Lead Generation in 2016

As we say goodbye to 2015, here’s our final webinar blog post for this year. The last session, “How to Get Better at Lead Generation in 2016” was taken by LeadSquared’s Marketing Manager, Meenu Joshi. A number of questions were asked and answered dhttp://digitaldefynd.com/2015/12/16/10-ways-to-generate-more-sales-leads-online-in-2016/uring the session. In case you missed it, here’s a list of all the questions that were asked and answers to them. To make it easier, we have put them under their respective categories.

View the Webinar Recording

I. Website & Landing Page Conversion Optimization

Q1. What is top bar?

A top bar is a website widget that usually promotes an offer or includes a CTA to direct visitors to another page or document. It is usually placed at the top of the page (blog or website) and helps in lead capture and engagement, depending on how you use it. Here’s an example (notice the top bar in purple) :

Lead Generation in 2016

Q2. Should you have a single ‘call to action’ or lots of options, like webinars, whitepapers, chat, download offer, etc on a landing page?

It depends on where the person is landing but generally if you are directing a person from a paid ad campaign, always have just one offer. If the page is your resource library then of course it’s going to have a lot of options. That is the case sometimes but in most of the cases, one offer which is relevant to the context of the person landing on that particular landing page, will work the best. For more inputs check out these posts on landing page best practices:

Q3. What would be a decent landing page conversion rate?

It would depend on the source and the offer.

  • If it’s through a direct PPC campaign, then over over 12% is decent.
  • If it’s an offer or freebie like an ebook, then it can go up to 40%-50%

Q4. Should you use your website as the landing page, or is the stand alone landing page better for the education industry?

You need both. You need to have a website of course. If you are directing traffic to your AdWords campaigns or Facebook campaigns, then of course you need a standalone landing page because your offer is going to be there.

You can find more ideas for education lead generation, here. 

Q5. How to better convert website traffic to conversation?

Everything mentioned under website conversion optimization, in the webinar presentation, applies here. You need to have forms, relevant CTAs, top bar, ebooks, and so on. These resources will help you out:

 (New Year Freebie: If you are interested in learning more about high converting landing pages, you can download this free ebook)

II. Online Marketing Tools & Tips

Q6. How frequently should we invest in video marketing?

It would depend on what you are trying to do with your video campaigns. The very first point in the presentation was about analyzing the campaigns that you have run before and see whether they got you the revenue that you desired. If you have done it in the past and it hasn’t worked, then you can maybe slow down the frequency.

Creating a video is always not necessarily a very easy job even if you are trying to create a video using a simple unpaid tool like PowToon. What you need to look at is what are you trying to do with these videos. It will depend on the industry that you’re in.    

Q7. Inbound marketing needs some investment. How far will it be a wise choice for a start up to generate leads using inbound marketing?

If you want to get started right away with your lead generation, of course the quickest way is to spend on search ads and Facebook ads. But if you are a B2B business or even B2C, you can start some inbound marketing efforts on the site and when you have the bandwidth for it, then go full-fledged with it.

For more inputs on how to get started, check out this webinar on inbound marketing.

Q8. Can you recommend a holistic measuring tool for digital marketing?

If you want to start with something free, then you should always look at your Google Analytics first. If you have your goal conversions set up in Analytics, then you’ll be able to check conversions as well. But for your revenue analysis, you probably have to do it manually or you can do it in LeadSquared as well.

Q9. How to generate instant unpaid leads?

It’s really hard to get success from any lead generation activity both instantly, and without paying.

  1. One thing you can do it, list yourself of relevant lead generation website for your business type (JustDial, Sulekha etc.) You can find a list of those here. If you are in the real estate business, this list is exclusively for you.
  2. Another thing is leverage your connections if you are a B2B company, and get referrals
  3. Have a well-optimized website (not instant)
  4. Run ads (not unpaid)

Q10. Can you tell me the difference between inbound and outbound marketing?

