So, what exactly is lead gen marketing? Simply put, it's about attracting people interested in what you offer. It's the art of turning curious onlookers into potential buyers and converting their information, ultimately boosting your sales and profitability.

    Understanding the Lead Gen Marketing Process
        Defining Your Audience
        Building an Effective Funnel For Lead Gen
        Optimizing Your Website
        Crafting a Great Call-To-Action (CTA)
    Leveraging Different Lead Generation Channels
        Social Media Strategies
        Content Marketing Tactics
        Email Marketing Campaigns
        Partnering with B2B Referral Agencies
        Paid Advertising Options
    Qualifying and Nurturing Your Leads
        Lead Qualification Processes
        Tips and Strategies to Use
        Tools That Make the Nurturing Phase Easier
        Lead Nurturing Strategies
    Conclusion

The goal in B2B sales can be slow sometimes. It often takes one to three months to close, according to research. The first step in the lead generation process focuses on making real connections.

A lead is someone that is showing interest in your products or services.

The most successful businesses create very specific buyer personas. Critical data will go a long way in helping you truly understand their behavior. Both quantitative and qualitative data should make up your customer data.

Quantitative data helps to get solid foundational information, such as age, title, location, and gender. Qualitative data adds deeper layers, helping you learn about daily struggles and the word choices potential customers might use when expressing a specific need.

You can gather qualitative data through interviews and online surveys. Having clear qualitative data means your lead gen will be far more successful. Once you have enough research, you can use this to help segment your customer groups, allowing for far more relatable content and enabling you to identify their pain points.

You need effective lead generation strategies to identify your buyer. Sadly, most companies haven't even identified their funnel yet. You've likely heard it described it as Top of Funnel (TOFU), Middle of Funnel (MOFU), and Bottom of Funnel (BOFU).

Think of the top as primarily focusing on attracting customers and helping them get to know your company. At the top, use social media posts, podcasts, and how-to guides, among other useful, informational sources, to reach your target audience.

At the middle level, users will begin exchanging their data in a capture form. The leads in the middle now have the trust level in you that helps make the sale. To get the user's data, you have to share even deeper resources like ebooks or even provide online training to further showcase your value as an industry leader.

Your website is a good tool for capturing customer information and pushing them into the sales funnel. It's one of your most important lead generation tools.

One way to do so is by sharing relevant content on your site. Offer valuable content in exchange for an email address or phone number.

Once people get to your site, you'll next turn them into leads through online forms. Here are strategies you can include for gathering critical prospect data to increase your leads:

Creating relevant blog content can support driving traffic to your company and reaching your target audience. Then it's critical to optimize a call to action. Here is some specific guidance and tips:

Content comes into play at each phase of lead generation. There are differing approaches based on which part of the cycle the user is engaging.

Remember, don't overdo it with forced signups. Many site users, 73% in fact, are annoyed by excessive ads and might not want to give their data that freely.

Your ideal prospects are spread out everywhere. It is critical to have a robust marketing campaign to reach them.

LinkedIn can be useful to connect with professional decision-makers. Research shows that 61 million LinkedIn users hold senior-level positions, and over 40 million make primary hiring and partnership decisions. Ensure your content is mobile-friendly.

Creating interesting and relatable content can turn content readers into a possible customer. Many users can engage at many levels of content creation. Blog posts can offer an introductory level of expertise.

Deeper white paper content, for example, might provide your prospects with the extra information they need and also turn into a possible sale. Marketers report that content marketing helped lead gen and demand over the last year. The key lies in focusing on where that reader currently falls in the lead generation funnel.

Email gives your company the option of a personalized message. Make use of email drip campaigns, meaning you'll engage by pushing content or solutions that support the customer's need. Sharing solutions that your leads really care about helps build trust.

Many users give emails as a lead that helps drive the marketing process and could help you get a paying customer. With consistent and relevant email marketing, you might be able to convert that user to a customer.

Consider partnerships with referral lead gen companies, like TheListWarehouse, to increase revenue streams. When research estimates over 80% of the B2B buyer process is due to getting a trusted referral, then it can become critical for business expansion.

