Lead Generation and ROI has been 2 of the most important facets for any boardroom discussion. Though companies understand that ‘lead generation’ is paramount to an organization , the time taken to achieve the results are what matters for most of the companies.
Though ‘Inbound marketing’ is a key strategy that organizations adopt, often the time taken to implement and garnering the results for the same has been a key reason why many companies do not go for the same.
How Long does Inbound Marketing take to deliver a consistent stream of leads:

Some of the important things that matter for inbound marketing to deliver a consistent a steady stream of leads is :

a) Strong Marketing Foundation Assets :

  • Is your website a strong lead generation engine
  • Is your social media channels strong enough

Some of things that needs to be validated while checking if your website is a strong lead engine is to check whether your website is generating strong direct and relevant website traffic.
Though a lot of companies focus on generating traffic to their website using a combination of in-house and out bound strategies, checking if the people who visit your website are of your target persona can be an important validation of the same.
These are people who can turn into leads and ultimately paying customers.
Some of the strategies for the same are :

a) SEO efforts focused on the right content and keyword strategy
b) Strong social media marketing through the right channels
c) Email and SMS Out bound strategy targeting the right people.

It will take 3 – 6 months to build the right content and also to ensure that the website attracts the right leads and the right audiences engage with our content. Proper Optimization of the content by checking the right keywords that people search for and getting he website ready for the same can also be helpful.

b) How to convert Website Visitors to Paying customers :      Conversion of Website Visitors to paying customers involves 2 main steps 

1) Ensuring which stage of the funnel the customer is in
2) Is the Visitor a lead a Marketing Qualified Lead or a Sales Qualified Lead

If the website visitor is in the ‘Discovery’ stage, the lead needs to be nurtured by providing more information related to the subsequent product or service that they are looking for , ensuring that they are provided with lead magnets at each stage (such as free e book) or signing them up for email communications.
A sales qualified lead would have passed the Discovery stage and are now in the market to buy.At this stage one of the most important aspects can be to make a call to the lead if we have managed to get their contact information or coming up with discount offers to speed up their buying process.
Once we understand the type of lead , the stage they are in and the offering we can propose them and implement a strong follow up strategy then we can ensure that the leads convert faster.
Overall we feel that implementing a strong foundational strategy can go a long way in aiding the lead generation process. If enough time is spend on getting the foundational strategy right , Inbound lead generation can be a sustainable long term investment for the organization.