In today’s digital era, social media has become one of the most important aspects of inbound marketing. You can’t ignore its power and influence: In fact, studies have shown that over 70 percent of marketers report that their social strategies are at least somewhat effective when it comes to boosting leads, sales, and ROI.

With so much potential for success on the table, it pays to understand how you can effectively utilize social media to get a piece of the pie—and this post will show you exactly how!

What Is Inbound Marketing and Why Is It Important for Businesses?

Inbound marketing has quickly become one of the most crucial components of any successful marketing strategy. So, what exactly is it? In a nutshell, it's a method of attracting and engaging potential customers using a range of different tactics, from social media and email marketing to content creation and SEO.

But why is it so crucial for businesses? There are many reasons, but the most significant is that it's a way of marketing that's focused on the needs and interests of your target audience.

By creating valuable content and delivering it to the people most likely to be interested in what you have to offer, you can build trust, establish authority, and ultimately drive more traffic, leads, and sales.

Plus, because inbound marketing is more focused on building relationships than making sales, it tends to be more effective in the long term.

How Social Media Can Help Drive Traffic to Your Website and Generate Leads?

The business world has changed dramatically over the years, and with the advent of technology, it continues to evolve. Social media platforms have transformed the way businesses reach out to their audience and generate leads.

Social media has made it possible for companies of any size to market themselves effectively without spending millions of dollars. By using social media, companies can connect with their target audience, drive traffic to their website, and ultimately increase their chances of generating leads. The key to success is to create a strong social media strategy that leverages the power of relevant hashtags, engaging content, and consistent posting.

By using this approach, businesses can establish a strong presence on social media and turn their followers into loyal customers.

The Benefits of Utilizing Paid Advertising on Social Media Platforms

In today's digital age, social media has become one of the most influential marketing tools for businesses worldwide. The unprecedented reach and engagement potential of these platforms has led to the increasing popularity of paid advertising on social media.

As a marketer, you can't deny the benefits that come with utilizing these platforms to reach your target audience effectively. From generating leads and driving sales to increasing brand awareness and loyalty, paid social media advertising has proven to be a cost-effective and efficient way to achieve your business's marketing goals.

Image Source: Hootsuite

With the right strategy and approach, you can harness the power of these platforms to take your business to new heights and stay ahead of the competition. So why wait? Start exploring the vast possibilities of paid social media advertising and enjoy its many advantages today!

Why Social Media Marketing is Essential for Inbound Marketing?

Social media marketing is integral to inbound marketing for several compelling reasons. They include:

1. Direct Communication: Social media allows businesses to communicate with consumers directly and in real time. It enables personalized engagement and fosters trust and loyalty.

2. Audience Targeting: Social media provides robust tools for demographic targeting, allowing businesses to reach potential customers based on their age, interests, behavior, and location.

3. Brand Exposure: With millions of users daily, social media platforms offer unparalleled brand exposure. This visibility can enhance brand recognition and recall.

4. Cost-Effective: Social media advertising is less expensive than traditional marketing channels, making it a cost-effective strategy for businesses of all sizes.

5. Customer Insights: Social media provides valuable insights into customer behavior, interests, and feedback, which can refine marketing strategies and offerings.

6. Community Building: By sharing valuable content and engaging with followers, businesses can build an online community around their brand. This community can become a loyal customer base and a strong source of word-of-mouth referrals.

7. Boosts SEO: Active presence and engagement on social media can improve a website’s search engine ranking, making it more discoverable to potential customers.

8. Reputation Management: Social media allows businesses to monitor what is being said about their brand online and respond appropriately. It can help control the narrative around the brand and manage its reputation.

Social media marketing amplifies the reach of inbound marketing and its effectiveness in attracting, engaging, and delighting customers.

Image Source: Prism Global Marketing

Tips for Maximizing Your Engagement With Followers on Social Media

One of the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to social media is that engagement is key. But with so much content vying for attention, it can be challenging to stand out and keep followers interested.

That's why it's crucial to focus on building relationships with your audience and providing value in every post. Here are some tips to keep your followers engaged on social media.

1. Create Engaging Content: Offer value to your followers in every post you publish. It could be in the form of useful information, compelling stories, or exclusive offers and discounts.

2. Respond to Comments and Messages: Show your followers that you value their engagement by responding to their comments and messages promptly. It not only builds trust but also encourages further interaction.

3. Use a Variety of Media Types: Including videos, images, infographics, and GIFs in your content can make your posts more interesting and shareable.

4. Run Polls and Quizzes: These interactive features can boost engagement by encouraging your followers to participate and share their opinions.

5. Maintain a Consistent Posting Schedule: Determining the best time of posting and effectively following it ensures that your content is always in your followers' feeds, keeping your brand top of mind.

6. Use Relevant Hashtags: Hashtags can increase the visibility of your posts and help you reach a wider audience.

7. Promote User-Generated Content: Sharing content created by your followers can foster a sense of community and encourage more user-generated content.

8. Collaborate With Influencers: Partnering with influencers in your industry can help you reach a larger audience and enhance your brand's credibility.

By implementing these tips and taking a genuine interest in your followers, you'll be on your way to maximizing engagement and building a strong, loyal following on social media.

Measuring the Impact of Social Media on Your Inbound Marketing Efforts

Social media has become integral to every business's inbound marketing strategy. It's a powerful tool that can significantly impact how a business is perceived online and ultimately affect its bottom line. But how can we measure that impact?

Businesses need to track the right metrics to analyze the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. One of the critical metrics they could consider is engagement- likes, shares, comments, etc.

Image Source: Sprout Social

Additionally, tracking website traffic referral sources, lead generation through forms, and assessing customer satisfaction through social mentions, etc., could help measure social media's effectiveness in inbound marketing.

