What are the popular lead generation assets for your business?

Regardless of the product or service the business offers, the goal is to satisfy customers and gain leads. But what are leads? Where are they, how do we find them, and why do we need them? The step-by-step guide will lead you from the simple question to the final discovery of lead generation assets and the “places” to collect your leads.

What is a lead?

In the marketing and sales world, “lead” means potential customers showing interest in a company's product or service. A lead can be considered a “lead” after taking some actions, like providing contact information, subscribing, submitting for a trial, etc., thus showing their willingness to further engage with the company. Sales teams will then work to nurture leads through follow-up communications and personalized interactions to convert them into paying customers.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the actual process you carry out to identify and attract leads to your products or services. It involves various marketing and sales strategies that focus on engaging with potential customers and capturing their interest.

The goal of lead generation is to have a list of potential customers who have somehow expressed interest in your products or services and are likely to make a purchase. Of course, leads don’t always mean conversions and sales. With the next step, marketing and sales teams start working with the list of leads for follow-up and conversion into customers.

How to qualify leads and check lead generation effectiveness

All leads are leads, but not all leads are quality leads. Dilemma, right? Let’s elaborate on this.

1. Define lead qualification criteria: Once you get your leads, you need to establish criteria that your leads need to meet to be considered qualified. Common criteria are demographics, industry, job title, company size, and level of interest. For example, if you set your criteria “leads interested in fishing,” and the list includes leads interested in engineering, those leads may be considered not quality leads.
2. Use lead scoring: Next step to rank leads is based on their level of engagement and likelihood to make a purchase. For example, if a lead has engaged with your product or service in more than one touch point (website visits, email opens, and form submissions), such leads get a high score.
3. Monitor conversion rates: To qualify the efforts of lead generation, the marketing and sales team keeps tracking the number of leads that convert into customers throughout the channels.
4. Analyze engagement metrics: Engagement metrics such as click-through rates, open rates, and time spent on website pages are critical. The numbers provide insights into the effectiveness of lead generation efforts. That’s why it is important to constantly monitor these metrics and determine which channels, content, and messaging resonate best with the target audience.
5. Continuously optimize lead generation efforts: Finally, lead generation strategies should develop and evolve with company objectives. Continuously optimize lead generation efforts based on the data and insights gathered from lead qualification, lead scoring, conversion rates, and engagement metrics.

Popular types of lead generation assets

Generally, lead generation assets are categorized into four categories: content marketing, social media platforms, email marketing, and paid lead generation. Each type, in turn, has its own lead generation assets you can or even must use to reach out to your audience and warm it up to leads.

P.S. Knowing all the lead generation methods does not mean you should use them all. For your business, part of the assets may be simply useless, and this can be revealed through tests and monitoring.

Content Marketing as a Lead Generation Asset

Content marketing is probably the first and foremost lead generation asset you should leverage, as it allows you to provide valuable information and resources to your audience. Creating and distributing content that resonates with your target audience is the best way to establish trust, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive more leads to your business.

Blog Posts and Articles

Blog posts and articles are an excellent way to share insights, industry news, tips, and advice with your target audience. Keep your blog updated with valuable content that addresses your audience's primary pain points, and they will definitely find aspects that best resonate with them.

Most times, companies value quantity over quality when producing tons of content. While it's important to publish content consistently, it's equally important to ensure that each piece of content adds value to your audience. Keep in mind that any new initiative should have a customer-centric approach.

Also, it is important to focus on the intent maturity level when creating targeted content. Any new piece of content should serve different purposes, such as educating, helping to choose between options, planting new ideas, or proving your competence with perfect timing for call-to-actions.

Ebooks and Whitepapers

Ebooks and whitepapers offer in-depth analysis and information on specific topics. Still, these assets are industry-specific and may not apply to all businesses. If you have material to turn into ebooks and white papers and showcase your expertise thoroughly, you should consider these assets as an effective way to get user attention.

Case studies

In marketing and sales, case studies have proven to be a valuable tool for generating high-quality leads. By showcasing real-life success stories and tangible results, case studies provide potential customers with concrete evidence of how a product or service can solve their challenges.

To generate leads effectively, it's crucial to strategically distribute your case studies across various channels depending on which group of audience they refer to and where they are located. Case studies are generally published on the website or have dedicated landing pages. They are promoted through blog posts, social media, email campaigns, and industry-specific forums.

Infographics

Infographics are as powerful as written content. They offer content in an eye-catching format that is easily shareable. This asset type can be used both in blog posts and social media posts to generate a great deal of interest on both platforms and drive traffic.

Webinars and Podcasts

Webinars and podcasts are powerful platforms for sharing knowledge and connecting with your audience. Again, these formats are business-specific and may not apply to you. If you have content that can be presented in these forms, you should think of engaging with your audience on a more personal level, fostering trust and credibility while at the same time providing a wealth of information and promoting your product. You can use webinars and podcasts for lead generation by offering access in exchange for contact information or conducting follow-up surveys to gauge interest from attendees or listeners.

