In this post we discuss, “what is lead generation?”. We’ve rounded up a few resources that will expedite your learning process.
Understanding Lead Generation Basics & Fundamentals
[Video Transcript]
if you’re taking this course you may already know what lead generation is but
just to make sure we’re all on the same page lead generation or lead gen is a
great way to attract people to your business it’s getting a customer
interested in the products or services your business has to offer lead gen is
about identifying and managing prospects throughout all stages of their decision
journey from unqualified leads to satisfied repeat customers to advocates
li chen has changed a lot over the years it used to just be salespeople attending
events and conferences sitting in a booth at a tradeshow or making cold
calls websites social media and search have totally changed that there’s so
much information available online and customers do a ton of research as part
of their decision journey especially in the beginning the great thing with
legion is that people will feel like they’re starting the conversation with
you instead of you chasing after them and that means you can focus efforts on
qualified leads who are genuinely interested in your business
you
the best way to get started with your lead gen program is to write business
goals this is a really important first step you need to know which business
goals your legion program will help you attain otherwise you’ll have no way to
track your success now this second chapter we’re getting into is probably
the hardest because we’ll be talking about a lot of numbers but I promise
that we will get through this together so please bear with me how do you write
business goals well be smart about it let me explain what I mean by that SMART
goals stands for specific measurable attainable relevant and time-bound let’s
review how to write SMART goals and then how to use them to predict sales and
grow your business I’ll break it down so you can see exactly what I mean
a specific goal is precise well-defined clear and therefore more likely to be
achieved a goal like increased leads is vague and at lacks clear direction a
more specific goal would be increased leads by 10% by year-end a measurable
goal indicates progress keeps you on track it helps you meet deadlines and
it’s motivational as you get closer to achieving that goal it provides
information like how much how many or key dates a measurable goal identifies
what’s working well that you should keep doing and what’s not working well that
you need to improve an attainable goal keeps you realistic it accounts for your
past performance current resources and capabilities and what your competitors
are doing so you know what you’re up against an attainable goal motivates
people to succeed because they feel like it’s within their reach a relevant goal
aligns what you want to accomplish with what your lead gen program realistically
can deliver so let’s say your company wants to grow revenue by 10% sure a lead
gen program can achieve that goal but let’s say you have a product or service
problem lead gen can’t solve that type of issue so talk with your sales
force customers marketing team and other stakeholders to make sure you have
relevant goals that lead gen can solve and here’s the last one a time bound
goal establishes deadlines what needs to be done by one set your business goals
for the year and then break them down to monthly or quarterly goals this will
keep you on track and enable you to optimize your program consistently
without having to wait until the end of the year remember what I mentioned
before that we get into some detailed numbers well here we are
I’ll take this slowly here are two ways to write smart business goals the first
how do you determine how many leads you need to meet a sales goal let’s say your
goal is 50,000 more in sales this year the average sales price of your product
or service is two thousand dollars and your average lead closed rate which
means when you make a sale from a lead is ten percent multiply your average
sales price times your average close rate to calculate the value of each lead
you need to generate which in this example is $200
then take your sales goal and divide it by the value of your average lead so
$50,000 divided by $200 equals an additional 250 leads you need to
generate this year the second how do you estimate future sales you can get
through lead generation well you multiply the average number of
leads that marketing can generate times your sales teams average lead to
customer conversion rate this will equal your estimate of future sales so let’s
say that marketing generates an average of 40 leads per month and the sales
teams average conversion rate is 5% per month then your estimated future sales
is 2 new customers per month use smart business goals for your legion to set
the right expectations and set your program up for success
now that you have your business goals you can write your lead gen program KPIs
which are key performance indicators now KPIs are different than business goals
there are lots of programs across the company that work toward the business
goals so you need KPIs that are specific for your lead gen program to understand
what we Gen can deliver to help attain those business goals let’s go back to
the example from the last video say you have a business goal to generate 250
more leads this year which KPIs will help you understand how your lead gen
program will progress toward that business goal I’ll give you a few
examples of KPIs by specific channels that relate to generating 250 more leads
and as we get through the rest of the chapters we’ll get into all the details
about these channels but for right now we’ll just talk about how they relate to
KPIs for your website you can monitor the percentage split between unique and
returning visitors which pages have been viewed or whether visitors download
content and provide their contact information Google Analytics has great
tools to understand detailed website analytics in social media you can see
how many people follow your company pages and updates what type of
information people like or share and if people click through between your social
media pages and website check out business information help pages on
LinkedIn Facebook and Twitter to learn more about their analytics in search how
do you rank are you on the first page of a search or buried behind competition on
the second or third page where do viewers originate from your website
other social media what role does search play to generate
leads in your emails what are your open click-through and
unsubscribe rates to people forward your email to a friend or share in social
media you can review email analytics through your vendor site such as
vertical response MailChimp Constant Contact or another one once you
determine your KPIs next you can create a KPI dashboard now a KPI dashboard will
pull together all the key information what you’ll measure when you’ll measure
and how you’ll measure let’s think through a few examples of smart KPIs for
your dashboard increase from 500 to 600 website visitors each quarter increase
the number of website downloads by 5% each month increase followers on
LinkedIn by 100 by year-end increase opt-ins to email marketing by 20 leads
per month or obtain an average email open rate of 45% with a KPI dashboard
you’ll see the full picture of your lead gen program successes and what you need
to improve it’s an objective way to discuss program performance with key
stakeholders everybody will view the same agreed-upon criteria and later on
results your KPI dashboard will keep you on track and aligned with your business
goals
there’s one more step in setting goals and KPIs benchmarking now benchmarking
is understanding your starting point where you stand before you launch so you
have a basis for comparison and this video will just scratch the surface of
benchmarking and later on we’ll come back to these goals and benchmarks to
talk about measuring and optimizing for now I’ll show you two ways to benchmark
by using your company’s data and industry data now you may not have all
of this information and that’s okay just benchmark with the information you do
have you may have this information internally from your research department
and you can actually get a lot of this information by searching online it
really just depends on your goals and KPIs by using both types of benchmarks
