Your company cannot grow without new customers. Hence, you constantly have to be on the lookout to increase your customer base — both for-profits and to stay afloat in the market. This is why lead generation is crucial, and this is also why 53% of marketers spend at least half of their budget on lead generation. So…
What Exactly are Leads and What is a Lead Generation Software?
Simply put, a lead is a person or an organization that has shown interest in your company’s services or products but may not be a customer yet.
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Although they have not done business with you yet, they may want to do so in the future. Therefore, lead generation is capturing the interest of these potential customers so you can increase sales and grow your business. And a (B2B) lead generation software helps automatically capture leads so that you can focus on strategy development.
How Does Lead Generation Work?
Earlier, lead generation meant getting sales staff to cold-call people from a purchased database, trying and educating them about the company’s products or services, finding out if they required these services, and converting them to customers.
But today, lead generation has changed. Customers have massive amounts of information at their disposal. Search engines, social media, and many other channels allow them to research whatever product they are interested in, compare features and prices, and ultimately decide what to buy. Lead generation companies use content syndication to push your collaterals for brand awareness and ultimately generate leads via multiple channels.
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Customers are no longer interested in listening to a sales rep on the phone, especially if the product does not relate directly to their needs. So, companies have to resort to other, more appropriate, albeit creative, methods to generate leads like customer gifting and legacy channels.
Few Popular Lead Generation Tools
Over the years, businesses have adapted to a mix of traditional and new-age lead generation strategies and tools. Hybrid lead-generation setups have worked wonders for many firms. They include modern software (ref: What Exactly are Leads and Lead Generation Software?) and traditional methods. Here are some of the most popular lead generation tools available:
1. Content Syndication
This is one of the most critical lead generation strategies today, as it was years ago. It comprises generating interest in your company/services through the creation and promotion of related content.
By creating relevant content and sharing them across platforms, you can bring in leads looking to address a specific issue. For example, your digital content could include blogs, ebooks, videos, infographics, and other online publications.
You will have to promote this content or make it visible to potential customers using SEO (search engine optimization) social media, PPC advertising (pay-per-click), or other techniques.
Hence, your online presence is crucial as it can be a powerful lead generation tool.
2. Events
Hosting events is a great way to share your brand with potential customers and build relationships. Interacting and engaging at a physical event (now, virtual also possible) and explaining your brand to prospective customers helps them better understand your brand and generate leads.
3. Email
Although email marketing may sound outdated2021, it still is a valuable lead generation tool when you combine it with content marketing. For example, you could use it to share news about your company, distribute new content you have created in blogs, send out event invitations, and generally stay top of mind when it comes to your potential clients. Email marketing has an astounding 4,200% ROI (potentially generating $42 for every $1 spent), making it one of the most promising options available. For instance, Mailchimp is an excellent email marketing tool you can use.
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4. Online Ads
Thanks to the improvements in digital technology, you can now even target prospective customers by understanding their preferences, wants, needs, habits, or demographic traits from their online behavior. This allows you to customize your information to more effectively attract a specific or relevant target audience to your brand and share information with them, which can help you generate leads.
Customers are Not Just Names on a Database!
Many companies mistakenly think that mass communication (content syndication) is the only answer to lead generation.
It is not!
Although it does help you get your message out to as many potential customers as possible, it only works well when you target customers at the top of your sales funnel.
However, as leads get filtered and qualified through your sales funnel and begin to show more interest in your brand, a more effective way of converting them is by developing a more personal relationship with them.
So, yes, it turns out that the most effective lead generation is a balance of mass marketing and personal contact. Besides, developing a personal relationship with potential customers will make you a more human brand and help you stand out from the clutter.
But how do you go about doing this? Be innovative and try something new.
This is where automated gifting comes in.
Customer Gifting as a Lead Generation Tool
Do not worry- this post is not about encouraging you to recklessly break the bank and send every lead a gift in hopes they will convert to customers.
There is nothing as personal as gifting, and therefore, it is one of the best tools you can use to deepen your conversation with potential clients.
The first step should be to get your sales team to define a system to evaluate and qualify leads ready to move forward in their buying journey so that gifts are sent out to the best-fit potential clients only.
You can also qualify leads on where they are in the sales funnel and allot smaller budgets to leads that are higher up in the sales funnel and bigger budgets to leads on the verge of conversion.
Finally, so that it does not look purely transactional, position these gifts as a way of saying thank you for the meeting, phone call, or their time in general.
(You could also give gifts as a thank you to those who give you referrals.)
How to Use Eva to Help in Lead Generation
Although you may think that gifting is time-consuming, the fact is that it will also significantly increase your ROI.
There are solutions to enable you to send gifts conveniently. For example, a gifting assistant like Eva can help make gifting quick, easy, and personal.
The best part is that you can specify how much you want to spend depending on the kind of lead and where the lead is placed in the sales funnel.
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All you have to do is to:
- Set budget preference
- Send a gift link to the recipient
- Eva takes over, chats with the recipient to figure out preferences
- Eva curates the best gift for the recipient
- The Perfect gift is delivered to the recipient
In the improbable event (Eva has over 90% appreciation rate), if the recipient does not like the present, Eva even arranges for a free replacement.
You can also include a handwritten note and have the present wrapped and delivered in your company swag — gifting does not get more admirable than this.
The gifting budget starts at $30 and goes all the way upto $1000. From exotic coffee to selfie stick with tripod and everything in between, there’s a gift for everyone in Eva’s catalog.
Gifts = ROI?
As you see, creative lead generation can make your sales cycle more efficient and help you reach higher success rates in new customer acquisition.
Hence gifts! Gifts are so much more than tokens for special events and appreciation. They can be creatively used as practical lead generation tools to increase your company’s customer base. All you need to do is think outside the box to increase your ROI.
To know more, log into Evabot or chat with us!
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