Webinars and podcasts are great lead gen assets if you only focus on delivering value. Keep in mind that these types of content are typically long-term investments in your brand and reputation, and misusing them for sales and lead gen can have the reverse effect. Run webinars and podcasts to be helpful first, and consider lead gen as a side effect.

Social Media Platforms for Lead Generation

Social media platforms have become extremely powerful for customer outreach and personalized marketing. Targeting your audience that hangs out on social platforms is much easier than creating long conversion journeys. Besides, customer information is more accessible, so lead generation is more straightforward. Each platform has its own unique features and audience, making it essential to identify the most appropriate channels for your business's lead generation efforts.

LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

LinkedIn has already become an irreplaceable lead generation tool for B2B companies with its professional networking focus, where you can share industry news, insights, and thought leadership content. By engaging with your target audience and showcasing your expertise, you can generate high-quality leads and build valuable business connections. Join relevant groups to have direct access to your audience, initiate discussions, and position yourself as an industry expert(if you are one, of course).

Facebook and Instagram for B2C Lead Generation

Facebook and Instagram are ideal platforms for B2B and B2C businesses, offering a more casual environment for connecting with potential customers. By creating and sharing engaging content that resonates with your target audience, you can build a strong community around your brand and generate leads. Depending on your products or services, there are tons of tactics to get your audience engaged and gain quality leads. While analyzing your users’ behavior, focus on their activity. Often, the audience is in leisure mode and not ready to make decisions. It means the content may be first focused on engaging and raising brand awareness rather than pushing the target audience to make decisions. Of course, this is not absolute for everyone, and B2C companies selling products directly through Instagram Shopping can and should take the platforms more seriously as a major lead gen asset.

Twitter for Real-Time Engagement

Twitter went viral after its dramatic transformations, but no one can disregard its role as a priceless platform for real-time engagement and conversation with your audience. Monitor trending topics, share valuable content, and engage with industry influencers to build brand awareness and generate leads. The strategies for targeting audiences may radically change in the near future, so keep tracking the trends to stay relevant. And, if you are relevant and have already gained your followers’ trust, you can use the platform to get referral leads.

YouTube and Video Marketing

YouTube is the second-largest search engine globally to promote your video content. By creating and sharing high-quality video content, you can better engage with your audience and create a more immersive experience, leading to increased lead generation. Consider also YouTube shorts for lead generation. It can be product demonstrations, customer testimonials, educational content, or behind-the-scenes insights. Another effective strategy for lead generation is to collaborate with other channels and influencers in your industry. Run video marketing as long as you have content to share and don’t generate low-quality content that will do harm to your long-term reputation-building efforts.

Email Marketing for Lead Generation

Email marketing remains a highly effective tool for customer outreach, providing direct communication with your audience. Once overlooked and ignored as a marketing channel, email marketing (personalized email marketing) is making a major comeback to craft engaging email campaigns, nurture relationships with leads, encourage repeat business, and generate new leads.

P.S. Email marketing is built on other lead-generation initiatives where you already have 1st party data for an email marketing campaign.

Building an Email List

An email marketing campaign starts with building a strong email list. This list can be built using various methods, such as offering gated content, hosting webinars, running promotions, or encouraging newsletter sign-ups on your website. The more targeted and engaged your email list, the higher your chances of successful lead generation through email marketing.

Crafting Effective Email Campaigns

For successful lead generation through email marketing, it's essential to craft compelling and engaging email campaigns, keeping in mind the source and intent level of your email lists. To achieve this, focus on creating email subject lines that first grab attention, personalize emails using subscriber data, and talk to your audience directly.

Personalization and Segmentation

Email campaign personalization and segmentation are crucial for lead generation success. Personalization helps your audience feel valued and fosters a stronger connection with your brand.

Segmentation in turn allows you to send targeted content to specific audience segments, ensuring that your message resonates with them and drives engagement.

Efficient paid lead generation ideas

Here is a bonus tip for using paid marketing for lead generation.

1. Social media advertising: Use Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to create targeted campaigns that reach your ideal audience and gather the lowest-hanging fruit (if there is any).
2. Google Ads: Build Google Ads campaigns with targeted keywords and ads to cut through the SERP to the first page and attract potential leads searching for solutions related to your business. While paid ads may bring you to the first page, organic search results still have a higher click-through rate than paid search results. According to statistics, the CTR for the first organic result is 28.5%, while the average CTR for paid search is around 2%.
3. Display advertising: Use display ads to target potential leads browsing relevant websites.
4. Influencer marketing: Partner with influencers in your industry with a relevant follower base that can promote your products or services to their audience.
5. Retargeting: Use retargeting ads to re-engage potential leads who have visited your website but have not yet converted.

Which lead generation asset is the best for you? Bottom line

Now you know where your leads can be and how to get their attention and convert. Of course, everything seems straightforward and fast, but lead nurturing requires patience, time, and lots of contribution. it is a long journey with a long-term goal that will, at the same time, have long-term outcomes. 

Also remember, that, while we mentioned all the popular and effective lead-generation assets, it doesn't mean all the lead-gen assets will be equally productive for you. Test and experiment with all of them, give time, and monitor the results. Finally, eliminate those that require much effort and resources but give little to nothing.