you’ll understand how your lead gen program is doing compared to your
previous performance and compared to the competition benchmarks help you
understand what’s successful about your program that you should keep doing and
where you might be running into some problems and need to improve with this
information your KPIs will improve continuously compared to your benchmarks
this will put you on the path to attain your business goals and really
importantly to engage your marketing team sales team and other stakeholders
benchmarks are an objective starting point so everyone will view the KPIs
through the same lens it’ll be easier to agree on how to manage your lead gen
program throughout the year including successful tactics to maintain and
opportunities to improve and benchmarking motivates everyone to
strive for more and improve along the way
you you’ve set your goals KPIs and
benchmarked now it’s time to entice your prospects let’s start by defining your
customer target the most successful companies know their customers who they
are and how they buy some marketers even know their customers better than their
own families the better you know your customers the smarter you’ll be about
understanding what types of leads convert best start by knowing basic
information like age gender income or profession then think from your
customers perspective how do they buy what’s their decision-making process
there’s just so much information out there today did you know that Google
processes 3.5 billion searches every day and that has a huge impact on a
customer’s buying process they have more power than ever before due to social
media and easy online comparison shopping today most customers research
online before they buy whether it’s a small candy bar or an expensive new car
there are lots of customer decision journey models out there first is
consideration a customer has some sort of trigger that begins their decision
journey they consider an initial set of products or services or brands based
upon what they currently know perceive or have experienced now being in your
customers initial consideration set is great but your job is far from over you
need to really rise above the competition throughout the next few
phases the second phase is evaluation here your customer adds or subtracts
options as they gather information they’re less trusted friends or family
and research peer reviews and a company’s marketing online this
evaluation stage is most likely to affect your customers choice about what
they actually buy so make sure your company’s brand is positioned better
than the competition so you’ll win as customers evaluate
their options the third phase is when the customer buys this is when a
customer selects their at the moment of purchase now if they
buy in a store they’ll have a lot of influences like packaging availability
salespeople if they buy online they’ll be influenced by the checkout experience
ability to chat or ask a question online or by peer reviews available directly on
that site so you need to understand how your customers feel about purchasing
your brand and why so you can make product or service improvements and
build loyalty the fourth phase is the experience after a customer makes their
purchase they’ll interact with the brand and product or service if their
experience is positive they might advocate by adding two reviews and
communicating with other customers online this experience can lead to
loyalty and inform their thought process when it’s time to purchase again so you
really need to understand how your customers view their experience with
your business well they passively buy again just because they’re confused
about other options let’s hope not you’ll want your customers to feel loyal
to your brand and actively recommend it to others when you know your customers
and the phases of their decision journey you can communicate with them at the
moments that most influence their decisions
once you understand your target you can start creating content that will be
relevant and engaging let’s talk through how to decide what type of content you
should develop and which formats you should use I have a quick two step
approach to help you get started refer to your lead gen program KPIs and
conduct a Content audit first review your program KPIs from the previous
chapter to make informed and focused decisions remember to think through your
resources original thought leadership ebooks and white papers require the most
time and effort whereas blog posts curated content and social media posts
require less time and effort second conduct a Content audit now this is a
review of all the content you currently have this will save you time and money
and avoid duplicating efforts here’s what I mean by a Content audit ask
yourself what content do you already have
how can you reuse repurpose or improve existing content
how can you curate content curating content is sharing from another source
like when you see authors include a link along with commentary there are a ton of
details to learn about content marketing refer back to your program KPIs and
review the content you already have to stay focused and use your resources
efficiently
to make sure that people see your content you’ll need to decide on the
right length place and frequency to publish let’s take each of these one at
a time starting with content length be concise so people can understand the
main points quickly and easily use however many words you need to get your
message across but know more if you were going to regulated or complicated
industry people may want more lengthy content like a white paper or ebook but
most people expect bite-sized content that they can process easily here’s what
I’d suggest for maximum character counts in a couple of popular places to post
content if you’re tweeting try for around a hundred in a Facebook post or
in an email subject line keep it at forty once you finalize your content
next you need to figure out where to publish or some people refer to this as
making channel selections the best advice I can give you here is to focus
on your customer be present where they are which sites do they visit to find
information read reviews order products and services or ask questions publish
where your customer is environments that align with your brand and showcase your
product or service offering and content let’s say your content is really visual
like showing a product demonstration you might try YouTube or if your
audience is business people use LinkedIn to share content that positions you as
an expert and the last question how frequently should you publish think
through your audience’s expectations and your resources so you can plan
realistically the truth is many businesses have limited resources and
budgets let’s talk about a few tactics if you can’t publish too frequently
write longer more in-depth content that people can spend time with and really
think through repurpose content that you know people have Lite shared or
commented on in the past like expanding on a previous topic
you also can ask your customers how often they’d like to see new
ten maybe you don’t need to publish as often as you might think
or if you do need to add more resources to publish more frequently at least
you’ll understand the return remember those lead gen KPIs from the previous
chapter well this is a good time to go back to those KPIs to make sure that
however often you’re publishing will help you attain your program goals
you’ve posted content on your website and in social media sites but how do you
get people to visit these sites SEO which is search engine optimization
attracts organic also called natural or earned traffic to your website SEM which
is search engine marketing is when you buy traffic through paid tactics such as
page search listings in this video we’re going to focus on SEO not SEM we all do
lots and lots of searches every day think about it
which search results do you click on probably only the ones that rank high up
on the first page most of the time we don’t even bother reading what’s on the
second or third page right so it’s really important to optimize your search
rankings so people will see your information right at the top of their
search results page search engines display links that are relevant and
credible which they measure by analyzing keywords and the number and quality of
external links from other pages a pretty common mistake people make is to spend
all this time figuring out how a search engine works but really the most
