How do successful people make the most of their Lead Generation Process?

Do you know why most businesses fail?

It’s because they fail to accomplish lead generation.

Most of them try to build many social media followers as a part of their lead generation process.

There is a misconception that all the social media followers are leads.

The fact is, those who are following you on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are not your potential leads.

Here I will walk you through the Lead generation Process in a simpler manner.

Before getting into the procedure you need to know,

What is a Lead?

Lead is the collection of names, phone numbers, and email IDs of potential customers, those who are interested in your business.

There is a direct relationship between the leads and your business.

Leads are the people interested in your products or services.

There is a higher possibility that they would become your customer.

Yes, you can make sales with leads.

You can invite them to attend your webinars or an event.

A lead usually comprises three main things like Name of the person, phone number, and Email ID.

Now that we know what leads are and what are not leads, next, we will discuss,

What is Lead generation?

Lead generation is nothing but a process of converting a lead into your customer.

Initially, you have to grab the attention of the prospects, nurture them so that it increases their interest in your product or service, and finally attain your goal of converting the leads into your potential customers.

Do all the businesses need lead generation?

Of course, all businesses need lead generation except low-end Business to Customer (B2C).

Yes! If your business involves selling low-priced customer goods like cookies, a ballpoint pen, soaps, and chocolates, then you don’t need to generate leads.

These are fast-moving consumer goods, and, hence the customers do not need to make tough decisions in buying them.

You can get repeated customers by building brand awareness through advertisements.

Say, for example, if we think about Cadbury, it reminds us of the chocolate. They neither need to generate leads nor a salesperson reach out to their customers.

On the other hand, if your business involves high-end Business to Business (B2B) products or services like IT services for a Bank, Digital marketing services for a publication, commercial computers and servers for large companies, and manufacturing equipment, so on, and then you would know your targeted customers well.

In a nutshell, lead generation is comparatively easy.

At the same time, your leads will be low in number. In such a case displaying your billboards and advertising via digital marketing won’t help you prosper.

You require a promising brand awareness combined with a good combination of the sales pitch.

To summarize, lead generation is not necessary in the above two cases, low-priced B2C or high-end B2B.

Is it possible to sell all the other category products and services in the same way without lead generation?

Absolutely No! If your business involves high-end B2C or low-end B2B products or services, you need to generate leads, nurture them before closing the sales.

High-priced B2C products comprise Home, interior decoration and design services, security systems for Homes and Offices, Vacation packages and, so on. Similarly, low-end B2B products or services involve Email marketing tools, Customer Relationship Management Tools, Help desk software, office stationery and, so on.

 Once you have created leads, there is no possibility that all of them get converted into potential customers.

Say, for example, a person wants to buy a house. It would be the highest decision he needs to take in his life. The process would go this way:

First, he would inquire or fill out the form for purchase. It indicates that he has become a raw lead. From then on, the role of a salesperson starts.

The next step involves that the salesperson has to take a regular follow-up of that particular lead.

He has to arrange for the site visit and satisfy the lead with all the possible questions in their mind.

Say, for example, the lead may be having many questions related to the purchase of a house, like the basic amenities, water supply, power supply and, so on.

On the other hand, all that leads generated would not be genuine leads. Some would fill the form without even intending to buy the property.

So a salesperson has to be responsible for prioritizing the lead. Lead profiling and scoring play a crucial role in closing the sales.

Now you have understood that Lead generation is significant for high-priced B2C and low-end B2B products or services.

The greatest challenge is to achieve a reasonable conversion ratio. 

You can obtain higher conversion rates only through lead generation funnels.

From here onwards, your essential Lead Generation Process starts:

What is Lead Generation Funnel?

It is a step-by-step procedure for generating potential leads and then converting them into customers for your business.

If you use Digital marketing for lead generation for high-end B2C and low-end B2B businesses, there is a high possibility that the leads would be a mixture of high quality and low-quality leads.

