If you’re a marketing manager or a sales manager, you could have been tasked with assisting in redesigning your website. If you’ve thought to yourself, why, we haven’t gotten that many leads from our website. We have one because our competitors do and it seems like you have to now days. Perhaps the problem isn’t just that you don’t have a contemporary website, one that’s responsive and looks like it is current, but perhaps it’s because you’re not leveraging all that your website can do. Perhaps you’re not doing all that you can to use your website for lead generation.
If you’ve heard of inbound marketing, you may know that there’s lots of expensive options like getting software and hiring agencies to market your company. But right now there are things that you can do to drive new leads to your website. Because lead generation is really what a website is all about.
Blog
In inbound marketing blogging falls under the attract stage of marketing. If you’re looking for new business in your lead generation then writing blogs that speak to who you are as a company will help you attract new leads. Whether it’s from organic search or from paid advertising. Blogging is one of the most important things you can do to draw new visitors to your website.
One way to think of blogging isn’t in the traditional sense, you’re not talking about your favorite recipes or your political opinions. You’re teaching your visitors about the subjects that matter to your company. As a company you want to tell people what differentiates you from your competitors. As they look for things to buy, new vendors, or new places to donate their money they will see why you’re different and why they should choose you.
As an added bonus, sales people can use blogs as content to send to potential opportunities to help nurture them into customers.
Amplify
Social media is a great platform for growing your business. Recently companies like Facebook have made it harder for companies to advertise for free. Their algorithm has kept less businesses from the newsfeed without paying. There is however, a much easier and less expensive way to amplify your message for lead generation. Your company has employees; they can be your amplifier.
By simply sharing your company’s message on their walls and feeds, they can help you get seen by more people than by simply pushing your message alone. This is especially helpful for sales people who can show that your company is active and relevant on platforms like LinkedIn. They also have probably connected with opportunities and existing customers, which will put your message in front of those people as you go through the sales process.
Downloadable Content
Your engineering department may already be sitting on a treasure trove of marketing materials. This may seem counterintuitive but your visitors want specifics about your company. And if they’re that interested in what you’re doing, they should pay for that information. This has nothing to do with money, this has to do with details about who they are.
Your spec sheets, or other company information can be traded for names and email addresses. Once they’re in your system your sales people can begin to nurture them into opportunities through emails and phone calls. Downloadable content is a powerful tool as you build relationships with new visitors and turn them into customers.
Newsletters
These are often more about account management, but upselling is equally important as new sales. You can however use newsletters to get new leads as well. If what you’re doing is something that a person really wants to learn about they’ll often give you their email address in order to keep up to date with what you’re doing.
For non-profits this is especially true. A visitor may not be in the position to donate or to volunteer right now, but they want to learn about your activities on a monthly or quarterly basis. So when they are ready they will take action and you’ll have nurtured someone into the next level of your organization/business relationship.
Other Calls-to-Action
There are lots of other things your website can do to help in lead generation. If you hold webinars or are holding a local speaking event, using your website to register people for the event can bring in new leads. Your sales people can cross-reference sign-ups and attendees and feed them additional relevant information as they grow into potential sales opportunities.
Every page of a website should have some kind of call-to-action, and having different ones to see what resonates with visitors as they research you will help you as a marketer to know what people want to know about your company.
It doesn’t have to take a lot of money to build a solid lead generation pipeline. You don’t necessarily have to implement software that can be expensive and has more features than you really need. You also don’t always need to hire an agency to handle work you and your sales/marketing content creation. You have a staff of people who know your business better than anyone and can help you throughout the process.
If your sales, marketing, and operational staff can work together, you can transform your website from something that you just have because you’re supposed to, into a lead generation machine.