important thing is to think about your target audience the visitors you want to
attract to your sites let’s talk about three best practices for using relevant
keywords well-constructed content and external links you need relevant
keywords for your website page titles URLs and text this is the language that
will appear front and center in search results how do you make sure your
keywords are relevant well here are a few tips for website page titles use
descriptive concise accurate keywords like the name of your business services
or products and location check your URLs to make sure they’re clear
understandable and accurately describe your business avoid random numbers or
letters that have no meaning to search engines or the people making search
queries choose a prime mery keyword for each landing page and
then optimize that whole page for that word use the primary keyword in your
headline and sub headline which tend to be picked up by search engines once
you’ve got your keywords now you can write well-constructed content the right
content will have the most positive effect on your search results let’s
review a few tips write clearly concisely in understandable language
focus on quality over quantity provide useful not promotional information and
the last step is to promote your content through external links in social media
sites so people can write reviews and share in blogs or Twitter feeds
remember search engines look for natural links so the more informative and
relevant your content the more likely people will link to it naturally you can
learn more about SEO by visiting Google Webmaster central SEO resources and
tools use relevant keywords high-value content and shareable external links to
get leads to your website and social media sites through higher search engine
rankings
you
you’ve convinced people to visit your website once they arrive you have to
make sure your design invites them in and the information makes them stay the
first two tactics I want to cover have to do with your customers first
impressions only include relevant pages and information in order of priority in
your overall website design don’t clutter the design with unnecessary
information you want your customers to feel invited to really read through your
site the simpler the overall design the better the customer experience figure
out the right balance of information and visuals and leave plenty of whitespace
the home page should clearly explain what you do and what makes you different
and better than the competition the home page can include your company’s purpose
how your business helps customers and may be a link to your most recent offer
or content after first impressions customers need to be able to navigate
your site easily to find what they need the navigation tab should be obvious
from the homepage and direct customers quickly and easily to the information
they seek or the action they want to take your navigation could include
services testimonials values or a blog but keep in mind that the fewer items in
the navigation tab the better so focus on what’s really important each page
within your site should include a concise headline so customers know how
to find what they need headlines should be accurate and relevant and lead on to
relevant copy as customers navigate your site it should feel consistent with
other marketing collateral they see from your company visuals should align with
your brand guidelines your text font colors and overall style because
customers expect a unified consistent brand experience use a lot of
high-quality visuals infographics photos videos illustrations or maybe even
comics to communicate key messages and customer benefits to entice customers to
learn more about your business make sure your website design is inviting so
they’ll want to spend time on your site
you
at this point in your Lijun program you’ve enticed a lot of leads so now you
need to narrow down that list to more qualified leads a great way to do this
is through a compelling offer a compelling offer basically depends on
the value your customers looking for it’s subjective in a way your idea of
compelling may be way different than someone else’s for some people it’s a
free consultation for another customer it might be a product discount a
valuable offer will get people’s attention and solve a problem and most
importantly a valuable offer will make people want to give you their contact
information in exchange for your offer so how do you create a great offer let’s
start with the language be honest and transparent you straightforward concise
words for your headline and body copy focus your entire message on the offer
avoid extra or confusing information it’s really important to use
action-oriented verbs also you might want to suggest a limited supply or a
limited time offer to get people’s attention and persuade them to act
quickly remember when we talked about the customer’s decision journey well the
best offer will align with the customer stage in their decision journey are they
considering options evaluating multiple brands or ready to make a purchase now
this should help you decide the type of offer and here are some ideas for
helpful information to include when people see your company’s phone number
and address they’ll think you’re an established and credible business
testimonials from satisfied customers or the number of people who have taken
advantage of your offer so far will create trust and there’s no need to
recreate the wheel every time you want to promote an offer when you find an
offer that works well don’t be afraid to repeat it valuable trustworthy offers
will grab people’s attention so you can narrow down your list to focus on
qualified leads
your offer is only as good as its call to action a call to action or CTA is a
button or length that entices a prospect to take action for right now we’ll focus
on CTA s that are on websites today a call to action needs to be so much more
than the click here button of the past it has to align with the page content
and what the customer needs and move the customer through the process quickly and
easily you’ve probably seen plenty of call to actions on websites you visited
like free trial subscribe or contact us but which call to action is best for
your customer and your business let’s talk about 6 best practices to design
and place your call to action make it easy to find so it’ll stand out from
other lengths use bold colors that stand out from background colors try a color
that you haven’t used elsewhere on your site it should be big enough to see but
with plenty of white space surrounding it place the CTA above the fold believe
it or not above the fold is a really old newspaper term but that’s true for
websites today this means the call to action should be visible when people
first load the page without having to scroll down use brief action-oriented
words your call to action should be no more than five words remember less is
more use first person speech because research shows this creates significant
lifts and clicks for example create my account is more effective than create
your account or create an account place the CTA on the right page that aligns
with your customer’s decision journey let’s talk about a few examples when
someone’s evaluating their options use a sign up now button for promotions or
sales Add to Cart works really well when somebody views a product and is ready to
buy use a subscribe or share CTA on your blog so people can share their
experience create a sense of urgency so people will act now which offer would
you click sail or 50% off today only align your call-to-action with the page
content and what the customer needs to motivate Lee
to take action
once a league clicks on the call-to-action to obtain your offer they
very often will end up on a landing page this is where someone lands after
clicking on your call-to-action it could have been to download a white paper
start a free trial or join a mailing list in this video we’ll talk about how
to create an effective landing page here are three things to keep in mind to make
sure you have a great landing page align your content with the offer and CTA
follow layout best practices and do usability testing let’s start with the
content think about what first attracted your visitor stay focused on that offer
keep the language concise and relevant don’t overwhelm people with unnecessary
information think about how you feel when you click to a landing page and