In today's data-driven world, measuring the return on investment (ROI) is vital, and social media is no exception. Understanding the impact of social media on your inbound marketing efforts can help you make informed decisions in the future.

DashClicks' white label lead management software, 'Inbound,' is an innovative tool that revolutionizes the way businesses approach inbound marketing, including social media strategies.

Inbound uses AI-driven technology to monitor your social media channels and identify opportunities for engagement. It makes it easier for businesses to keep up with customer conversations and respond quickly and accurately. It provides recommendations on which content pieces will resonate best with your target audience.

The app tracks key metrics that can help you measure the success of your social media campaigns. With an intuitive dashboard and reporting tools, 'Inbound' makes it easy for businesses to track, analyze, and optimize their inbound marketing efforts. So why wait? Embrace the power of 'Inbound' and make social media a key part of your success story today!

In Conclusion

Social media plays an important role in effective inbound marketing. It is a powerful tool to drive more visitors to your site and generate leads and a great way to reach people in your target audience.

Not to mention the plethora of benefits associated with paid advertising opportunities on social media platforms. Additionally, many innovative strategies can be used to increase engagement with followers and maximize the impact of social media on inbound marketing efforts.

All these elements combined make social media an integral part of any successful inbound marketing campaign. So what are you waiting for? Now's the time to take advantage of all that social media has to offer and get ahead of the game!

Are you an agency owner looking for a streamlined way to onboard new clients? Onboarding can be time-consuming and often leaves room for mistakes or missed steps. To help streamline the process, we've put together a 6-step onboarding checklist that your digital marketing agency can use today to ensure nothing gets left out along the way! With this checklist in hand, it will ensure smooth sailing from start to finish, no matter what kind of clients you're working with.

Read on to learn more about how our checklist can help your business get up and running quickly!

The Benefits of a Streamlined Onboarding Process

A streamlined onboarding process is essential for any digital marketing agency. An effective onboarding system ensures that your clients get the best experience possible, from their initial contact to the completed project or service.

Here are some of the key benefits of using our 6-step onboarding checklist:

1. Improved Efficiency & Speed - By organizing and streamlining the onboarding process, you'll be able to quickly and efficiently get your clients' projects up and running with no delays.

2. Increased Client Satisfaction - By providing a seamless experience for your clients, they'll value your services and be more likely to refer others or work with you in the future.

3. Reduced Risk of Mistakes - By having a checklist in place, you'll be able to quickly identify and correct any mistakes that may have been made during the onboarding process.

Image Source: TIDIO

Introducing the Onboarding Process

Step 1: Gather the Necessary Information

Before starting any work for your new client, you need to gather the necessary information from them. It includes contact information like emails and phone numbers, company details such as size and industry, project goals, timelines, and budget constraints. Having this information upfront will help you set realistic expectations from the get-go and avoid any unnecessary delays down the line.

Step 2: Set up a Meeting With Your Client

Once you have all the necessary information, it's time to set up a meeting with your client. It is an important step in getting to know your client better and understanding their needs and goals for the project. During the meeting, ask any questions you may have about their project and address any concerns they may have as well.

Step 3: Create a Proposal

After your initial meeting with your client, it's time to create a proposal that outlines the details of the project, including your approach, timeline, and budget. It is an important step as it sets the expectations for both parties and allows them to review everything in detail before proceeding with the project.

Step 4: Agree on Terms & Conditions

After your client has reviewed your proposal, it's time to agree on terms and conditions. Ensure that both parties agree on deadlines, payment terms, and responsibilities. Having a contract in place will help protect both parties should any issues arise during the project.

Step 5: Plan & Execute Project Tasks

Once all the necessary paperwork is out, it's time to get to business! It is where you'll plan out the timeline and execute the project tasks. Stay in close communication with your client during this process so they can provide progress feedback, make necessary changes, or adjust the timeline if needed.

Step 6: Follow-up & Wrap Up

Ā Once all the project tasks have been completed, it's time for the final follow-up and wrap-up. It is also great to ask your client for feedback on their experience with your agency and how you can improve. If all goes well, there's a greater chance of securing additional work from your client or referrals!

Tips for Creating a Smooth Onboarding Process for Agency Clients

Onboarding new clients can be a daunting task for any agency, but with a well-thought-out process, it can be a smooth and successful experience for everyone involved.

Here are some tips to help you create a smooth onboarding process for your agency's clients:

1. Establish Clear Expectations From the Start

It's important to set clear expectations about what the client can expect during the onboarding process. It will help both of you avoid any misunderstandings or surprises down the road.

2. Define the Scope of Work

Before you begin working with a new client, you'll need to define the scope of work and determine what tasks will be included in the project. It will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and there aren't any surprises later on.

3. Create a Project Plan

Once you know what tasks need to be completed, you can create a project plan outlining specific deadlines and milestones for each process step. It will help you and the client stay on track and ensure the project is completed on time.

4. Communicate Frequently and Effectively

Effective communication is one of the most important aspects of a smooth onboarding process. You'll need to communicate frequently with your team and the client throughout the process to make sure everyone is kept up-to-date on the progress.

5. Manage Expectations Continuously

It's important to manage expectations constantly throughout the onboarding process. It means checking in with your team and the client regularly to ensure everyone is still on track and no one has unrealistic expectations about the deliverables.

6. Follow Up After the Launch

Once the project is complete, it's important to follow up with your team and the client to ensure everything went smoothly and that your client is happy with the result. The final step is solidifying your relationship with new clients and ensuring they'll return to you for future projects.

The Types of Clients That Can Benefit From an Onboarding Checklist

Every business is different, and each one will have its own unique set of needs and requirements for onboarding new clients. However, some clients benefit more from an onboarding checklist than others.

