specific issue they are having. This can open the door for subsequent communication. Be sure to cater your content towards the specific buyer personas you’ve established. Does your product or service accommodate mid-sized healthcare providers looking to expand their workforce? Create a whitepaper with a list of tips and

best practices that highlight common issues and concerns in doing so.

Get the word out.

Don’t just throw your ads up in any old place. Make it a priority to publish your content in places where your target buyers tend to look, such as contextual ad placements on relevant, industry-specific sites, resource libraries, dedicated email blasts, or even within search results. This will increase conversions for your campaign.

Collect data.

Data is to online marketing as location is to real estate. We cannot begin to stress its importance. The lion’s share of online data collection occurs at the registration form, where the user shares their contact information in exchange for valuable content, like a free trial offer of a product, or a whitepaper. Being that the registration form is a terminal for data exchange, it is paramount to make it accessible and without too much “friction.” This will greatly increase conversions.

Three things to keep in mind about form creation:

• Keep it simple. Countless studies have proven a strong correlation between long registration forms and high abandonment rates. Meaning, that one extra required piece of contact info can deter a potential customer from filling out the entire form.

• Employ multiple login options for speed and efficiency. Madison Logic’s registration pages offer user the ability to sign-up instantly with their LinkedIn accounts, streamlining the entire process and increasing conversions.

• Fine tune your registration forms by meeting with your sales team to discuss the data-points that are most important to their specific sales process. What specific aspects of the buyer persona do they need to know for an effective sales call? Is title important? What about the size of their company? These are all critical pieces of data that the sales team can use to increase their conversion rates. Choosing your form fields is not an exact science. Use A/B testing to experiment with different arrangements to figure out how to achieve the highest conversion rate.

Keep an eye out for part 2, which will go into the lead qualification and analysis process.