When you are reaching out to people on your own, trying to connect with them through phone, email or any other medium, that’s outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is the opposite. Inbound marketing is when the leads come to you through your organic efforts or through PPC (that would be paid inbound).

Q11. What is the best tool for online reputation Management ?

Understanding what people are saying about you is essential in this case. Generally finding out what your audience thinks about you and your brand is what you should be aiming for. Social listening tool is the first step forward. The tools that can help you do that are Hootsuite, Mention, etc. Though these tools help you in the social media front, the digital world is bigger than that. So a tool that helps you monitor digital news trends would also be helpful. Remember to be on the look out for constant alerts and reports. Also, take a look at this interesting post I came across recently about online reputation management.

Q12. When you say ‘Think Mobile First’, what do you mean? 

Lead Generation in 2016

You can get more insights on the same, here:

Q13. We have videos on YouTube. What else can be more beneficial to attract more target customers?

You can direct your traffic from YouTube videos to your website as well by using annotations at the right place on your video. By doing so, you can give a link there to redirect them to a more detailed description of what you are talking about. It will help drive traffic to your website and that will help in conversations.

Q14. Do Click2Call and other free call facilities help in keeping and engaging visitors?

It will help in inbound call lead generation. Whether you get more junk leads or quality queries, you’ll get to know only after trying. It’ll differ for different businesses.

(New Year Freebie: This webinar on ’16 Simple Ways Marketers Can Get Better at Digital Marketing in 2016′ will surely give you some ideas for lead generation in 2016)

III. Lead Generation in 2016

Q15. We have an insurance portal (www.bimadirect.com). What is the best way to get more quality leads? (The website is similar to PolicyBazaar)

Since this is a portal, I don’t know if you have a discussion forum there. I have seen a lot of financial websites doing a lot of blogging these days. However, I don’t know how practical it is for you at this point from the bandwidth and investment perspective. But that is something you can look at.

The quickest way would be to spend some money and get leads from Adwords and Facebook. Another thing that I did not mention in this discussion today is answering queries on Quora and other forums. For any business, if you think blogging or full-fledged inbound marketing is something you cannot concentrate on right now, at least try to find out relevant questions on Quora and try to answer them. Try to provide as much value as you can, to get traffic back to your website. That will get your name out there, will build credibility and get you some traffic.

Q16. How to generate quality leads via our visa consultant website?

There are several options for you:

  1. Have a live chat (people might want their queries answered there and then) – it will give you engagement as well as lead capture.
  2. Give high-value content (gate this content behind a landing page to generate leads), and post it as a blog post to generate traffic – topics that are searched and relevant to visa, immigration etc, policy changes, news surrounding the topic can form good traffic generating content.
  3. Have an easy-to-navigate website.
  4. Run ads with a clear offer.

Q17. My website is a job portal. How can I  generate quality leads from there?

  1. Indeed.com creates reports for different kinds of jobs that are in demand etc. You can analyze your own traffic trends, plus trends across the world and give that as a downloadable.
  2. If possible, enable a discussion to happen on your website (discussion forum) – but you’ll have to be really careful/vigilant in moderating this content, otherwise your website would have a lot of duplicate/junk content.

The best way is to have high-quality topics that would attract candidates both in the form of downloadable and blog content. Use keyword planner/Google Trends to get ideas about what’s trending and what can you write about.

Q18. We have seen it in IndiaMART, we are receiving very less serious leads. The lead volume is good but the quality is as low as near to zero. Our response is quick but the client isn’t serious. How should we do it better as far as IndiaMART is concerned?

We cannot suggest much for the quality of leads that come from IndiaMART. However, one major thing here is that your product is high-value, high-cost, so a potential buyer is not going to decide quickly. So, you have to stay in their minds. I would suggest that you set up a 5-10 part email autoresponder that’s distributed over a month or 2 for these leads. That way, you’ll stay top of the mind with these people when they are finally taking a decision. This will not overcome the quality issue, but it might overcome the conversion issue eventually, and will tell you if the leads are really low quality or they are just taking

Q19. We are a solar EPC contractor and credibility is a major factor in this business. As of now, our credibility is less. How can we get the client to our website over the big players in the market?