For example, businesses that sell high-value products or services often require a more detailed onboarding process than those that offer lower-priced items. It is because the stakes are higher for the client, and they need to be sure they're making the right decision in working with your company.

Another type of client that can benefit from an onboarding checklist is one that is new to your industry. If you're dealing with many first-time customers, it can be helpful to have a standardized process for introducing them to your business and teaching them about your products or services. It will help ensure that the client has a positive experience and understands what you do and how you can help them.

Image Source: BruceMerrill

Ultimately, the type of client that will benefit most from using an onboarding checklist is the one that is willing to follow it. If you can get your clients on board with your checklist as a guide for their interactions with your company, you'll be able to streamline the process and ensure a smooth transition from prospect to customer.

How to Use an Onboarding Checklist With New Clients?

Onboarding checklists can be an extremely valuable client resource, ensuring that new clients are set up for success with your company. By providing a checklist of items to complete and tasks to be aware of, you can help your clients orient themselves quickly and easily within your organization.

Additionally, onboarding checklists can reduce the chances of errors or misunderstandings during the initial stages of working with a new client.

When creating an onboarding checklist for new clients, it's important to consider the specific needs of your client and the services you offer.

However, several key items should be included on any such checklist. These include:

1. An Overview of Your Company: You should provide an overview of your company and its history, as well as an introduction to the team members the client will be working with. This helps them understand your company better and put a face to the services you're offering.‍

2. The Basics of Your Services: Next, outline the basics of your service offering and explain how it works. Then, move on to specific tasks that need to be completed to get started with your company ā€” this might include filling out paperwork, setting up accounts, or learning about your company's policies and procedures.‍

3. A List of Resources/Point-Of-Contacts: Finally, close out the checklist with a list of resources or point-of-contacts that the client can turn to for further assistance.

By creating an onboarding checklist for new clients, you can ensure a smooth transition for their partnership with your company. With this valuable resource, clients will feel confident and prepared as they begin their journey with you.

Here is an onboarding process for new clients -

Image Source: BigCatCreative

What to Do if Things Go Wrong During the Onboarding Process?

Onboarding can be tricky, and it’s not always smooth sailing. If something goes wrong during the onboarding process, don’t panic! You can do a few things to try and fix the problem.

• First, try to figure out what went wrong. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but other times there may be something you can do to correct the issue. Once you know what’s wrong, you can start trying to fix it.

• If the problem is with your software or system, contact customer support. They can help you troubleshoot the issue. If the problem is with your work process or another employee, try talking to them about it.

• If those steps don’t work, don’t worry! You can still do a few things to get your onboarding back on track. You may need to reach out to your clients and try a different approach. Ultimately, it’s all about communicating clearly and adapting to the situation.

Summing Up

A business' onboarding process is key to success when taking on new clients. By having a streamlined and efficient onboarding process, businesses can set their clients up for success from the beginning. It will lead to satisfied customers who are more likely to continue working with the company in the future.

Checklists are a great way to ensure that all important steps in the onboarding process are taken care of, while documentation is crucial to keep track of what has been done and what still needs to be done.

By drawing up an elegant, neat, and concise onboarding checklist for helping your new clients get acquainted with your agency, you can ensure you set your client partnerships up for success from the get-go!

Lead generation is essential for your business. You cannot grow your agency without a constant supply of leads. Most agencies have limited budgets. Therefore, the cost of lead generation also becomes an important consideration. Your ROI is directly proportional to your investment in lead generation as it brings a lot of value to your enterprise.

If you want your organization to succeed, you need high-quality prospects. But, at the same time, you cannot afford highly expensive lead generation sources.

This guide will discuss the different aspects of lead generation costs and the factors that impact it. So it will also help you discover the most effective lead-generation strategies within your budget.

What Are the Factors That Affect the Cost of Lead Generation?

Agencies perform different activities to generate leads, and the most prominent ones include advertising on social media and creating landing pages. The effectiveness of your advertising campaigns on social media and search engines determines the success of your marketing campaigns. Your campaigns should generate leads that you can convert into customers with minimal effort.

The biggest factors that influence the cost of lead generation include media placement and distribution. It will also impact the cost of running ad campaigns on Facebook and LinkedIn and hiring third parties to receive or generate lists.

However, the cumulative cost may soon shoot up if you are not careful or your budget is small.

Image Source: SmartInsights

We can divide the lead generation cost into the following elements -

A. Salaries and Fees Paid to Freelancers and Experts

These include the cost of hiring full-time employees and freelancers to run social media ads and traditional advertising campaigns. You can easily calculate ROI on this expenditure based on how many leads they generate every month.

B. Content Production, Promotion and Distribution

To run both organic and paid campaigns, you need quality content, and that comes at a cost. The content you create should offer value to your prospects and should be helpful, interesting and engaging. Agencies create blog posts, social media posts, videos, podcasts, infographics and content for webinars and ad messaging. After producing customer-centric content, you must also spend heavily on promoting and distributing it.

C. Software Programs, Apps and Tools

Agencies use different software programs and apps to succeed in today's data-driven marketing environment. These tools allow you to scale quickly and automate numerous manual tasks that are quite tedious and time-consuming.

Pro Tip: If you use a white-label platform and fulfillment services, you'll also get access to many apps and agency tools that will be extremely cost-effective for your agency.

DashClicks white-label platform offers the following apps:

• Contacts (A CRM software that helps you store and organize your people and business contacts)
• Inbound App (A lead management software that streamlines your leads and notifies your sales team about them)
• InstaSites: (A bulk website builder that can instantly build dozens of professional content-ready websites for your clients)
• InstaReports (A reporting tool that can create hundreds of digital marketing reports in a few seconds)
• Projects (A project management software that helps you track and manage your projects swiftly)

Apart from these, the platform also offers numerous other highly useful apps for digital agencies.

