With marketing changing its skin to fit in with ongoing upcoming trends and notions, the reality is that some core aspects of this industry — under all the fancy getup — never changes.
One of these things is the importance of generating leads.
Now terminology might get
suave on you, and the methods to generate these leads might change or alter, but the concept is always the same: There will
always be the need for new clientele in the marketing space.
media update's Robyn du Preez chats with Nick Durrant, CEO of Bluegrass Digital, about this particular topic in further detail, so read on to find out what was highlighted on this:
Is it important for a business to have a website? Why or why not?
These days, if you are starting a business or have an existing business, a website is simply
imperative.
It is not a why or why not — it is imperative in terms of:
- marketing
- selling
- communicating with your customers, or
- attracting new customers.
Many forms of traditional marketing techniques, certainly in developed countries, have become a thing of the past, or at very least a secondary consideration.
The digital and connected world is made of many parts or 'channels', which even include TV, radio, outdoor — as well as the obvious channels like your website or social media.
All these are now connected in some form and, as a business, it becomes a window to the world to attract customers and promote your product or service — boosting your business profile.
At the centre of this connected world is your website, which becomes the content hub for your business: your products and or service.
Since the age of the Internet, your website means your business is now open 24 / 7 to an audience of potential customers around the world.
Your website should also be well-optimised. This is because search engines like Google or Bing trawl the Internet for connected web pages around the world, allowing your website to be listed through keywords and search terms.
It does mean there are important considerations when designing your website to ensure you maximise its ability to work for your business.
Apart from having quality content and making it easy for customers to navigate to find information, it is important to ensure it is optimised for SEO best practices, making it fit for purpose so search engines can find and index your website content.
There are also other digital marketing strategies you can employ to promote your website — such as
establishing a social media presence, or using
paid media or employ PR business to gain some earned media (like this article might do for Bluegrass).
What is lead generation and how does it play out on websites and apps?
Lead generation is the process of (ethically) cultivating / harvesting leads across any of your owned media channels.
I am sure many of us have filled in a form on a website, requested a quotation, made a purchase online, or filled in a digital form at a kiosk — all with some amount of our contact or personal information.
If you have given your permission, this data is then usually collected in a database — such as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system — to be used for retargeting the potential customer with additional marketing and sales activities. The goal here is to convert them into
actual customers.
As a business, ensure that you are collecting any customer or potential customer data in the right way as there are many techniques to employ in your lead generation strategy.
It is important to understand the rules. In South Africa, these are set-out in the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act), which sets out the basic rules and standards around accessing and 'processing' of any personal information belonging to a person.
The value of a lead that you generate through your website or application has a much higher value rather than buying data or using other unethical approaches.
It is a hot or warm lead, which means you need to respond to that lead because they are likely close to becoming a customer — effectively giving you permission to contact them.
Looking at the South African context, how can a startup in our country begin to optimise its lead generation?
If you are a start-up business, you are likely to be designing your first website for your business. Consider what you want to get out of your website. Being an e-commerce business means it will be important to have a shop front to allow customers to browse and purchase online.
If it is a product or service business, ultimately you are looking to attract an audience and convert your visitors into customers. This means lead generation and converting leads to customers.
In the design or optimisation of your website (once your have employed strategies to attract a customer) it becomes all about your landing page.
This is where your marketing efforts will bring them to your website and it will be up to your website to capture the audience to generate that lead or conversion.
In many scenarios, the conversation will mean lead generation as your first step, before you to follow up and convert them offline or through re-marketing techniques.
The important considerations in optimising your website are outlined below:
Optimise your website for search, which means focusing on the technical performance of your website as well as high-quality content.
As mentioned, ensure you design your site with conversion and lead generation in mind — not only brand and images — meaning you need to consider the clear sign-posts, navigation and user journey to lead or entice the user to your 'call to action' lead form.
Ensure your website is not only user-friendly but builds trust with your audience and make sure it is a secure website. Building trust and comfort with the user is important for them to be confident and comfortable in giving you their information or making a buying decision.
Be clear on who your target audience is and align that when designing your website and your content for your website.
When you present a lead form to your audience or customer, consider simplicity and don’t over complicate or ask for too much information. The bare minimum means you are more likely to get that lead.
Make sure you test your website and lead generation forms, even getting friends or colleagues to test across different browsers or devices. You will be surprised how many websites have not fully tested their websites and it will mean a frustrated user and a possible lost opportunity!
