What I’ll Learn

After reading this post, you’ll understand:

• Fine-tuning your:
  • Offer
  • Marketing channels
  • Brand voice
• Identifying your target market
• Catering lead magnets to your target audience

Leads are the lifeblood of any successful business, and if you hope to make any money at all, you’ll need a steady supply of them. Over the past several weeks, the digital marketing experts at TIC Digital have been reviewing the fundamentals of lead generation in our blog posts, from identifying your target audience to creating content that appeals to them. Today, we’re bringing that information together so you can have it all in one convenient place. Here’s our guide to doing lead generation that works.

Marketing for Lead Generation – Where and How Will You Do Your Marketing?

The most successful businesses are the ones that know how to market themselves. Of course, you don’t want to just start throwing money around without a plan. First, you need to decide how and where you will do your marketing. In the social media era, we suggest starting online. After all, it’s the cheapest way to reach the most people!

• What Will You Offer? – It’s important to be clear about what you’re offering. Whether you’re marketing a product or a service, decide what your offer will be and find a way to articulate it simply, in language everyone can understand.
• Choosing Channels – There are so many ways to reach people online, so decide on a few you can master quickly, then add more as you get more comfortable. These channels can include social media, paid traffic, blog content, your email list, and more.
• Optimize for Your Chosen Platform – Once you have selected a platform, find out what you need to do to get the most from your efforts there. For instance, some social media platforms favor video content, so you could find ways to make cost-effective videos that will perform well. No matter which platform you choose, tailor your content to meet its requirements so you can get the most leads.
• Brand Voice – Your identity as a brand is shaped by many factors – your people, your customers, the product or service you sell, and so many more. Whatever voice you choose for your brand, it’s important that you be consistent across all platforms. While you may not get it perfect right away, don’t be afraid to let your experiences shape your brand voice, and when you find something that works, stick with it!

Identifying and Appealing to Your Audience

Your target audience is going to play a big role in shaping your lead generation strategy. Identifying that audience will help you decide on a brand voice that appeals to them, which platforms will be the most effective in reaching them, and what kind of offers they will respond to. Brainstorm the kinds of companies you already work with, or ones you’d like to work with. Once you find out more about your target audience, you can begin creating content custom-made just for them.

For instance, if you currently work with more traditional companies, you will want to tailor your content to meet their expectation that you’re steady and reliable. If you’re looking to attract younger companies in the tech sector, you may want to inject some humor and youthful energy into your content. Find out the needs of your target audience and show them exactly what they want to see.

Lead Magnets

Sometimes, it makes sense to offer a little freebie to get the wheels moving. A lead magnet can help you capture leads that would not have given you their information otherwise. It doesn’t have to be something elaborate; you could offer a coupon for free services in exchange for an email address, or you could provide access to a helpful document. For many businesses, offering a free quote is good enough to get a potential customer to fill out your contact form, and once they’re in your marketing funnel, you’re much more likely to convert them in the future.

Audience Segmentation – And Why It’s Useful for Marketing

Breaking your customer base down into segments can help you come up with an effective marketing strategy. Once again, analytics tools can help you with this. Take a look at your current web traffic and the people who buy from you. Which websites are they coming from? Which pages on your site did they visit? Where are they located? Once you know some basic information about your customers, you can group them into segments and analyze the characteristics of those segments.

User locations can tell you a lot; some types of content may be more effective in certain geographical areas. In addition, you can determine which products or services your users might be most interested in purchasing by looking at the pages they visit on your site. You can even use your audience segments to anticipate their needs and deliver content that explains how your business can meet those needs.

Action Plan

Take a few minutes to apply what you’ve learned in this post:

1. Simply, and in words everyone can understand, write down what you offer to your customer in 1 – 2 sentences.
2. Research the proper formatting for your top 2 marketing channels. Do you know optimal image sizes and resolutions? Or blog length? Are your email designs mobile, tablet, and desktop friendly?
3. Think of 1 – 2 different audience segments you have. Brainstorm a couple of potential lead magnets for both of them.
   1. (Again) Simply, and in words everyone can understand, write down the specific offer for these lead magnets in 1 – 2 sentences.

Outsourcing Your Marketing and Lead Generation

Finding the best strategy for digital marketing can be a complex process, and it’s often hard to quantify results or get an immediate payoff. Successfully marketing online takes a concerted effort over the long term. If you don’t have an in-house marketing team, or if you want to save money on your marketing activities, it can make sense to outsource those tasks to another company.

At TIC Digital Marketing, we employ our own team of digital marketing experts who understand these topics at a deeper level. We can take care of tasks like identifying target audiences, developing a brand voice, analyzing website traffic, and more. When you hire us, not only will you save yourself the expense of hiring an in-house marketing team, you’ll also likely get better results than you ever would on your own. With TIC handling your digital marketing, you will have more time to focus on your customers and the business at hand.

If you would like to know more about TIC’s slate of services, including inbound digital marketing and WordPress web development, get in touch with us today! Dial (858) 280-3792, send an email to [email protected], or visit our contact page and fill out the online form (or fill it out below this post!) to speak with a TIC Digital Marketing representative today.