D. Audience

Your lead generation cost also depends on the number and types of leads you want to generate. So, if you generate bulk leads and want to target new customers, it will definitely cost more. On the other hand, if you run an up-selling campaign for your existing customers, it will cost you much less.

Types of Leads

Before we discuss various lead generation costs, let's first discuss the types of leads most businesses generate. Marketers often generate (or wish to generate) two major types of leads.

1. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

MQLs are the potential customers you're able to successfully target through your campaigns.

2. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

SQLs are the customers already engaged with your business in some way. They are also more likely to buy your products or services. They may have signed up for your newsletter, attended your webinar, downloaded an ebook, purchased your products/services before, or booked an appointment.

Image Source: Instapage

How to Calculate Cost per Lead (CPL)?

Cost per Lead, or CPL, is one of the most popular metrics to measure the performance of a digital marketing campaign. Here is the formula that marketers use to calculate CPL.

CPL = Total cost spend on a digital marketing campaign/number of leads coming from that campaign.

For example, if you spent $3,000 on a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign and converted 100 people into leads, the Cost per Lead will be: $3,000 / 100 = $30.

Image Source: Pointerpro

Types of Lead Generation Cost

Here are the different types of lead generation costs that marketers need to consider.

1. Agency, Freelancers, and Labor: Many businesses either hire an agency or commission freelancers to run their digital marketing campaigns, such as SEO and paid campaigns. The cost of hiring an agency or the freelancers' payments is included in your lead generation cost.

2. List Purchase: You can't run a telemarketing campaign without a relevant customer database. List purchase includes the cost of buying phone numbers for telemarketing and address lists for direct marketing.

3. Campaign Creation: It involves the cost of researching keyword data to target the right audience for your organic campaigns. It also includes the cost associated with the following activities:

• Developing a campaign strategy.
• Creating marketing messages, an email or SMS/text message campaign.
• Creating keyword-optimized content for search engines to target the right audience, and the cost of editing, proofreading, adding graphics and publishing.
• Testing and tweaking your ad copy and design.
• Managing the website or landing page.

You can set up a campaign for as low as $10 per month for an bulk email service provider alone. Your cost may go up to as high as $12,000 per month if you outsource it.

4. Ad Campaign Management: This is the cost you incur to set up an effective online marketing campaign, such as setting up ad placement on different paid channels like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google. It also involves various activities and messaging you use at other sales funnel stages to push the lead down the funnel for conversion. Focus on one product or service at a time while doing this to reduce your costs.

5. Incentive: Businesses sometimes incentivize their high-quality prospects with discounts and coupons when they exhibit buying intent.

6. Media Placement and Distribution: It is the cost of reaching your targeted audience through online campaigns.

7. Other: Apart from that, there are some additional costs of managing a campaign, such as costs incurred on influencer marketing, buying tools and apps, event participation, etc.

Most Common Lead Generation Pricing Structures

Here are some of the most popular and trending metrics you must be familiar with.

1. Cost Per Appointment

This metric ranges between $150 ā€“ $350. It involves the number of appointments you make with potential customers. It also considers the time a website visitor spends on your website. CPA is the easiest model businesses use to calculate costs without tracking every sale they make.

2. Retainer

This metric ranges between $3,000 ā€“ $10,000 per month. It comprises advertising and lead generation services. This cost model mainly considers lead generation while ignoring other campaign elements. It allows you to choose your budget for paid search and display ads.

3. Cost Per Lead

This metric ranges between $40 ā€“ $190 per lead. CPL reflects the cost of generating a new customer or lead. Businesses use this metric to maximize leads without investing too much time and effort.

4. CPL = Total Cost Spend / Number of Leads

For example, if you converted 50 people after spending $1,600 on an ad, your CPL would be: $1,500 / 50 = $30.

It helps you calculate your ROI and determine the types of resources you want to allocate to the activity the next time.

Conclusion

Many businesses employ robust lead generation processes and tools, and yet their quality of leads is dismal. You must invest time and money to generate quality leads and set up the right procedures to determine which tactics work best. You should also keep it within your budget, which you can easily achieve by consistently monitoring your cost of lead generation and tweaking your campaign accordingly.

A conversion funnel is a visual representation of the stages of a buyer's journey. In the funnel, the first stage is when they visit your page, and the last stage is when they make a purchase.

Wondering how to create a conversion funnel? At this time, you may think of going the traditional way to track your customers' journey- The AIDA model.

Let’s briefly discuss the stages of this model to decide whether you should use it for creating your conversion funnel. The AIDA model is based on the 4 classic stages of an individual’s buying process

• Awareness: An individual learns about your brand and becomes a lead.
• Interest: Next, you develop the individual’s interest in your brand’s product.
• Desire: Then, you aim to nudge your prospects to actively wanting something rather than just liking it. You can do this by meticulously placing adverts for repeated exposure or by making proposals.
• Action: Finally, you turn your prospect into your customer by encouraging them to take the desired action.

We use a funnel shape because everyone visiting your site will not become a paying customer of your business.

Based on the above-mentioned model, a traditional-style sales marketing funnel would be something similar to this image:

This funnel is a somewhat unrealistic and rigid way to observe how individuals move through the different stages of a sales cycle. We say this because people often jump back to different stages before they ever decide to make the sale.

Individuals require nurturing before they purchase your product. You need to understand their personalities, needs, and behaviors to turn them into paying customers of your business. For this, you need a more flexible conversion-based funnel than the one we discussed above so that your chances of success increase.

How to Create a More Flexible Conversion Funnel?