Funnel will help you to filter out high-quality leads from low-quality ones.

It helps you to build trust with the leads, makes it possible to convert cold leads into warm leads, and makes your Lead Generation Process simpler and achievable.

In general, Lead funnels include three stages viz., top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel.

I will walk you through these three stages in detail.

Top of the funnel stage:

The preliminary step in the lead generation process involves introducing your business to potential customers and creating brand awareness.

The ultimate aim at the top of the funnel is to grab the attention of your customers.

You can do this through your blog posts, videos, social media, and content marketing.

So, the topmost part of the funnels involves driving traffic through various means and converting those traffic into leads.

Middle of the funnel stage:

In the middle stage of the funnel, lead magnets play a vital role.

Lead magnets help you to engage and nurture your leads.

Lead magnets are the valuable content that, you share with your leads, and, in return, they would share their contact details.

The lead magnets may be an ebook, mindmaps, cheatsheet, trial of the software, trial of a course, etc.

Once your lead magnet is ready, you need to drive traffic sources to access your lead magnets. 

You can drive traffic through paid searches and organic searches.

Paid searches include Facebook ads and Google ads, and, on the other hand, organic searches include SEO.

Once traffic increases, you can employ apps like OptinChat to convert your visitors into leads and push them to this middle stage of the funnel.

Bottom of the funnel stage:

The bottom-most part of the funnel is crucial, wherein the main goal is to build trust with the potential leads and convert them into customers.

Once they enter details through OptinChat, you can build trust by engaging them with good content through an email sequence.

Now they would start trusting you, and you need to give a final push for kick-starting your sale.

You can provide them a tool with free trial extensions, demos, free consultations, discount offers, free webinars, etc.

Next, I will walk you through the magical strategy for lead generation given by Digital Deepak, one of the top digital Marketers in India.

CATT Framework is one of the most effective lead generation processes given by Digital Deepak.

Lead Generation Framework, the CATT Framework

CATT stands for Content, Attention, Trust, and Transaction.

This framework works wonders with almost all the businesses like Affiliate marketing, brand building, course creation, lead generation, and all the product and services.

If you want to sell your product or services, then you first have to create attention among your leads about your products or services, about your brand.

The next step involves creating trust among them, and, finally, you can start the sales process by making them Transact.

You can achieve these three magical things only through your content.

Content:

Yes! Content is a powerful technique, and hence creating content is vital in this framework.

The content is the central part of the framework. Through your content, you can tell your leads about your expertise and how you can help them solve their problems.

The content is the key to acquire their attention. 

The content may be your blog posts, social media posts, videos, and podcasts to lay hold of their attention.

In a nutshell, content is a lead magnet that helps you to get your leads and convince them to join your email list.

Attention:

Here is where you have to make your audiences attracted to your content by driving traffic to your content.

As discussed in the lead generation funnel, you can drive traffic either organically or through paid ads for your content so that your audience pays attention to it and, in return, they exchange their names and Email IDs.

Without any doubt, a magical transformation starts, and your journey towards successful sales starts.

Trust:

Once you attract your leads, the next important thing you need to do is to build trust.

Trust building is highly essential in a sales process. People will not purchase unless they trust the brand.

Building trust makes your relationship with your leads stronger.

You can begin your sales journey by creating an email sequence and providing them with values.

 On the other hand, you can perform retargeting ads.

Transact:

Once you build trust, you cannot immediately expect people to make their purchase.

You have to persuade them with a solution that can solve their problem.

As already discussed, lead profiling and sourcing are significant at this stage.

You have to analyze whether your leads are ready for purchase.

Once your leads are ready for making transactions, you can offer your product to them at a discount rate to accomplish your sales.

Thus your leads have become your customers. This magic happens only with the CATT framework.

I hope now you have understood the importance of lead generation. We have discussed the lead generation process, what leads are and what are not leads, lead funnels, and the CATT framework. 

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Cheers,

Shenbagalakshmi