there’s a bunch of information that you don’t want to read to build trust you
can also include testimonials or customer reviews about that offer with
the right content you can move on to lay out best practices make your landing
page consistent with your overall website so it feels like one brand
clearly display your signup form so people will fill it out white space is
your friend don’t use too many words and keep the
page uncluttered use visual cues such as arrows to guide people create a sense of
urgency by using language such as sign up today or available only for a limited
time use high-quality images to demonstrate your product or service
you’ll want to test different landing page tactics to understand what creates
the best experience we call this usability testing this is understanding
the most effective combination of tactics to convert a visitor to a
qualified lead such as testing content designs headlines language and images
the right layout and content on your landing page will create a great
experience that will convert your visitors to qualified leads
we’ve all been there you’re really excited to buy something and then you’re
forced to fill out this lengthy form so what do we do we forget the whole
purchase we talked about your call-to-action and landing page remember
that’s where you provide information to customers but your form that’s where you
request information from customers to make the purchase process quick and easy
you need an efficient and trustworthy form let’s think through how to do that
only asks for the information you really need the less information your request
the more likely people will be to provide it just stick to the basics such
as first and last name email address phone number company neighbor job title
and maybe space for an optional message or request now if your offer is of
greater value you may have permission to request more information let’s say you
offer a free in-person consultation that you usually charge a lot of money for
that’s a really valuable offer and people might be willing to give you more
information in exchange for that opportunity but if your offers more
typical like a small discount people will be less willing to give you too
much information repeat your call to action it’s another
chance to entice your visitors the forms title directly above the fields should
encourage visitors to take the final step and complete the form but try not
to use the word submit for the forms final click instead customize it to
align with the offer here are some examples start your free trial download
your free report sign up for our newsletter claim your coupon or get
started now label all form fields clearly so they’re
easy to understand and people know which of the required fields if they’re not
clear on what’s required and miss one they won’t be able to submit and
probably will get frustrated abandon the process and you’ll lose them reassure
visitors that their information is safe with you you can include a link to your
privacy policy and website terms and conditions
include certification of security seals if you have them this will ease anxiety
and make your company and brand more trustworthy and credible respond real
time to fulfill the promise of your form immediately provide the download
instructions confirmation or whatever offer you’ve promised right away
customers have high expectations for real-time responses just like you and me
and I can’t share this suggestion enough say thank you after people complete your
form visitors took the time to fill it out so make sure to thank them for their
time and submission and be clear about any next steps to make sure people fill
out your form think about the type of experience you would want only ask for
the necessary information that people will feel comfortable sharing this will
create a much more positive experience and increase your chances that the
purchase will go through
have you ever received an email that felt like it was written for someone
else and shouldn’t have even been sent to you did that make you like that brand
and want to buy it or did you just delete the email I think we’ve all
deleted plenty of emails right while creating and maintaining a current
database of information from your forms is really important
it’ll help you customize communications to connect with people so they’ll want
to engage with your brand and by your product or service we’ve all heard about
databases but just to make sure we’re thinking of it in the same way a
database is a collection of information that can be accessed managed and updated
a database system usually is a software program that loads on your computer the
software allows you to input information and conduct a search in the database
when you need to create a list of leads you input the criteria and then the
database completes a search and produces a list of leads that fits those criteria
to create a database start with basic and current contact information like
first and last name company industry job title email address and phone number
still wondering if you should take the time to create a database well here are
some convincing benefits it’ll save you time with just a couple of clicks
information is immediately available and you can look at the data in all sorts of
ways a request for a specific list from your database called a query can take
just a few seconds instead of having to hand collect paper records it helps you
customize information so you can personalize messaging this will improve
the quality and consistency of your emails and content a database creates
transparency because information is available to anyone in your company to
whom you provide access this eliminates duplicating efforts and unproductive
secrecy which becomes more and more important as your business grows it
helps you scale your business as you hire new employees and expand with more
locations to grow a database increases our
Meishan because it can create automatic email or message prompts when to contact
delete and most importantly it increases your sales forces productivity as
studies show that a database helps them increase their customer sales so now
that you understand the importance of a database
you’re probably wondering how do I create and maintain one let’s talk about
three ways obtain information for example from your website signup forms
and landing pages to add to your database a lot of website programs have
functionality to communicate with a database software program to
automatically populate create categories of information in the database to
segment leads based on your key criteria then sort based on whatever is most
important for your business such as location or company size keep the
information current to eliminate duplicates and inactives
people can move locations of life changes or switch jobs current
information will keep your efforts focused on qualified leads remember how
you gather store and process data must comply with your local laws and data
protection legislation creating a database of contact information gives
you the power to convert prospects to qualified leads your database can expand
in scope and help you grow and scale your business over time
there’s no use in chasing down a lead who doesn’t meet your criteria it’s
better to put your efforts elsewhere as you evaluate your lead response rate you
might find you need to change your strategy a bit you might need to
decrease your lead response rate if too many leads don’t meet your criteria to
convert to a customer or you might need to increase your response rate let’s say
if your business is a start-up or expanding we’re about to get into a lot
of detail so stay with me as we get through this together to decrease your
lead response rate you need to narrow your lead quality so essentially if you
want fewer people responding to your offer you’ll want more strict or narrow
criteria to increase your lead response rate you need to broaden your lead
quality so here it’s just the opposite you want more people to respond so you
loosen or broaden the criteria for your offer a good first step is to ask your
sales force for feedback then you’ll understand whether they’re busy and
meeting their goals and how they rate lead quality this will help you figure
out whether to narrow or broaden your lead quality let’s dive a bit deeper
here to narrow your lead quality which will decrease your lead response rate
you can do things like this charge a fee for your offer if someone’s willing to