Let's now discuss the steps to create a conversion funnel that is a mix of AIDA and some less restrictive techniques.

1. Determine the Journey of Your Ideal Buyer

The aim of a conversion funnel is to create an effective buyer’s journey and increase the number of conversions. You need to identify the below-mentioned things to increase conversions:

• How does the journey of your typical buyer looks at the moment?
• What action do you want your prospect to take (your end goal)?
• How to improve the journey of your existing buyer so that your leads are more likely to become your paying customers?

After you determine your end goal, you can map it out as a conversion funnel, which will help you stay on track.

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2. Set Goals for Every Stage in the Funnel

Visualize that your funnel comprises these three different parts - the top, bottom, and middle.

Determine what you want from every part of the funnel. For instance, you may want to boost your traffic in the funnel's top part, increase the engagement rate in the funnel's middle part, and increase the number of conversions in the funnel's bottom part.

After you set the goals, track the progress you are making and make sure you are achieving the objectives you have set.

Bottom line, spend some time thinking about your overall goals before you create a conversion funnel.

3. Create a Content Plan for the Funnel's Stages

So that your prospects keep moving from one stage to the next, all three parts of the funnel (top, bottom, and middle) need a robust marketing plan.

A. Top

The top part, or the first stage, is about building product and brand awareness. At this stage, you are trying to encourage your prospects to learn more about your business and how your products can benefit them. Therefore, you want to introduce your business and give special attention to your brand story at this stage. To achieve this, ‌use videos, social media posts, short blog posts, and other visually engaging content.

B. Middle

At this stage, you already have the attention of an individual. This is the perfect time to gain their trust and tell them the reasons why they need your product.

We recommend that you concentrate on creating informative, reliable, and valuable content for this stage. Examples include downloads, case studies, and video tutorials.

C. Bottom

The bottom part of the funnel is about focusing on providing your prospects with a reason to sign up for your service, purchase your product, or take some other action you desire.

At this final stage, marketing strategies can include actionable emails, CTAs, and free trials.

4. Generate Content to Create Awareness

As mentioned before, you are trying to create hype around your product and brand at the first stage of your funnel. To create a content strategy for this particular stage, you need to answer some questions such as - Why should a customer care about your business? How do your brand's products provide a solution to their problems? We also recommend that you research your competitors to see what their social media channels, blogs, and landing pages can teach you. Also, check how they reel in their potential customers.

Additionally, here are a few examples of ways in which you can create awareness and develop relatable content for the funnel’s first stage:

• Set up accounts on famous social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Post on a regular basis and engage with followers.
• For your content to rank high in search engine results, optimize it for SEO. This way, the chances of people finding you online will increase.
• Other ways in which you can develop the audience’s interest in your brand are by producing informational guides, hosting interviews, and influencer marketing.

5. Build Interest and Desire

Even though the AIDA model states desire and interest as different outcomes, in reality, they are the same things.

If you want to build desire or interest, you need to generate compelling content. You create some brand awareness, you tell individuals why they require what your business is selling, and they decide they want your product as a result of it.

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Now you may think about how you can create content that helps people move forward from this stage of your conversion funnel. Take a look at a few ideas:

• Create a YouTube video that shows your product in use. Video marketing statistics for 2021 show that 84% of customers claim they got convinced to buy a service or product after seeing a video by a brand. With the help of videos, people can easily imagine how a product can benefit them.
• Create authoritative blog posts that help in educating your target audience. The user is more likely to put their faith in your product and purchase if they find your content valuable.
• Email your prospects carefully curated email content like – customer testimonials or tips and hints that can benefit them.
• You can also think of providing product samples, crafting product guides, or starting a podcast.

6. Encourage Leads to Take Action

Your aim at the end of the funnel - turn a lead into a customer by encouraging them to take the required action. To optimize your strategy for this stage, we suggest the following methods:

A. Incorporate a CTA in Your Content: Adding a Call To Action (CTA) to your content helps clarify the action you want individuals to take. Make your CTA sound urgent as you want customers to take the final step. Emphasize on how the product you offer can provide a solution to their problem and why they must take an action at the moment. Place your CTA somewhere prominent, like the end of a guide post or the top of a landing page.

B. Send Clear and Actionable Emails: Send your potential customers emails that are concise, clear, and actionable. In these emails, you emphasize how your services or products can provide a solution to the problems. Do add a CTA in these emails as well.C. Showcase Customer Testimonials: Roughly 89% of consumers around the world read reviews before purchasing products. So, we highly recommend that you add testimonials to your page. They give your customers the reassurance they require in order to take the final step.

7. Focus On Retaining Your Customers

You need to concentrate on retaining your customers apart from finding new ones. Go through these statistics and you will know why we say this:

• The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% – 70%.
• The probability of selling to a new customer is only 5% – 20%.
• 44% of millennials have said that they stay loyal to their favorite brands.

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Next, let’s discuss some strategies for retaining your loyal customers.

A. Next-Selling: Next-selling is when you follow up with a customer after they have made a purchase and offer them a similar product with an exclusive offer. The offer can be, for instance, an attractive discount. When you do this, you get a chance to talk to them and make your customer feel valued. Plus, you increase the likelihood of potentially increasing your revenue. Next-selling even offers you insightful data to further create effective funnels.

B. Product Updates: When you update your products based on customer feedback, you inform your loyal customers that their loyalty is valuable to you. You also offer them an enhanced user experience. For instance, you can update a glitch in your app based on the feedback from a user.

