What are the lead generation techniques in digital marketing, and why collect leads anyway? In digital marketing a lead is an email address from a potential customer. Website owners collect leads so they can follow up with marketing messages over a longer time period than is possible only on a website.
On a website, a visitor is usually gone within a few minutes. On an email list you can send out messages over days, weeks and even months and years. So you can sell a product/service on an email list much more easily than on a website. See also email marketing for small business owners.
To collect a lead from a website you need to offer something of value to your visitors.
Lead Generation Techniques In Digital Marketing – The Lead Magnet
Most websites have some kind of offer to turn website traffic into leads. Some offer discount vouchers, other give away ebooks, pdfs or video training courses through their email marketing campaigns. Giveaway offers for collecting leads are known as “lead magnets”. They “magnetise” website visitors on to your email list.
A good lead magnet emphasises the outcome for the person signing up to it. So if you’re promoting an ebook, for instance, you can focus on the main benefits of getting the book, not the features.
Here’s one of my ebooks I use as a lead magnet. The main benefit of accessing my ebook is to learn “how to generate income from your blog“, which appears under the title. See niche blogging for profit for more on this topic. Some features of the book might be “learn keyword planning”, “SEO (search engine optimisation techniques” and so on. Most people aren’t interested in the features. They are more interested in the benefits. Which is why a clear benefit driven title is a good idea for lead magnets that convert.
Lead Generation Techniques In Digital Marketing – Collecting Leads Through A Pop Up Form
Pop up forms are so common on websites these days. You see a pop up on nearly every website you visit. Why is this? Simple, a pop up form is a great way to collect leads and monetise a website. You can display pop up forms on every page of your website. So every single visitor will see it. Although pop ups are annoying and can frustrate visitors, they work! Even if only a small percentage of website visitors sign up from a popup, those are people who would otherwise have left your website for good, never to return!
Once on your list you can continue to connect with potential customers and bring them back to your products and services time and time again. Most visitors don’t buy on their first visit to a website. It can take several touch points before someone will buy (research shows it’s often 6-8 touch points). Email marketing is one of the best ways to connect with potential customers and build rapport and trust.
You can use Aweber, an email autoresponder to build popup forms and place the code on your website. When your visitor lands on your site, the popup will activate.
Lead Generation In Digital Marketing – Drop Down Banners
Another lead generation technique is the use of drop down banners. I have one on this site you will see at the top of the screen. A drop down banner can be used to alert your website visitors to one of your offers or lead magnets.
This is a simple plugin you can get if you’re using a WordPress website called Icegram engage. This plugin can be set up to your specifications to showcase any offer you have. Send visitors to a landing page or opt in page on your website.
Landing Pages
Again, Aweber has landing page functionality which lets you build specific landing pages which are designed to collect leads. Landing pages are much better than normal websites because you can optimise them for performance and they are made specifically for collection of leads.
On a normal website, like this one, visitors can browse around and click through your pages. This gives them more possibilities and more choice. When overwhelmed with choice most people will click away! But a landing page is different. On a landing page you only have two choices: sign up to the email list or leave the page. Landing pages can be optimised and tested, which makes them much more efficient at collecting leads.
Convertri is a great, user friendly landing page software which lets you copy pages, drag and drop placements and cross test landing pages against each other. This function is super useful for marketers who collect leads. It can give them feedback as to what elements of their landing pages need to change in order to keep their costs down and opt in rate high.
Cross Testing Landing Pages
Here’s an example of a cross test for a landing page I built using Convertri:
The two landing pages here are very similar with only one slight difference. One is black and one is white. By cross testing these pages over several thousands of visitors, I can understand which one performs the best. Initially you can try out landing pages which are very different. Over time, you’ll start to find the best performers which give you a cheaper cost per lead.
See also landing page testing.