pay that’ll be a more serious lead request a lot of information on your
signup or contact form same thing here if someone’s willing to give you more
information about themselves they’re likely more interested or you might use
strict terms and conditions for your offer such as an obligation to purchase
in exchange for that offer let’s talk about the opposite scenario now if you
need to broaden your lead quality to increase lead response rate try some of
these ideas to get more people in offer a free service gift or toolkit request
minimal information in your forms like just a name and email use really loose
terms and conditions like no obligation to purchase in exchange for a free
consultation once you decide whether to decrease or
increase your lead response rate it’ll help you focus your efforts on the leads
that you want that are right for your business
we have one more video about getting two qualified leads here we’ll talk about
how to use keywords to identify opportunities there are millions of
conversations happening each day online but what if those conversations are
about your business would you even know they’re happening responding real-time
to conversations about your business is a powerful way to convert prospects to
qualified leads whether it’s expert advice on an online
forum or an instant answer to a social media inquiry an old saying fits a new
truth the early bird gets the worm there are ways to monitor the web almost all
of it for conversations happening about just about everything a great way to
monitor conversations and engage with leads is through Google Alerts Google
Alerts monitors keywords and phrases about your business and emails or texts
you when that content is posted on the web let’s say your keyword alert is
Apple iPhone you can tell Google to notify you every time it finds a mention
of Apple iPhone whether people are linking quoting Apple iPhone showing
support or lodging a complaint think about how powerful a keyword alert is
what if one of your customers posts something positive or negative on a
public forum and you could know about it immediately setting up Google Alerts is
really simple and you can get started in just a couple of minutes go to
google.com Alerts sign into your gmail account if you don’t have a Google
account no worries just start filling out the form in the create an alert
about box enter the keywords you want to track separated by commas for example
your business and personal name and your business URL click show options to
customize areas of the internet you want to monitor these could be new articles
blogs competition videos groups books or forums choose the alert frequency it
could be once a day as it happens or once a week
I like once a day you won’t miss anything and can respond within 24 hours
determine how many alerts you want to receive only the closest in matches or
everything close matches will probably use your time more efficiently pick your
delivery method Gmail RSS or other email account which ever you check most
frequently and create the alert once your alert is set up you’ll start
receiving emails any time new search results come up for your keywords and
don’t forget to test to find the sweet spot you may have to adjust your google
alerts accordingly you’ll find that some alerts may overwhelm your inbox while
others are really useful find what works best for you and make the necessary
adjustments by following these simple steps you’re on your way to setting up
alerts with keywords to engage prospects real time and focus on qualified leads
you
we’ve talked about how to entice leads and qualify leads next in this chapter
we’ll dive into how to transform those leads to customers this video will start
with learning how to identify when a lead is ready to make a purchase and
when you should follow up let’s say you’re considering replacing an aging
appliance in your home you start with some brief research online to evaluate
options you find a couple of options but decide to hold off on that purchase for
right now the next thing you know salespeople begin to contact you but
you’re not yet ready to buy in this example a salesperson who contacts you
won’t be welcomed but if you were further along in the buying process
let’s say you’ve conducted all your research and evaluated options by
reading product descriptions pricing reviews or even downloading sales
brochures wouldn’t you be more receptive to engage with a sales person now so how
does the business determine when a customer is ready for sales contact buy
lead scoring this is identifying when a lead is ready to buy and assigning a
value to that lead based on their information and behavior on your website
before anything make sure your sales team receives enough quality leads does
appropriate follow-up with leads and has sufficient data to proceed you’ll recall
we discussed all of this in the previous chapter now that you’re ready to get
started with a lead scoring model let’s talk about how to get there to find a
qualified lead with marketing and sales because you can only start scoring leads
when everyone agrees on the definition then sales will only receive high
quality leads and marketing will provide fewer but higher quality leads examples
of qualifiers could be a decision-making job title such as VP or above or a list
of the top five company industries that align best with your business collect
demographic and behavioral data on your leads through your online forms or other
great sources like LinkedIn profiles demographic examples could be years of
experience or lengthen their current position or their budget ranges then
you’ll know whether that lead is a decision-maker
you can get behavioral data through a leads actions on your website determine
their stage of the buying journey are they only considering options at this
time or ready to buy here’s how you can tell when a lead is ready to buy
they’ll fill out a contact us form request a free trial search by company
name or view a pricing page now that you’ve collected the information you’re
ready for your lead scoring model now there are a lot of models out there
input your criteria use a simple point system ranging from 1 to 10
assign a score to all criteria and the spreadsheet will Auto populate the
scoring system lead scoring can be done manually which is a great way for a new
or small business to get started however a leads behavior will change over time
based on the stage of their buying journey consider upgrading from a manual
system to lead management software which will help you manage the qualifying
criteria and leads data to keep your scoring system current after you’ve
developed your lead scoring model and launched make sure to consistently
evaluate and adjust your criteria may evolve as your business evolves over
time and many lead scoring models are optimized over time with learnings talk
with your sales team frequently to make sure they’re receiving high quality
leads and following up look for potential missed opportunities that can
be incorporated into your lead scoring model an effective lead scoring model
will provide you with insight to understand what buying stage leads are
in understand when they’re ready to purchase and when you should follow up
customized experiences make people want to be your customer it’s sort of like
when you go into a coffee shop and the person knows exactly what you want and
starts making it the second they see you walk through the door the concept of a
personal touch has been a really effective sales strategy for years
studies show that knowing and using a customer’s name and knowing their
preferences will help you close the sale luckily today’s technology gives
marketers more ways than ever to personalize a customer’s buying journey
let’s review a few tips to customize follow-up communications to prospects
when they’re getting ready to buy when you created your lead form you collected
lots of data about your leads this data you collected and stored in your
marketing database can now be used to create personalized content
the first step to personalization is segmentation that’s dividing up your
marketing list into segments based on customer information your segments could
include geography product interests gender household income or lead source
these are just some examples but how do you segment your list really depends on
your business the data you collected on your lead form and the information
you’ve collected about your customers over time and once you’ve divided your
