In the old days, the process of generating potential clients or customers was done in the most conventional way – through the placing advertisements on TV, radio and the newspapers. The process was a bit tedious, and the results were real slow too, but then again there was no other great way to do it. But today, small and medium-sized business only need to focus on one major aspect for generating repeat customers, and that’s through “leads”! Whether you’re running a flower shop, a graphic design service, a bakery, or whatever it is that’s profitable today, you’ll need the basic lead generation services to find prospective clients.
The basic business lead generation services starts with what a “lead” exactly is. A “lead” refers to an individual who has indicated or shown interest in your company’s product or service in some way, shape or form.
Leads are essentially collected or generated through information collection, which is done in a myriad of ways. For example, the information can come as a result of a job-seeker who is showing interest in a position by completing a job application form. It could also come as a result of a shopper sharing contact details in exchange for a discount coupon or voucher, or an individual filling out a form to download an educational e-book or podcast, app or something else.
While a business owner may have already dedicated ample time and resources to keeping their company running, the problem begins when they start lacking funds, or employees, for tracking and converting leads. And because in these truly competitive times word-of-mouth is no longer enough to increase sales, as well as grow a business, the crucial task of finding, and converting leads should be delegated to reputable and seasoned sales lead generation services.
Ecommerce lead generation services refers to “the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into solid leads with the help of the Internet or other technological modules”. Essentially, lead generation is a way of warming up potential customers to your business, and getting them on the path to eventually buying, and remaining loyal or repeat customers.
Ecommerce lead generation has a wider scope than traditional lead generation, and that alone gives it the edge over the latter. On the olden days, lead generation is only exclusive for the big companies, as they’re the only ones that can afford this marketing technique. With the advent of the Internet, small business lead generation services have been the beacon for small players to play with the greats.
Lead generation service provides run the gamut, and offer a wide array of services. And although the amount of detail, or type of information, that online lead generation services ask, and give away varies, there are a couple of common, general denominators that most seasoned lead generation companies offer their clients.
● Database Marketing – One of the most valued assets that seasoned lead generation companies have at their disposal to clients and their in-house marketing teams is sheer reach, and a massive database of business and professional information.
These large vaults of information provide lead generation firms the means to target and personalize marketing campaigns, basically on a level that is very much out-of-reach to standard in-house marketers.
● Content Syndication – If the main job of the database is to target potential customers, the task of converting them is best assigned to content syndication. Content syndication essentially refers to the task of pushing your content to other channels (or blogs and websites), in order to increase brand awareness, and drive traffic back to your business’ website.
And while partnering with blogs, and utilizing RSS feeds is a popular medium for content syndication, these are done with the hope that other much larger websites will find the content interesting, and pick them up. Other lead generation devise hyper-generated use email campaigns to disseminate content to prospective customers.
● Telemarketing – While telemarketing may have a sleazy, or less-than-stellar reputation among people, the main goal of a telemarketing campaign is to set appointments for conversations with the company’s sales team.
And while business or consumer telemarketing is anchored on demographic or regional data, a business-to-business telemarketing campaign uses “firmographics” or firm demographics, which are defined as “descriptive attributes of companies that can be used to aggregate or interpret individual companies into meaningful, easy-to-interpret market segments.
● Lead Nurturing – While telemarketing and content distribution campaigns are considered outbound activities, a couple of e-commerce lead generation services have created inbound programs that “nurture” leads from the top of the funnel, down towards the purchasing stages at the bottom.
The lead generation services who have lead nurturing programs often use this to develop leads to sell to their clients, or to do lead nurturing for their own internal purposes.
And while these four basic local leads generation services only scratch the surface of what most business lead generation services offer, they can help businesses who wish to elevate their marketing campaigns, to better understand the types of services that lead generation firms specialize and provide. When looking for one, make sure you test the ability of the company to work within your specifications, as well as develop your standards for ROI.
For more information on our lead generation services, contact us today.
