It's one of those tricky marketing words that means different things to different people. Hell, it means different things to the same people depending on the time of day, or conversation you catch them in.
Blogging 101 would have me insert the definition that best supports my version here and work forward from that. That’s way too complex for such a simple thing.
WOAH. Did your head explode? OK, off we go... Leads are actionable connections to a person or company who needs and can afford your product(s) and/or service(s). Of course you don’t close them all, but they are all relevant and could close. That’s a lead.
A lead is not a list full of people or emails who may or may not work at a company and may or may not be reachable at the email address attached and with whom you have had no connection or exchange. That is a pile of garbage. That is a waste of your time. That is not a lead. More importantly, blasting some unsolicited information and offers to these people while they are trying to work is invasive, unwelcome, and often only serves to damage your reputation.
The “hits” to your website are also not a lead. Infact, most websites aren’t even attracting an audience that could be considered a lead. If you sell widgets, and your web traffic is 80% job seekers or people who sell things to companies who make widgets - those people aren't leads.
Similarly, as hard as you worked for them, your social followers… probably not leads. While it is possible to use social for lead generation, it takes time, planning and effort. And despite your best efforts, I’m willing to bet that if you dissect your social followers you have a large percentage of dead weight, folks that saw something interesting and liked your page and have never been back because it's just not the right fit. This is OK, it’s normal, but again, it’s not creating leads… you need to craft that audience very carefully and learn how to activate it though providing value relevant to both the social surfer and your business in order to cultivate leads.
These are a common problems and can be solved with how you generate leads online, like through inbound marketing and website optimization. Using these, we can redefine your site's audience and trigger the correct traffic profile, thus, creating a symbiotic relationship wherein you provide value in return for a little bit of information, like name and email… that little bit of information is a lead!!
What do you do now that you have the lead(s)? You nurture that relationship and do your damnedest to turn that lead into a customer. That’s done through marketing automation and a blog for a different day.
Learn more about our Lead Generation services or grab this free eBook and get a jump start on doint it for yourself.
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