How digital marketing helps with lead generation

One of the most important steps to get started with lead generation is determining which platform is best suited for your target audience. To identify your target audience, you’ll need to narrow down the following:

• Who’s buying your product or service? For instance, you’ll need to consider if you’re targeting a business or a consumer directly. If you’re targeting a consumer directly, you’ll need to know how old your customers are, their relationship status, their level of education, their ethnicity, do they have children? Similarly, you’ll also need to do your due diligence to learn about the businesses you may want to target. 
• Where are they located? Knowing where your customers are primarily located allows you to tailor your messaging and focus your lead-generation efforts.
• What’s motivating purchases? Understanding the emotional or psychological factors driving your sales is key to creating effective messaging. 
• How are purchases being made? Recognizing how consumers prefer to make purchases or interact with your business is key to customizing your offerings to meet better meet their needs.

Once you’ve narrowed down the platform you’d like to focus on, you’re ready to launch the ”awareness” phase of your lead generation plan. Next, it’s important to include a call-to-action for the potential consumer to click on. For instance, you may offer a discount code if they sign up for your weekly email newsletter. In this case, the potential client gets a discount code and you get their information to communicate with them and, hopefully, convert them from a warm lead to a successful sale. 

That said, it’s best practice to map out the user experience when you include call-to-action directions, to ensure the flow makes sense and is easy to use to avoid abandonment.

The platform you choose as your preferred marketing avenue will dictate the terminology you’ll need to become familiar with, as there are variances between them. However, check out a few of the most common terms you’ll come across as you dive into the world of lead generation:

• Pay-per-click: When you advertise for your business online, in a pay-per-click scenario, you will pay each time a user clicks on your ad.
• Lead scoring: While you can personalize the way you score a lead according to what fits your needs, lead scoring is a way to categorize, through a number or “score”, how a lead is doing. For instance, if a lead is ready for a sale or to be converted, you may assign them a score accordingly.
• Call-to-action: It entices a potential client to do something. For example, you may offer a free trial to visitors if they sign up for your newsletter.
• Landing page: A landing page is where the potential lead is brought to after clicking on a call-to-action, where they’ll be prompted to input their information.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO includes various techniques that increase your business’s ranking through organic searches, which helps boost visibility and opportunities to capture leads, if that’s your business objective.

If you’re looking to start managing your expenses when exploring lead generation opportunities as you start or manage an expanding business, we can help. 

Connect with a dedicated CIBC Business Advisor who will work with you to understand your needs, provide expert advice and customized financial solutions. Whether you need to clarify your cash management options, explore your borrowing needs, learn how to set up a business account or you just need a sounding board, we’ll make it easy for you to make your ambitions a reality.

• Interested in marketing your business? Learn how to build your brand presence through digital marketing (PDF, 5.2 MB) Opens in a new window.
• Have questions about managing your budget? Check out our cash management opportunities
• Considering your financing needs? Learn about your borrowing options
• Need to open or upgrade a business? Here are the accounts we offer to fit your business