Many marketing and sales teams are well aware of the essence of lead generation, and some even have special teams focussed solely on lead generation.

However, generating leads is not the end of the story as 38% of leads generated and processed by businesses in 2018 are invalid. This is worrisome, as these leads have already consumed a marketing budget, leading to a reduction in ROI.

So, how do you improve your lead generation in 2018?

Lead generation can be done across various digital channels and is constantly morphing. The overload of information online has led to the advent of several new methods to help develop and qualify prospective leads.

Given the importance of leads, it is hard for a business to make sales if they cannot generate leads. Here are five tips for improving lead generation in 2018:

1. Use machine learning for improved lead scoring

Lead scoring is an important part of lead generation. Lead scoring involves ranking or scoring your leads by their likelihood to turn to prospective customers.

Machine learning can help businesses improve the accuracy of their lead scores. Based on lead data, customer data and data from the Internet, businesses can analyse the data and score each lead so as to know who to follow through with.

This will lead to improved sales, and the best part is that the automated lead scoring will improve itself overtime, getting more accurate.

2. Improve content marketing

It is not far-fetched to say that your online content represents your company.

This means it is very crucial to improve your content marketing. Providing valuable, reliable, timely and relevant content is important in generating leads and turning them to your customers.

3. Craft a better customer persona

Every business has a customer persona or the ideal customer who they associate with products or services. Lead generation strategies are often created based on this customer persona.

Hence, it is essential that you constantly modify your customer persona to fit the current times. For instance, if you are fashion company, you know that your customer persona changes with seasons and trends, hence you should adapt accordingly.

Also, existing customer data can be used to better craft a customer persona. Machine learning can analyse data from your operations and customer data to help you model the best persona for your leads.

This will help boost lead generation and make it more efficient.

4. Optimise your website

Your website is your identity on the Internet. Whenever a prospect searches for your business, it is usually your website that comes up. Hence, it is important to optimise your website for search engines, as this is important for you to be found in the first place.

Other optimisations that could be done include a reduced website loading time, a top quality design, an active chatbot to answer questions, a value offering and clear/readable website content.

5. Use lead generation software

Lead generation software helps automate the whole process of generating leads for your business. The truth is, many of this software only works well when you have certain things on the ground, like an optimised website and other things.

This software can help you streamline your lead generation process, making it more efficient. There is both free and paid lead generation software, so you need to work according to your budget.

Different software also have different features, so you need to evaluate your needs before deciding on one. Lead generation will always be an important part of sales and marketing.

If you do not generate leads, selling your products to everyone will not just cut it. 

For more information, visit www.marketingknowhow.co.uk or www.soapmedia.co.uk.