C. Loyalty Programs: Loyalty programs are a vital part of a customer retention strategy. You can even use your loyalty program to monitor buyer behavior and customer preferences. When you create this program, think about implementing the following:

• Provide extra benefits and perks
• Use a high amount of personalization

8. Grow Customers

Lastly, look for ways in which you can capitalize on your existing customers. For doing so, you need to encourage them to go ahead and make more purchases from your business. Some strategies that can help in this respect are:

A. Cross-Sell: When you decide to cross-sell, you check the most recent purchase of your customer and show them a similar product that may interest them. Or, at the time of the sales process, you can offer them other items that you think will complement the item they are purchasing at the moment.‍

B. Upsell: Upselling is when you offer a customer a pricier alternative to the service or item they have an interest in. For instance, if a person chooses a free subscription to your service, you can bring to their notice the option of the cheapest paid subscription to your service. A word of caution here - don't attempt to upsell a product that is substantially more expensive than the one the potential customer is choosing to purchase. You don't want the strategy to backfire, do you?

9. Take Care of Funnel Problems

One thing you need to understand is - a perfect funnel simply does not exist. In case your funnel is not performing as expected, it can be due to common errors such as not starting with a clear brand message or adding too many steps in the funnel.

To address funnel problems, you can consider performing some lead outreach. You can ask for feedback regarding website user experience or send out surveys. A useful tip is to always consider negative comments at the time of refining your funnel.

Conclusion

Always consider your conversion funnel as a process that will evolve over time. The needs and wants of your customers will vary over time, and hence, adapting your funnel strategy and goals accordingly is something you must do during those times. In the end, remember, a sure-shot way of standing out and creating a loyal client base is by providing your customers the user experience they want.

Note: We know that a conversion funnel denotes the paths individuals take on their journey, right from landing on your site to becoming your paying customers. However, an important point to note here is having an SEO-friendly web design is crucial for your business to find potential customers. Now, we all know that creating an SEO-friendly, professional niche-based website can take several days. But if you use DashClicks' Sites app, you can make a custom-branded, SEO-friendly agency website in a few seconds. Pretty cool, isn't it?

Measuring lead quality is a major challenge for many agency owners. Most salespeople waste a lot of time on weak leads. If your conversion rate is low, it reflects that you are not effectively converting leads into paying customers. Maybe they are still not ready to purchase from you or are low-quality leads.

Weak leads will not help you achieve your business objectives. The advantage of high-quality leads is that they close faster and have a larger average deal size compared to poor-quality leads.

It might frustrate salespeople. Without a lead qualification plan, you will probably lose a lot of sales.

Impact of Qualified Leads on Sales

According to a Somametrics study, qualified leads substantially impacted sales.

A mere 10% improvement in lead quality led to a 33% growth in sales and a 5% increase in net profits. It also led to an 1839% ROI on marketing spend. When the lead quality was further improved by 20%, the increase in ROI on marketing spend and growth in sales saw an increase of 4,044% and 73%, respectively.

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The data speaks for itself! The quality of leads is crucial to your overall success in a business venture.

A drop in lead quality may lead to a sharp decline in sales and net profits.

What's Lead Qualification?

Qualified leads indicate the readiness of a person to buy your product.

The sales-readiness of a customer decides what strategy salespeople should use to convert the prospect into a paying customer.

Likelihood of Conversion

Your sales team's further activities and strategy depend on the results of this process.

They can further categorize these leads into hot, warm, and cold (low-quality ones).

The Benefits of Lead Qualification

The prime benefit of the lead qualification process is to build more effective communication with the prospects. This communication can take place through different channels, such as telephone, email, blog, or social media. The process tremendously contributes to the sales cycle.

It leads to better personalization, which results in a greater likelihood of conversion. It is also helpful in building relationships. Through lead qualification, sales reps can differentiate between hot, warm, and cold leads and prioritize them in their pipeline to build relationships.

To increase the conversion rate, you must clearly understand leads, including their priorities and concerns. Once you develop such an understanding, you may craft messages that appeal to them. It will help you close deals faster, saving you a lot of time, money, and hassle.

According to a study, 50% of prospects will never be qualified to buy your products or services, so wasting your time on them is useless. Instead, you can spend this time on the warm and hot leads who will convert in a fraction of the effort.

Lead Qualification vs. Lead Scoring

Marketers developed Lead Scoring as a process of lead qualification. You can measure and rank a lead's interest level and sales readiness through Lead Scoring. It's usually based on a documented and agreed-upon methodology by marketing and sales teams.

Lead scoring can be done in many ways. You can either assign points or rank them as A, B, C, or D. You can also group them as "hot," "warm," or "cold."

Lead scoring will decide whether a lead should be added to your sales funnel or not. It helps remove the ones with very little likelihood of buying from you. You can prioritize hot leads based on their value to your company. Warm leads need a bit more nurturing, so you can make a strategy to craft messages to increase their interest level and convince them.

Besides that, lead scoring can also be based on many other attributes, such as demographics, psychographics, work information, and their role in decision-making.

These are the vital inputs you need to prioritize your leads.

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3 Ways to Improve the Quality of Your Sales Leads

Here are the three ways to improve your lead quality and overall sales process.

1. Refine Your Lead Scoring System

It would help if you practiced dynamic instead of static scoring to prioritize your leads. The reason behind it is that factors like demographics and psychographics of your prospects keep changing, and for accurate lead scoring, it's crucial to adapt to the changing environment.

2. Commit to Lead Nurturing

According to a 2010 Forrester Research study, companies that performed better at lead nurturing could generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost per lead than other companies.

However, less than 50% of leads are actually qualified in the B2B business environment, and you shouldn't waste your time on sales calls to the rest of them.

Marketers think everyone who has attended a webinar or downloaded a whitepaper is a prospect and should be handed over to the salespeople. You need more information about your prospects before declaring them qualified leads.