lists into groups you can create targeted content that fits their profile
let’s say you’re an electronic store you could send information about cameras to
someone who’s noted their interest in photography on your website form or
let’s say somebody’s interested in video games you might send the latest deals on
gaming systems customizing the experience through segmentation is just
a start you can take personalization even further by using your data in a
whole new way it’s called dynamic or smart content dynamic content is
personalized information in the subject line of an email or in the body of the
email itself the most common example of this is inserting
person’s name but really it can be any information another way dynamic content
can be useful is if you want to personalize just a small part of your
email and the rest of the email can be the same for all customers this way you
can manage just one email and don’t have to make the same changes again on
different versions but as your business grows it’s a great way to deliver
personalized content without having to expand your marketing team too much so
we’ve practiced customizing follow-up from prospect data and interests but why
go through all this trouble bottom line personalization works studies show it
improves email click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%
can’t argue with those numbers
once you’ve identified leads who are ready to buy and have relevant
customized content how will you deliver this personalized message and
information well email is a really effective
targeted tool to nurture relationships with your leads let’s review some email
best practices for an inviting effective layout an attention-getting subject line
and concise copy let’s start with these layout tips be clear and consistent in
the from label typically this would be your company name or recognizable
employee name most importantly the from label should be the same in all your
emails consistency helps people recognize where the emails are coming
from and builds trust in the source the pre header text should all meant and
aligned with but not be the same as the subject line which we’ll discuss in more
detail in a moment preheader text invites the reader to
open the email include a link so people can forward to a friend many email
vendors include this as a simple option in their services make social media and
website links clear so people can click to follow easily only include social
media links if you’re active on those sites help readers scan the email
quickly and easily through bold headlines or keywords bullets and ample
whitespace to avoid a cluttered look avoid using underlines which can be
mistaken for a hyperlink stick to what will show well in HTML format but
provide a text version for those who don’t accept HTML versions make sure the
most important information is above the fold and prominent use clear
call-to-action visuals such as prominent hyperlink text image or buttons the
subject line should be a maximum of 30 to 40 characters it should really get
the reader’s attention so they’ll want to open the email
the subject line should be accurate and aligned with the email body content
useful and relevant for the reader clear and specific so the reader doesn’t have
to guess and create a sense of urgency the email headline and body copy should
also be concise and relevant use short blocks of copy to draw the reader in
with links to read more if they choose to do so focus on offers that your
target audience will consider to be valuable so they’ll share or forward
limit each email to one to five topics or offers to nurture ready to buy leads
use these best practices for email content and inviting layout and
attention getting copy
you
you’ve moved your leads through the process now they’re ready to buy so it’s
really important to create a positive purchase experience let’s start in this
video with making the purchase process clear and simple
today’s e-commerce can be a great experience you comfortably sit in your
home or office compare products and make a purchase that’s best for you
sounds simple right well it’s not always that easy sometimes you let down a
confusing path with unexpected twists and turns while making it all on
purchase the result frustration the average shopping cart abandonment rate
is an incredible 71 percent when you develop your website checkout process
make sure to think from the customer’s point of view what will be a great
experience so customers won’t abandon your site and will complete an online
purchase how can you streamline your purchase
process and make it really simple for a customer to make their purchase let’s
talk about several ways allow purchases either with or without online
registration let people check out as a guest if they don’t want to fill out a
registration form some people view a registration form is prolonging the
process or invading their privacy requests shipping information before
billing shipping is really important to customers if you want to know when and
where they’ll receive their product before they provide payment information
offer a variety of payment options 24 percent of online shoppers abandon their
cart because they find out their method of payment isn’t accepted by offering a
range of options your customer is sure to find a suitable form of payment to
make the purchase make the checkout link easy to find so people don’t have to
search it should be easy to locate obvious and not surrounded by lots of
clutter integrate the checkout graphics with your overall website look and feel
your customers are used to a certain branded look and feel on your site make
sure the transition to checkout is seamless by using the same background
colors fonts and fonts imagery buttons and copy tone be clear
about what’s in stock and don’t hide item availability if something’s out of
stock let the customer know right away and if the product will be available at
a future date offer a pre-order option or to send an email when the product is
available make shopping cart modifications quick and easy like adding
items or changing the quantity before finalizing the purchase include visuals
and links on the order summary screen during shopping cart review such as a
photo of the item desired quantity item specifications and a link to the item
page in case someone needs to verify something offer multiple shipping
options let customers choose which shipping method is right for them offer
a range from Express to standard so customers receive their purchase when
they need it provide a delivery estimate so customers know when to expect their
merchandise be transparent about your return policy studies show that 86% of
customers check shipping and return policies as a precaution before buying
online and remember to always say thank you send a confirmation email thanking
customers for their order and include an order summary and delivery estimate by
following these tips to make the online purchase process clear and simple you’ll
create a positive customer experience and avoid shopping cart abandonment
which will drive sales
customer satisfaction it’s the key to success for every business everywhere
and it’s never been more important than it is today
the internet hasn’t just changed the rules of customer service it’s turned
them completely upside down customer service is no longer just about
resolving complaints through a phone call now customers expect immediate
service how and when they want just how important is this
well news of bad customer service reaches over twice as many people as
praise for a good service experience but believe it or not customers are more
forgiving than you might think and responding the right way at the
right time can help you turn a negative experience into a positive one
look no business wants any problems but we’re all human some mistakes happen
whether it’s a failed delivery or a faulty product or service as a business
you need to provide and monitor multiple channels to make sure your customers
issues are solved to their satisfaction let’s talk about some ways you can
transform a negative customer experience into a positive one provide a range of
options on your website such as live chat a feedback form an email address or
phone number this way customers can easily contact you with problems if not
they’ll find another likely more public way to complain which would be bad for
your business and reputation live chats becoming more and more popular with 58%