Store and processing your data is important, as more and more users are concerned about data protection, so making sure you build trust is important. Additionally, make sure you have implemented analytics to track the performance of your lead generation so you can optimise and continue to improve success.
4. What is content marketing and how big of a role does it play on a website when it comes to lead generation?
Content marketing is a
hot topic and is essentially the basis of all digital marketing activities today.
It is the creation and sharing of online media materials, which cover articles or blogs, press, videos and social media posts in order to create interest in your:
- brand
- product, or
- service.
In our connected world today, content marketing is all around us and you only need to think about each time you are on social media how brands and businesses, which you follow or not, are targeting content in your feed or channel.
These strategies are employed to attract potential customers to their website, shop or another digital channel in order to convert them. This conversion may be a lead form and the way to capture a new opportunity.
So the lead generation happens on your website or application, but getting a potential customer to your website, digital marketing strategies are required and content marketing is a large part of making that happen.
What are your thoughts on adding social media to this mix?
Today, social media is a major factor in both B2B and B2C strategies in promoting your business.
Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube (and so many more) can be used in your mix that forms your marketing strategy.
How you use each social platform may differ as each offers different features and appeals to different audiences. Depending on your business and industry, getting the right mix is important.
Also consider that many audiences will find your business through social media channels given much content is distributed and consumed through these channels. It is imperative that you use social media to distribute your content as well as share relevant content from other thought leaders.
This in turn will lead users back to your website, and if you have not converted them on your social media page, you can lead them to conversion on your website and ultimately capture that lead.
Do you have any advice for startups on where and how they can find analytics to measure the performance of their lead generation?
The biggest and most popular service, which is free (for basic users), is Google Analytics.
It is simply the go-to as your first port of call in order to set up and implement on your website to start tracking your audience metrics.
It is used by almost every business, large or small. Yes, some businesses may add additional analytics tools, but almost all will use Google Analytics at some level. Google Analytics can also be used to track traffic through all digital platforms including social media.
It will give you insight to the users visiting your website covering information such as:
- geographic location
- device used
- point of entry, and
- what platform referred them to your website.
It will also allow you to determine how they used your website and what pages were popular.
It will aid you optimise your website, giving you the necessary information to make improvements objectively through the data.
Analytics can be used to test different content, layouts and / or products to see what gets more traction (A / B split testing). It can also help with analysing your campaigns, comparing data around time, date and audience.
You can link this to your lead generation, as Google Analytics allows you to create tracking code for different events or triggers on your website such as on specific downloads you might offer or a lead form across your website.
This allows you to track the entire user journey from the point they entered your website to the conversion.
Apart from Google Analytics, more advanced analytical tools are available, mainly as commercial products or even possibly built into your chosen CRM solution.
There are also Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Umbraco and WordPress; many offer plugins that help lead generation or even personalisation of your website content for specific audience types.
There are even more advanced commercial Martech (marketing technology) systems on the market like digital experience platforms (DXP) which have built-in:
- automation
- personalisation
- tracking, and
- machine learning.
This gives you a holistic set of tools to manage the entire user experience and your content across your website and digital channels content, all driven by data.
Jot down any last pieces of advice, tips or tools that young businesses can look into in order to improve their marketing and lead generation.
Ensure that your website is kept up-to-date and fresh with content — giving a reason for users and search engine spiders to keep visiting your website.
Ensure that it is search engine optimised and software is up-to-date (like a car that is fully maintained).
Understand your audience. Even go as far as to define this in more detail, but creating personas allows you to curate the right user journey for each key audience type and ensure there are clear calls to action for each.
Consider email marketing to communicate with your audience, the leads you collect and existing customers. Each may need its own type of communication.
Employ content that demonstrates your success as a business, such as case studies and testimonials. This builds trust and confidence in your ability as a business.
Implement a chatbot as a customer service tool or a way to activate as a call to action on all or certain pages.
Many options are available at little or no cost, and they can also be customised to provide more intelligent responses as AI and machine learning continues to improve.
Select the right technology for your website, making sure you maximise the lead generation capabilities.
A user will leave your site and over 50% of users spend less than 10 - 15 seconds on a page, it is important your content is "sticky", you have clear ways to convert and keep them engaged.
Got any other questions on the topic? Drop us a query in the comments section!
*Image courtesy of Canva