Many see an actual introduction or warm referral that goes much further than the lead, allowing faster expansion and growth.

Consider using digital campaigns such as Google Ads. Google ads and search marketing goes a very long way because over 8 billion searches happen there daily. Make sure your site shows off its best attributes to keep your site users fully engaged.

Having online form tools on your landing pages with simple fields can lead to more lead capture and sign-ups. Most research shows that, on average, 5 field options perform best. Although many can easily be turned off, online ad pop-ups can serve as another option. One company's data showed that having a pop-up form helped with a 3 percent conversion rate of customers signing up for a promotion.

Using paid and other content strategies help engage potential customers. The key to any successful marketing campaign is about gathering user details.

It takes effort to find users willing to give their info freely. The main problem is many prospects will fail at making the next stage of a customer relationship with your business.

There are many qualifying steps during lead nurturing. Lead scoring might involve an equation. Once prospects have been found and connected to a specific funnel you set up, you begin assessing leads based on where they exist and what you know about them.

This involves looking at how closely the new user aligns with your current user profiles, or what might become your preferred ideal future state. You assign points and rank the potential prospects accordingly. After figuring out that "ideal" profile, we can look deeper into Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing (BANT):

So you might use data gathering methods, scoring techniques and much more. To really narrow in and find the best quality leads, let's dive deeper into the process.

Those criteria can act like an essential filtration tool that assists in prioritizing prospects. Using BANT, you will start gathering a profile and seeing where leads match up based on different behaviors and actions.

AI makes understanding possible user choices and content far easier. By using AI software, that software can determine the potential type of article. Also, what a particular buyer would see from previous online data patterns.

The same goes for emails. Dynamic messaging allows more detailed and real-time interactions based on behaviors. When you show to users that you truly know them, you gain customer loyalty. AI-based software will be huge driver soon. YouTube shares content to a massive 122 million active users every day, further driving their overall AI tools.

With marketing automation systems and retargeting, you can deliver timely content that solves your lead's problems. With each piece of content engagement, your lead progresses in the funnel to sale. There are various options like videos that provide dynamic visuals of your solutions. When you share relevant testimonials in that video, for example, that's one step that could build more loyalty. This is another useful form of inbound marketing to reach potential customers.

Be mindful to take the data from each stage. By focusing on results at any of the 3 lead funnel stages, you might make simple pivots along the way. Each minor change can improve ad performance.

A good starting point can be to make use of an A/B test, as that testing gives clear steps on which version performed best, making future campaigns far more cost-effective. Make improvements beyond the initial stages, especially using A/B Testing data. Doing these basic things will increase overall revenues.

A fully functional site helps visitors get your full business scope and purpose in just a glance. Use this feedback to improve areas such as design. Your goal is finding a paying customer.

Ultimately though, it takes time and dedication, as shown by studies that over 48 percent say it's a long sale. Consider text messaging as a great, convenient option that helps connect with buyers and prospects that don’t mind short bursts of communications. SMS Marketing allows another marketing method for engagement, as 80% look at those messages within minutes. Reaching your ideal customer could include several different channels of communication.

One company has over 7 steps in a highly effective lead gen process, so certainly many areas require close attention. Remember that aligning closely with the business and product/service side (often the sales team) is absolutely vital as the customer process develops. Companies are more likely to increase growth and profit when aligning departments properly.

Businesses and entrepreneurs started really launching lead generation marketing plans with more robust e-commerce strategies in the early 1990s and they have only increased in effectiveness. The whole concept goes back to an often unaddressed area. Marketers and business professionals can learn how to do something better and far more impactful with lead gen.

We should never get satisfied. Especially when studies estimate 67 percent of missed opportunities came directly from sales funnels failing to filter in the best leads before continuing the process.

Using things like lead generation strategies, it is much more likely to find success with all of your lead generation efforts. Using the right lead generation tool could make all the difference. Working together, the marketing team and the sales team, are much more likely to see success and increased conversion rates and see that ideal qualified lead.