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3. Practice Consistent Lead Measurement

According to a HubSpot survey, 56% of B2B companies don't measure lead generation's contribution to revenue. However, it's interesting to know that you can get great insights into the intent of your online leads, thanks to the various measurable elements.

You can use DashCicks' automated sales CRM software to get an overview of your prospects' online behavior in the sales funnel. Consistent lead measurement will accelerate lead generation.

How to Make Sure That a Lead Is Qualified?

There is no way you can judge whether a lead is qualified or not at first glance. For that, you need to get some information about the prospect. Usually, salespeople can directly ask a few questions to the prospect to assess whether it's a qualified lead or not.

How to Get Qualified Leads?

You need qualified leads to boost sales. To prevent your time from being wasted on low-priority jobs, assess your leads at the organization, opportunity, and stakeholder level by asking relevant questions.

Here is a list of 21 questions you can ask to differentiate between qualified and weak leads.

1. How long have they been operating?
2. What is their employee count and turnover?
3. What industry are they in?
4. What’s their location?
5. What customer pain points do you want to address?
6. Have you availed of similar solutions previously?
7. How are you dealing with your existing issues?
8. Is there anything that doesn’t allow you to resolve your issue till now?
9. Are you considering any other solutions to resolve your issue?
10. What are your chief concerns?
11. Do you have any timeframe in mind to implement the solution?
12. When should I get back to you next time?
13. Are you involved in the decision-making process?
14. Is there anyone else who makes such decisions to avail such solutions?
15. Do you keep other stakeholders in the loop?
16. Would they like and approve the purchase?
17.  What is the standard approval process in your organization?
18.  What is the next step once a decision-maker approves a product for purchase?
19.  Would you like to know more about our product? Can we give a demo to show you how our product can help you?
20.  What are your priorities?
21.  Can you update me on your purchase process timeline?

Pro Tip: To ensure you're sending a qualified lead to your sales team, ask as many questions as possible.

A lead can be disqualified for numerous reasons, including if someone is not a part of the decision-making process. However, you can ask other questions and ensure that the organization you're targeting needs your solution and can afford it. If you find an opportunity to sell, you can approach the decision-maker.

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Final Words

Lead qualification is an essential step, and you shouldn't skip it at any cost. It saves time and helps you improve lead quality and the sales process. You should avoid the practice of transferring weak leads even if the sales team is clamoring for it.

Try to gather reliable information on sales opportunities. Talk to your leads and ask probing questions. Documenting the entire process will immensely help you in lead qualification and making it effective.

Nurture the weak leads. Talk to the people who are not yet mentally ready to make a purchase, even though they need your solution and can afford it. Use CRM data excessively to know how to nurture the leads through the right messaging.

If your website isn't generating a steady stream of new leads, it's not doing its job effectively.

While it's true that web pages can serve primarily to educate, it's a waste to not use that great content to convert users into paying customers. However, optimizing your site for lead generation is going to require synergy in your marketing strategies to get the best possible results.

Below, we'll teach you how to set up a lead generation site that delivers results. Here are our top ten recommended strategies that show how to build a lead generation website the right way.

1. Optimize Your UX (Desktop and Mobile)

Our list starts with a focus on the user experience. We can debate over which website elements are most important, but users will not have the patience to deal with a slow, clunky, and/or ugly website. They can always find a competitor website with better UX in a matter of seconds.

But, what exactly is the user experience?

The user experience refers to any aspects of the website that serve to make the user's visit and attempts to interact more enjoyable. Factors that contribute to the UX include page design, content quality, content presentation, loading speeds, ease of navigation, and interactivity.

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Take loading speed for example. It's a fairly well-known fact that longer loading times drastically increase bounce rate. According to Pingdom, the average load time you should aim for is roughly two seconds. As the time increases from two to five seconds, your bounce rate can increase by nearly 40%.

Other factors can and will cause users to leave. If a user has difficulty discerning how to get sections of the site, if the text is illegible due to design choices, or if videos and images fail to load, you undermine all of the hard work that went into building your site.

The user has zero obligation to stick around, and you certainly won't generate a lead if your website's UX isn't worth experiencing. A bad UX will likely make any of these upcoming strategies irrelevant in your lead gen efforts.

2. Learn the Best SEO Practices

Like your UX, optimizing your new lead generation website with best SEO practices is the best way to build a strong foundation.

SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, refers to any actions taken on the website's front or back end to boost discoverability in search engine results pages. Incorporating SEO in your marketing strategy is essential for ensuring that new users visit your website regularly outside of clicks from paid ad campaigns.

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Before we think about how we can encourage new visitors to become leads, we need to get people in the door. While search ads with Google or social media ads on Facebook can land you website clicks, investing in SEO will help you build organic visits with time, ultimately lowering your total advertising costs.

Having quality website SEO also helps Google match your website content to more qualified users. While traffic gains are admirable, they can often account for little more than vanity. When a website's SEO is just so-so, you can often get clicks from users that ultimately are not a good match when your goal is lead generation.

The more optimized your SEO, the better Google's search crawler can understand the purpose of your page's content. When Google can do its job well, you get the benefit of receiving visits from the type of users you want to focus on converting.

SEO can be a complex topic and covers a wide breadth of areas. You'll want to learn improved keyword targeting strategies, how to check keyword rankings, image and video optimization, script compression, meta tags, and content marketing, for starters. All of these will help your website run faster and rank higher for a variety of search terms.

3. Add a Strong CTA to Your Home Page

This is where direct lead generation optimizations begin.

If you want a user to convert, you need to provide an incentive for them to do so. We often refer to these as "call-to-actions," or "CTAs." These are direct calls to the reader that motivate them to perform a specific action that you've designated as a goal.

When it comes to lead generation, this commonly applies to filling out a form. The user will provide their name and contact details, thus becoming a new lead in your marketing campaign efforts.

