What Is Lead Generation in Digital Marketing and Why It’s a Must-Have in Your Business Growth Strategy

Digital Marketing
What Is Lead Generation in Digital Marketing and Why It’s a Must-Have in Your Business Growth Strategy
Article by Bisera Stankovska
Last Updated: July 13, 2022

Ever wonder how effective social media content is for small businesses? This is the perfect opportunity to learn for marketing beginners who may be unfamiliar with lead generation.

What is lead generation in digital marketing? Many entrepreneurs have integrated content into their strategy, but about 42% consider themselves newbies in content marketing. Simply put, an easy way to get started is to set up your website, build an audience through social media, craft content to introduce your business to potential customers, and convert them into sales when they know the value of your products and services.

How can you utilize lead generation for your marketing strategy? Read on to learn more about it.

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What Is Lead Generation in Digital Marketing?

Lead generation is the process of producing content marketing material to incite interest from your audience, potentially converting leads into customers. Marketing specialists can engage with leads through relevant content which provides a unique value. This aims to build loyalty to turn customers into promoters of your brand.

Experienced digital marketing consultants are familiar with conversion marketing strategies to optimize your business’ platforms and social media.

What is involved in the lead generation process?

Step #1: Set up your online platforms

It isn’t news that the internet is the leading avenue for growing your business. One of the first steps to take when you start a project is setting up your online platforms. These include your website, social media business accounts, advertising tools, and profiles on B2B networking sites. You can also consider building an email newsletter to bring your content straight to your customers’ inboxes. Giving them the option to opt into your content empowers your audience and doesn’t push in – think of it as your customers consenting to learn more about your content.

Step #2: Be discoverable to your potential customers

Once you’ve created your online profiles and platforms, it’s time to prepare content. The bread and butter of digital marketing are to claim your space on the internet and introduce what you do best to the right people. This means becoming familiar with each platform, setting your goals for them, and developing dedicated content that makes the most of the medium.

You can set up the following content to introduce your brand and increase awareness from your potential audience:

  • Plan your content calendars for social media guided by SEO best practices.
  • Consider collaborating with fellow small businesses which match your goals.
  • Partner with personalities and influencers who can help you increase reach and discoverability.
  • Host or co-host events and webinars.

Step #3: Produce valuable content to establish your expertise

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of content you must prepare. There are agencies you can work with to outsource digital marketing processes when in a rush. That said, it’s an excellent exercise to know your intentions and goals for the online content you’ll be posting. Take this time to populate your content calendar with material that can address your audience’s needs, and introduce your services and the value they have to offer your customers.

Like many businesses, you can create “free” content for your audience to enjoy. The natural step forward is creating gated valuable material, such as eBooks, courses, and case studies. These can be accessed by joining your email newsletter or through paid means. This ensures that the time and effort you put into producing quality content makes it to your most loyal customers who are genuinely interested in your work.

Step #4: Balance developing your products as you promote your content

Allocating time to crafting content for digital marketing is a necessary step in your process, but remember that the most crucial part of your business is what you can provide to your customers.

We recommend dedicating time to developing your products and services first and creating the content second. 73% of customers affirm that positive feedback from previous buyers helped motivate their decision to purchase, so be sure to prioritize serving quality products before promoting it to your audience.

Step #5: Reward customer loyalty

As your customers go through the lead generation process, the goal is to earn their trust enough that they become advocates for your brand. Even before they reach that stage, buyers appreciate the deals, discounts, and extras they receive when they purchase from your business.

Consider rewarding your audience for their time and attention getting to know your brand. This can come in the form of flash sales, discount codes for their next purchase, and affiliate and referral links.

How Digital Marketing Benefits from Lead Generation

Today’s technology has made it easier for businesses to reach customers and vice versa. However, digital marketing still takes significant effort to plan and produce. Whether you’re a small startup or an established corporation, having a dedicated team to strategize for you can help you focus on developing your business. You can also contact on-demand marketing agencies if you’re looking for a more efficient process.

Here are some of the benefits you can expect to gain with digital lead generation:

1. Develop a Mutual Understanding with Your Customers

As you create your strategy, you have the opportunity to find the right audience you want to reach. This means your potential customers can trust you as a brand to know their needs and have solutions they can rely on.

Today’s lead generation tools are constantly updating and improving, but once you reach your audience, they are the primary contact you have on what their needs are. Engage them well. With this process, you can establish a professional relationship built on understanding how you can benefit each other.

2. Building Genuine Connections

This goes for both your customer base as well as your business peers. The research and planning you do in preparing your digital marketing strategy will eventually show you the people you should be contacting.

This opens doors for you to reach them with your products while also giving you a chance to partner with your fellow entrepreneurs on how to best serve your customers. Lead generation can result in an extensive network built on genuine respect thanks to similar goals and visions.

3. Informed Content Generation for Your Marketing Strategy.

You can make informed choices to grow your business with lead generation in your digital marketing strategy. Whether for developing future products, crafting engaging social media content, or building more relationships with your brand advocates, you will be equipped with the appropriate insight. Since the process is based on data relevant to your business, the information you will gather as you do the work can inform your business decisions.

4. Meet Referrals You Can Trust.

It’s a great big world full of people who know others. They can introduce you to the people they know who can, in turn, refer you to even more people. You can build a network of connections to get you to the right audience for your work.

The best benefit? Up to 30% of leads from referrals have a higher conversion rate than leads generated from other means. Knowing the crowd that best matches your business can increase your revenue and grow your reach in the long run.

Why You Should Include Lead Generation in Your Strategy

Lead generation is almost synonymous with digital marketing, as the overall process follows the customer’s journey to discover the brand and buy into the service. While it’s possible to practice digital marketing without integrating lead generation and its best practices, you may fall short in your work and have to start from scratch in the not-so-distant future of your business.

What does lead generation bring to the table?

  • By incorporating lead generation appropriately in your digital marketing process, you can utilize the right tools that can help you find and reach the best audience for your business. Get to know their traits and preferences and address their needs.
  • With most people spending their days online, there are multiple channels through which you can reach them. Lead generation allows you to streamline which platforms to use the most.
  • Keep track of your content and engagement material, and gauge which ones are performing well and how some can be improved. The data that lead generation can bring to you will be invaluable advice.
  • Develop your future products and processes according to the information you gather through lead generation tools and marketing analytics.
  • Combine resources with business peers and compare notes. How can you reach more people and craft more engaging content that benefits your company and your audience?
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