What Does A Lead Generation Agency Do?

What Does a Lead Generation Agency Do?

Mason KingsburyBlog, DIGITAL MARKETING STUFF


What Does a Lead Generation Agency Do?


By Mason Kingsbury | 30/07/2018

Welcome to the mysterious world of Lead Generation. You’ve heard of it, you read something about it on a LinkedIn blog once and a few people in your network have spoken about it — but what exactly is Lead Generation and  what does a “Lead Generation Agency” do?

First, let’s start with the basics:

WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION?

Simply put, Lead Generation is a way of introducing new customers to your business by offering relevant and engaging content that guides them down the path to becoming a paying customer.

Let’s break that sentence down. The key part of that sentence is “offering relevant and engaging content”.

Offering relevant and engaging content to attract customers is known as “Inbound Marketing“. With Inbound Marketing, potential customers find you through channels such as informative blog posts, eye catching social media updates and search engines.

The idea of inbound marketing is to turn your business into a magnet that attracts people that are actively looking for the products or services that you offer — they don’t have to know your brand or business name etc.

Lead Generation Example:

Imagine you’re a new energy company. You’ve written a few blogs, you’ve got a social media presence and you’ve just finished your company’s e-book “Save the World with Renewable Energy”.

Mike is looking for an environmentally aware energy company and searches “renewable energy provider NZ” and he finds one of your blogs — it matches his search terms pretty darn closely! He clicks, he reads and (because it’s informative, packed with personality and a bit of humour) he loves it.

He scrolls down and there is a clear Call to Action (C2A) at the bottom of the blog that reads “Want to Know More About Us? Download Our Free E-Book “Save the World with Renewable Energy”.

He clicks “download” and he enters in his details on the form to access the e-book.

Mike is now a warm lead. Why? Because he now knows your company, it is aligned with his interests and he enjoyed your blog enough to learn more and provide you with his details. Mike is now more likely to respond to other forms of communication from your business because he initiated the relationship.

With Inbound Marketing people find your business on their own terms, Lead Generation is the second stage and occurs when your marketing efforts engages a customer or “lead” into performing a C2A (Call to Action such as downloading your e-book or arriving on a landing page etc).

What is a Lead Nurturing Process?

A Lead Generation Agency will put in place a Lead Nurturing Process. This process is how you communicate and manage the warm leads that your marketing efforts have generated — it’s building a relationship. Leads are nurtured via content marketing.

In a day and age where people tune out from annoying, interruptive ads, content marketing provides brands a voice — and customers are open to listening. People are scouring the internet for answers that brands are uniquely positioned to provide answers to.

Content marketing engages your customer database with relevant and engaging material that will eventually help them along the pathway to becoming a paying customer.

Content Marketing & Email

Despite what we may think, email marketing is still one of the best ways of communicating with an audience — especially if a relationship has already been formed from brand to consumer.

Studies have shown that 74% of consumers prefer to receive commercial communication via email and relevant emails (targeted to specific groups) drive 18 x more revenue than broadcast “mass” emails.

Email marketing is a great way of engaging with your database and a Lead Generation Agency will know that email marketing must be these 5 things:

  1. Trusted — The customer has “opted in” by providing you with their details (like the subscription form Mike entered in to download his free e-book). This will mean your emails will be well received and less likely to be marked discarded as spam.
  2. Relevant — As we mentioned above, targeted emails receive 18 x more revenue than email “blasts”.
  3. Conversational — Give your customers a chance to respond (whether by actual written responses or via a C2A) and ensure your next round of communications replies to their response.
  4. Coordinated — Ensure that your social channels and website content is coordinated with your emails.
  5. Strategic— Opens and CTRs (Click Through Rates) are good, but the aim of the game is make sales. You should use an emailing system that delivers you a ROI metric.

Content Marketing & Your Website

Your website is your shop front, it’s your home base. All of your marketing material is going to lead back to your website and it has a long-lasting impression on your customers.

Your website should have a strong SEO strategy and should be consistent with your tone of voice and provide continual resources for leads that land on your site.

In terms of content marketing your website should focus on:

  1. Landing pages — Your email C2As should ideally take your reader to a specific Landing Page . Many business link these C2As to their website home page but the problem with that is that most homepages don’t specifically address the issue or topic that the C2A link is referring to — this overwhelms the customer with irrelevant information and they leave without completing the action.
  2. Blogging — keep your content fresh and updated (great for SEO and search engine rankings) and keeps your audience coming back for more helpful info.

Content Marketing & Social Media

Social media content marketing requires a slightly different mindset then other forms of content marketing. What’s the difference between brands that have successful social media accounts and those that don’t? The answer is simple, successful social media accounts focus on being social rather than doing social.

Remember the golden rules of social marketing:

  1. The rule of thirds — 1/3 promotes, 1/3 engages, 1/3 shares. Don’t talk about your business all of the time. No one like the guy at a party that only talks about work — the same is true on social media.
  2. Find the right platform — find out where your audience is hanging out online. There’s no point in using Snapchat if your audience is 35+ .
  3. Keep up with the trends — make sure your brand is part of the conversation by commenting, posting and sharing relevant new stories or “trending topics”.
  4. Have fun — don’t take your brand too seriously. Social media marketing allows brands to show a different side to more traditional forms of advertising.
  5. Being social goes both ways. You want people to engage with your posts, well that means you should also engage with your audience’s posts.

Talk with the Lead Generation Experts at Quentosity

Lead Generation can be easily defined but it’s clear that when it comes to execution, Lead Generation requires a lot of work.

Lead Generation isn’t an easy process and many businesses (whether small, medium or large) hire the experience of an external Lead Generation agency like Quentosity.

At Quentosity we are a digital marketing consultancy based in Auckland and Tauranga and we use are digital techniques and expertise to grow our clients’ businesses all over New Zealand.

If you are a New Zealand business that is looking to take things to the next level then look no further than Quentosity. We are a fully operational marketing agency and can take care of your brand’s entire offline and online presence.

Our beachside Papamoa office is next to the incredible QCafe so pop in for a casual chat over a coffee and let’s see how we can help your business grow its profitability.

Call us on 0800 467 8932, text 021 025 23809 or contact us through our website to get the ball rolling.