Follow the leader: Here’s everything you should know about leads

creating

In today’s online advertising market, you have to stay ten steps ahead of your competitors – and that’s much harder than it sounds.

Digital campaigning is an ever-changing field, so staying on top of the game requires a lot of attention, patience and determination. Add to that the fact that there’s no fast way of knowing which ad or creative gets you the best results – it’s all a matter of A-B testing, a matter of trying and erring.

That’s why the importance of gaining leads should not be overlooked. Many business experts see it as a solid strategy of customer acquisition when everything around keeps constantly changing. But there’s obviously a right way and a wrong way to do it. Here’s a quick guide to the dos and don’ts of lead generation. 

Gaining a lead

It seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Publish your services and offers and see who shows interest in them. Well, it’s much more complicated than that. As lead generation becomes more sophisticated, so do the potential clients. It seems like in today’s digital marketing reality, a lead is not a statistic, but rather complex data. In other words, different people can be gained as leads only through different methods.

That is why you should always simultaneously try numerous online campaigns with several designs, content types, target audiences and so forth. Moreover, having one campaign create more leads than the other does not necessarily mean you should scrap the latter. It means you should consider the cost of keeping each one, as opposed to the amount of leads it generates.

Creating content with the purpose of gaining leads is tricky as well. A lead can be information actively left by a potential client, but it can also be a result of a click or two when the client’s information is already known (for example, on social media). Therefore, when you create deceiving or even blurry content to attract leads, you’re actually taking a step backward since you are paying for leads but end up with people who, when approached by your sales representatives, will probably not cooperate (since they feel they have been scammed). It is important to be honest and transparent for a functioning lead generation process.

Analyzing a lead

A lead today consists of more than just the information it supplies. There are other factors to look at: How and when it was received, what information the potential client agreed to provide (and what information they didn’t), how much a lead ended up costing, etc. Today there are advanced platforms that analyze a lead to a more accurate extent than the human eye, such as the platform created and operated by Crystalead for their users. Still, sometimes the human eye (and brain) can analyze data and catch some things that an algorithm may miss out on.

Storage of leads is important too. Once you generate enough leads, there’s a big risk of losing them if they are not organized properly. If you are not working with a platform that automatically stores and categorizes leads, make yourself a habit of keeping them organized in a chart or table. That way, it is also easier to keep track of follow ups and examine possibilities of growth toward further leads.

Following up on a lead

Since a lead is a person and not just a pile of data, each lead demands a different kind of follow up. Like we stated before, the information gathered from analyzing a lead can help you figure out how to approach the human behind it. In that sense, it may be wise to use the help of professionals such as the Crystalead team in analyzing leads. In general, we recommend assigning the task of lead following to a specific employee or group in the company. That way, you get employees which become experts at handling leads – and you make sure that there’s an orderly process of following up.

When you play your cards right, a lead can generate more leads. We’re talking about people that are in the potential client’s network (family, friends, coworkers, etc.). It all depends on the vibe you transmit throughout the follow up process. Offering a potential client an incentive to give you further leads usually does no harm (a promotion or discount, for example), but should be weighed on a cost-value scale.