  1. If you don’t have enough credibility yet, you need to highlight whatever little there is, now. For instance, ask your customers to give you reviews and testimonials. Maybe give them something in exchange. It can be really hard to get high-quality reviews/testimonials, but it’ll be worth it when you do get them. If a customer says something nice about you in an email, respond to them right away asking for their permission to use that as a quote (more often than not, they’ll agree).
  2. Play your strengths – your competitors have credibility; what is it that you have extra. It can be a very small thing as well.

Q20. Would quizzes on education websites be a good option (because we don’t have them)?

It worked really well for one of our clients, for generating leads. But you have to make sure that you are placing them in the right places. For instance, if anyone is interested to sign up for a course and you distract them with a quiz, then that might be a problem. If you have a blog, you can have really engaging quizzes there. It will act as a lead capture mechanism as well. Some of the tools I have used and recommend are

If you have a blog, you can have really engaging quizzes there. It will act as a lead capture mechanism as well. Some of the tools I have used and recommend are mTouch and TypeForm .

Q21. What is the best way to generate leads? Social media is one of the best ways but are there any other options?

There are several options available to you. It’s just not limited to social media. It will generally depend on the type of business you are in. Inbound marketing can be very effective but it will take some time to actually start giving you some return. Adwords can directly give you some results. You put money into it and it will start giving you at least leads if not revenue straight away. That is something you can start with.

Lead Generation in 2016

(New Year Freebie: This post on lead generation in 2016 will get you off to a flying start :) )

IV. PPC Campaigns

Q22. In case of Twitter ads, are advertisers directing traffic to a landing page on their site just like a typical Google PPC campaign?

Yes, landing page campaigns worked the best for me. There are other options as well. For example, there are lead ads sort of campaigns on Twitter already. Others include Lead Generation Card and Website Card.

Q23. What about outbound lead generation especially through LinkedIn?

In the context of B2B lead generation, I think outbound is still as important as inbound. For instance, when you are collecting those leads through LinkedIn, the first email that you send out to them must be really really relevant to them. Outbound definitely works but you need to concentrate on both, outbound and inbound lead generation.

Q24. What is the ideal CTR for Google Ads?

It depends on the business and the campaign. Ideally, for software and SAAS businesses, 1%-2% is good for search campaigns.

Q25. What is the ideal bounce rate in Google Display Ads? 

Bounce rate would be a measure of your landing pages. Generally, conversion rate of 11%-12% is decent on Google campaigns.

Q26. Are Google ads which are run on other browsers, tracked in Google Analytics?

Yes, they are tracked. However, whenever cookies are disabled, there it will not be tracked irrespective of which browser it is.

Q27. Which tools are the best for getting more audience for electronic gadgets? Do we need to look at more than one marketing tool like AdWords and Facebook?

I think remarketing will work really well for this product. For instance, if someone has purchased a particular type of gadget in the past, you can entice them and bring them back using custom audience (on Adwords, Twitter and Facebook). You can make use of Lookalike audience too. If done properly, it can work really well.

Q28. I have one website (getbusiness.ca). We are providing business visa for Canada. I am using three keywords as there is a lot of competition. What should I do to get a faster ranking?

You would need to find more keywords than just three keywords. Try to bid on long tailed keywords as well. Even if you rank only 10 times, you will rank on top of your ad copy if everything else is relevant for that particular keyword. Also, you need more keywords in your ad groups, different ad groups.

(New Year Freebie: In addition to that, for getting better position, better ad rank and for getting more clicks, take a look at this webinar session on Google Adwords)

Visit our blog for more webinar recordings and marketing blog posts. See you next year!

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