adoption but providing options for how customers can contact you is just the
beginning make sure you staff the chats or emails so that whoever responds has
the authority and information to answer questions and solve problems quickly
monitor your and your competition’s social media channels frequently social
media is a powerful marketing tool it can promote your business or detract
from your business and reputation if an unhappy customers experience goes viral
if your business has a presence on Facebook Twitter Instagram
or any other social Channel customers will expect you to respond real-time
24/7 so monitor your social media as often as possible and respond quickly to
a complaint in some cases managers even respond directly to customer reviews or
complaints on apps such as Yelp watch online shopping reviews and reach out to
active customers did you know that 88% of customers research a product online
before they buy what people say about your product is really important as
customers are evaluating their options 88% of people trust online reviews
usually as much as personal recommendations and often more than
company produce marketing collateral believe it or not the phone is still a
really popular way that customers want to voice their complaints there’s just
something about a live person’s voice that calms people down when they have a
problem make sure that a live service rep responds to a customer’s call in two
minutes or less this is really important because 67% of people hang up the phone
when they’re frustrated by not reaching a real person it takes a lot of effort
to turn a lead into a customer but it costs six to seven times more to acquire
a new customer than to keep a current one so it’s good business to invest time
and money to resolve customer complaints let me give you a few more reasons why 7
out of 10 people will spend more money with companies they believe provide
excellent customer service 91% of unhappy customers won’t do business with
you again however if you resolve a customer’s complaint they will do
business with you again 70% of the time to create a positive purchase experience
monitor customers after they make their purchase and remember we’re all human so
when a problem does happen which it will fix the problem immediately in whatever
way your customer prefers
to run a successful business you have to know your competition every business
plan whether you’re a startup or have been in business for years should
consistently analyze its competitors so you can make sure your customer purchase
experience is a positive one compared to other options out there what’s the best
way to understand your competition become a customer yeah that’s right step
into your competitions customers shoes experience their buying journey and
understand what your competition does well and what it doesn’t do so well
let’s start with how you can learn more about your competition this might be
easier than you think a quick Google search and Google Alerts can provide a
ton of information about articles news and customer reviews that might make you
want to adjust some of your business or marketing plans and here are even more
ways to learn about your competition look at their websites is information
easy to find what are they offering are their prices competitive join their
mailing list and carefully read all the information you receive sign up for a
free trial read their annual report contact their customer service
department with product questions or join online chats and follow them in
social media once you’ve collected competitive information what do you do
with it well you can use something called a SWOT analysis tool SWOT stands
for strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats this is a great tool to
think through so what or what does this mean for my business about all that
information you’ve just collected let’s dive into this tool identify competitors
strengths these could be product quality price customer service distribution
sales marketing public opinion or market share
now while your competition may have many strengths remember they also have their
weaknesses do they lack customer service or product innovation other costs too
high for the quality maybe their inventory is limited
and have a difficult checkout process uncovering and capitalizing on your
competitors faults could create more business for you what opportunities do
competitors create are there recent technological advances emerging trends
or customer frustrations or unmet needs that you can capitalize on what are the
threats posed by competitors is there a new emerging offer that will make your
product or service obsolete or priced out of the market maybe the competition
leads and technology or innovation is their market share increasing understand
the why behind your threats and develop immediate action plans to address them
go online start sizing up the competition and begin gaining the
business intelligence you need to differentiate and create a great
customer experience
so you’ve made your sale think your job is over absolutely not the customer
experience doesn’t end with the purchase the way we’re treated by companies after
we’ve given them our money can often determine if we become repeat customers
and recommend them to others so how do you make sure your new customer will be
a repeat customer again and again let’s talk about three ways keep your
customers informed large online retailers have made this an art form but
keeping a customer informed after they make a purchase is vital for any
business use follow-up communications such as discount offers reward points or
thank-you messages give your customer a voice send out satisfaction surveys so
your customers can voice their opinions or complaints whether it’s about the
buying process or service improvements try a company like Survey Monkey which
doesn’t cost that much money and will provide you with the results right away
surveys prove to your customers that their feedback is important to your
business and that you value their opinions go back to your customer
databases that we discussed in an earlier chapter to pull a list of people
who meet the criteria for your survey and make sure you take those insights
from the survey feedback and take action this lets customers know that they’ve
been heard and you’re making the changes they’ve suggested you can use your
website and social media sites to communicate these changes to your
customers and encourage additional feedback on how to make your business
better which benefits everyone follow-up purchases with education
emails such as how to’s and tips and tricks to accelerate customers usage of
your product or service the more of an expert they are the happier and the more
likely they’ll be to recommend to someone else plus it gives you an
opportunity to cross sell items or upsell add-ons or enhancements these
might sound like obvious ways to create customer loyalty but you’d be surprised
at how many companies just don’t do them engage your customers and let them know
their business and their opinions matter
you probably know that businesses spent a lot of time and money to get new
customers but what you may not know is that it pays to keep them a la existing
customers spend 65% more than new customers so isn’t it surprising that
more companies don’t put more effort into retaining the customers they do
have keeping your customers engaged and loyal is a great way to grow your
business and here are some ideas for your company make customers part of the
club a rewards club that is incentivize repeat business by giving something back
to loyal customers this could be as simple as a point system like earning a
point for every dollar you spend or a punch or stamp card or you can offer
free items discounts or some sort of special treatment whatever type of
reward program you use make sure it’s simple to understand and the rewards are
attainable give customers the VIP treatment make customers feel special by
giving them exclusive benefits this could be early access to new products
exclusive sales or special discounts some programs tear benefits to encourage
more sales the rewards can start small and increase as a customer becomes more
loyal such as having bronze silver gold and platinum levels make a game of it
have some fun by turning your loyalty program into a game if customers a
chance to win something every time they buy just be sure there’s enough winning
