How to Improve Your Lead Generation.

Full-time employees are expensive. Upkeep adds up. And production expenses don’t pay for themselves.

You understand that marketing initiatives are essential to creating new leads. Still, your resources are precious, and you need assurance that your re-allocation of funds will have an impactful ROI.

So, how do you know if your marketing efforts are working?

How will you define success?

You first need to determine what “working” means for your business.

Consider your strategic goals—Are you trying to reach new types of potential customers? Are you working to renew or expand within your current clients? Are you facing stiff industry competition? These “broad brush” business goals can produce a mixed bag of outcomes, making improvements challenging to track. 

Before you can start seeing the reliable results, you need to define your marketing goals clearly: “Through this campaign, we want to see X% more lead generation and X% more conversions by the end of the quarter.” For some companies, these goals may be too transactional, so your mission statement may be: “Through this campaign, we want X% more traffic to the landing page and X% increase in social media interaction.”
Your goals need to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. 

Remember that, though you may be starting small, these incremental steps build on each other, leading to more leads and better engagement with your future customers. 

Don’t put the toolcart before the horse.

When thinking about numbers in our data-driven world, it can be easy to get hung up on the tools we use rather than the outcome that we desire. 
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Avoid forcing your business objectives to fit within the tools that you already have in place; think goals first, tools later. Instead, agree to and work towards a reasonable KPI, OKR, or metric of value. You can measure your initial steps with the tools available for free through Google Analytics (Goals and Campaign). With these tools, you can set up a customized dashboard to track click-through rates, landing page traffic, and Google search results, to name a few. 

Let’s get the hard and fast numbers.

In addition to lead capture (e.g., contact information forms, demo signups, sales conversions, etc.), there are other key metrics to pay attention to and track when looking for marketing ROI.

Bounce Rate

Admittedly, Bounce Rate isn’t a fun topic, but it is essential, nonetheless.
 
By knowing how many people view a single page of your site before “bouncing” away will inform you on pieces of content or pages that need your attention—whether it be reworking the page design, the copy, or the offering itself. By seeing where you lose potential leads, you can tailor your site and your copy to more effectively engage the audience to keep engaging.

Organic Traffic from Search Engines

How many people are arriving at your site by organic Google and Bing searches? 
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This kind of organic traffic is dependent upon the copy that you have on your site and whether or not it is search engine optimized. By auditing both your website and your content, you are more likely to see your organic traffic growth increase over time as Bing and Google direct people more consistently to your site. 

Buyer’s Journey, Progressive Engagement, and Click Through 

It makes sense: the longer you hold the audience’s attention, the more likely it is for you to get them on the line with your sales team. 
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Each piece of content should help your reader move through to the next stage of the buyer’s journey–from awareness to consideration to decision, and eventually, to promotion.
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And of course, a sales qualified lead is your primary goal, but you can still track when your target audience clicks through to more content on your site—even if it doesn’t immediately end at the sales department. 
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A second or third click to additional copy on your site shows intent and acts as a stepping stone toward lead generation. Like the bounce rate, use incremental click-through tracking to inform you on the copy that is most engaging with your intended audience and create more copy to bolster that theme.

Content, Email Marketing, and Lead Magnets

As part of their journey, you’ll notice that your target audience must first become aware of their need, then consider your product before they will ever decide to buy. A lead generation process that uses valuable pieces of content, packaged as lead magnets, makes it easier for you to build an email list to engage future customers and help them along this journey.
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For example, once a visitor finds enough value from a lead magnet to provide their contact information in exchange, you can engage them in a conversation of sorts. But don’t pick up the phone and call them just yet!
A person that’s just beginning to discover that they have a problem doesn’t want someone throwing a product or service at them. They first need to learn the scope of the problem and then begin to consider if it’s worth it to them to solve.
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With email marketing, you can send information to them that’s right for their stage and at a pace that keeps them engaged but isn’t overwhelming.

Conversions are the ultimate goal, but it takes many steps to get there.

Smaller steps from your audience are necessary first before they will convert. Establish long-term goals, separate “vanity metrics” from the tangible metrics, and start tracking your minor victories. 
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It’s not just about lead generation in the end. You want your messaging in front of the people who need it most so that you can help them to understand and consider the scope of their need. 
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In the meantime, you will build a listening audience and establish yourself as a credible company. Your connection, and their engagement, will gradually snowball as a result.