so customers feel they have a legitimate chance make it personal whatever loyalty
program you choose remember that personal works best tailoring your
rewards to someone specific buying habits can make it that much more
effective and show that you care too for example giving away a free meatball
sandwich to a vegetarian customer doesn’t have much value in fact it
probably would have the exact opposite impact you were looking to achieve and
turn off the customer so use customer data to personalize rewards and messages
for different customer segments remember there are people – and catering to their
individual needs is always good customer service measurement
matters before you start a loyalty program define what success looks like
and how you’ll measure is the program really driving customer retention or are
you just giving away free things find out for your customer retention rate
this measures how long customers stay with your business by measuring the
difference in customer retention between program members and non program members
you can determine if your loyalty program is working drive engagement by
rewarding customers for their loyalty through tailored offers customized
content and other valuable rewards
we talked earlier about monitoring social media to find qualified leads
well it’s also important so you can understand what your current customers
say about you over two million people around the world use social media that’s
a lot of people so you’ll want to monitor what customers say about your
business and their experience with you have you ever written a review about a
restaurant and all of a sudden the chef or manager responds to you what a nice
surprise then if they take a step further and not only thank you but offer
you a free appetizer when you come back in that will delight you that’s
exceeding customer expectations which we call surprise and delight this shows
that you’re listening and that you care whether the feedback was positive or
negative here’s another example JetBlue which is an airline has a
dedicated Twitter team all they do all day long is monitor what customers are
saying about JetBlue and figure out how to surprise and delight them in one
instance they had a customer in an airport tweet that he wanted a special
Starbucks drink they tweeted him back to acknowledge his concern and then
actually brought the exact drink he wanted right to him before takeoff so
how can you surprise and delight your customers make sure you have at least
one person in your company who monitors all your key social media channels this
really has to be the right person they need to understand social media branding
and how to interact with customers spontaneously they need to be empowered
and have the authority to make decisions and in some cases a budget to quickly
respond if you’re a regulated industry you need to have a process in place with
your legal and risk management groups to have the flexibility to respond quickly
surprise and to let your current customers to retain them this is really
important because you’re seven times more likely to make a sale with a
current customer than a new customer this is a great way to win if you want
to rise above the competition
you
so how do you know if your legion program was successful well before
jumping to any conclusions start by going back to your agreed upon goals in
the beginning of this course we spoke about business goals and program KPIs
remind key stakeholders about these goals that set the direction for your
lead gen strategy and tactics this will keep people focused and objective
whether its executives sales marketing or other teams this avoids the problem
of getting off the path that was originally agreed upon you’re reminding
people where you started and what you set out to do in the first place start
with your business goals you calculated how many leads you need to generate
estimated future sales and developed a list of SMART goals next look at your
program KPI dashboard from an earlier chapter when you decided the specifics
what when and how you will measure last go through your benchmarks review the
data that you added to your KPI dashboard this will remind you and all
key stakeholders about your starting point before you launched your lead gen
program by stepping back and reviewing your goals KPIs and benchmarks you can
now begin measuring and optimizing your lead gen program
you set your goals launched early jet program and now it’s the moment of truth
how did your program perform are you achieving what you set out to achieve
here’s how you find out go back to your KPI dashboard from the beginning of this
course and start to fill in the data from your programs in market performance
here fill in the objective numbers only then you’ll develop a scoring system
that’s clear and understandable to everyone answer this question did you
exceed meet or not meet goals for example you can assign a 1 to exceeded
goals 2 to met goals and 3 to did not meet goals in this example the lower the
score the better and last begin your assessment understand the why behind the
what why did your program exceed meet or not
meet goals start with internal objective information like did you spend at under
or over plan or did you change any program tactics next include qualitative
insights and knowledge about external factors such as did competitors have any
new or significant activity like a new product launch or increased spend or was
there significant industry event such as new regulations or positive or negative
press now depending on the size and type of your business and lead gen program
you may consider evolving from a spreadsheet to more sophisticated tool
that tracks spend against programs and helps you determine ways to optimize
your program which we’ll discuss in the next video
you
now it’s time to review all your program data and analysis determine what worked
well that you should keep doing and identify opportunities to improve
sometimes the truth can be hard we’ve all been there we can take things
personally because we feel ownership for our work and programs but as you
determine how to optimize your lead gen program try not to take anything too
personally stay objective and be open to how you can improve in the future
remember improvements are good all around your business brand and team’s
performance here are a list of example questions you can ask yourself so you
can figure out what you need to optimize did you target the right audience review
your demographics are you speaking to the right people
how’s your messaging are you saying the right thing at the right time are you
present and engaging in the right channels this goes for both outbound
messages such as emails or a two-way dialogue such as in social media or your
offers compelling do they persuade people to act is your branding
integrated across all channels so essentially we’re asking ourselves what
went well and what did it where are there gaps between what you were
striving for and what you didn’t quite achieve things are changing all the time
so you want to make sure you’re constantly optimizing to be relevant and
win in market once you identify the gaps develop a specific action plan to
address them your plan should include what you need to achieve what you need
to do differently ideas for how you plan to get there deadlines and who needs to
be involved remember finding a gap between what you wanted to achieve and
what you need to achieve is good now you’re aware of the problem and
empowered to go fix it and make it better
world-class marketers constantly optimize their programs that’s how they
build their business and stay ahead of the competition
you
allegiance strategy is crucial in today’s world where customers have
access to so much information as part of their decision journey and remember li
chen is an ongoing process it’s not something you just create and then leave
alone you need to constantly monitor how you’re doing in market customers
changing needs and your competitors actions so what’s next
I’d suggest you follow Li Chen posts on LinkedIn and join LinkedIn professional
legion groups also you can sign up for a newsletter from top global management
consultancies such as McKinsey or BCG or from other credible sources like Harvard
Business Review these are great ways to stay on top of best practices and
exchange ideas with other people just like you congratulations on finishing
this lead generations fundamentals course and I wish you all the best of
success
you