However, no one is going to fill out a form simply because you asked nicely. While no money is being exchanged yet, this is still a business transaction. As such, you need to provide a relevant, worthwhile incentive to the user in exchange for their lead information. It doesn't need to be an expensive or outrageous offer, but something small can be enough to win them over.

Examples of strong CTAs might include free consultations, free quotes, a first-timer's discount, or even a complimentary eBook. You want to tailor that incentive to be directly relevant to why the user arrived at your home page in the first place.

As an example, let's consider a roofing company. They can offer prospective customers a free inspection and report in exchange for basic details like a phone number and email. Chances are, someone arriving at your site is already looking for something like this, and providing that CTA immediately creates a high chance for a conversion.

A CTA like this has power as it offers something of value to the customer for free. They also have the motivation to sign up even if they're not quite at the buying stage of the buyer's journey.

Craft a strong CTA that you want to live on your home page and make sure it's one of the first things in the visitor's viewport when they arrive.

4. Add Forms to Other High-Traffic Website Areas

High-traffic website pages are also prime real estate for CTAs and forms.

Many website owners make the mistake of simply adding a 'Contact Us' page to their site and calling it a day. However, you're going to virtually zero direct clicks to that page. That means that a visitor has to go through an additional step and fill out a form to contact you.

Instead, you should consider which pages users are clicking to make their entry into your domain. Specific types of pages, such as a service description page, serve as a better location to implement additional forms.

Consider a user that is specifically searching for a home plumbing service. They click on a company's residential service page to inquire more about the service and prices. This is arguably an even better opportunity to claim a lead conversion than on your home page.

This is because you already know where the visitor's interest lies. With this information, you can curate a highly-specific CTA with your form to encourage even more lead conversions. You don't necessarily need the user to stay on the website longer or click on additional pages.

Use your website's Google Analytics to identify where new visitors are coming from and which web pages they are accessing. Then, make sure to tighten the copy on that page to encourage users to sign up for free estimates, consultations, etc. based upon the topic of the page.

5. Create and Optimize Landing Pages

This strategy piggy-backs off of the previous tip and effectively serves as the bread and butter of any lead-generation website.

While your base website pages can benefit from submission forms, there are limitations to what you can do. Those core pages can help to drive conversions, but their primary purpose is generally to educate visitors about the business and the services offered on an everyday basis.

Making too many changes to these pages and dressing the copy up with flagrant advertising will ultimately hurt your SEO and page rankings.

Instead, we can use the proven strategy of creating and optimizing landing pages with a highly-specific offer in mind. This new page exists for the sole purpose of lead generation and allows you to gain all of the benefits without the potential drawbacks.

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You can sweeten the offer on your landing pages by offering something of immediate value to the visitor. These can include discounts, eBook downloads, exclusive content, or promotional vouchers.

Finally, you can utilize Google Analytics and/or your CMS of choice to A/B test various versions of your landing page. This will guide you to make the necessary adjustments for the best lead-gen results.

6. Don't Overlook the “Thank You” Page

The companion to the landing page is the “Thank You” page. This is where you redirect users after completing their form signup to confirm their submission.

However, most companies tend to leave this page barebones.

What you should be doing is using this page as an opportunity to drive additional engagement. Many users will not even see your “thank you” page, but the ones who do have expressed interest that you should capitalize on with additional CTAs.

For starters, you should make every effort to provide the user with their signup incentive immediately. Instead of entering, “We’ll send your free eBook soon,” you should simply provide a button or link for immediate download. The longer you can keep the user engaged, the more they're thinking about your brand.

Similar upgrades to your second page could include:

• Links to schedule appointments/calls on your Google Calendar/Calendly
• Link to your main website or a relevant product/service page
• Links to follow your company on social media
• Links/downloads to any additional resources relevant to the offer

7. Develop a Blog for Your Website

Blogging is a staple of SEO and is essential for lead generation website best practices.

When creating content for a page, you target specific keywords that demonstrate a strong search volume from your target audience. Because your page is SEO-optimized for that keyword, there's a strong chance that it will rank high in SERPs, providing a gateway for users to access your site.

Blogs exist, in part, for this purpose.

Every new blog article you publish creates a brand-new page on your website. This page targets new keywords, and, therefore, creates new methods for visitors to discover your website.

A well-developed blog continues to provide results over time. When your articles are well-researched, trustworthy, and receive notable traffic, the authority of your entire domain improves. This makes Google more likely to rank your pages, which means more opportunities to convert new leads.

Blogs particularly help lead-generation strategies as the content is highly-targeted. While your base website covers a wider subject (your industry), blog articles bring in users searching for that specific topic. There's a greater likelihood that new visitors clicking on your blog are highly interested, which presents a greater opportunity for conversion.

The blog itself creates an incentive to convert. Visitors that like your content can sign up to receive notifications when new content is published. Therefore, you've already boosted your number of leads just by helping your website's SEO.

You can further boost your blogging efforts by suggesting products or services whenever relevant within the context of the topic. Just be sure to stay true to the purpose of the article and avoid being intrusive with self-advertisement.

8. Nurture with an Email Marketing List

We briefly touched on email lists above as blogs can be one incentive for users to sign up.

However, there are various things you can do with your email marketing lists such as sending out exclusive offers, discounts, or alternative content that can't be found on your website. All of these provide visitors with an ongoing incentive to subscribe as opposed to a one-time offer.

Furthermore, the email marketing list works for you beyond the initial lead conversion. Equally important is nurturing those leads for the long-term so that you gain more value per acquired lead.

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A commonly repeated idea in business is that it costs as much as five times more to acquire new customers than it is to retain existing ones. This means that to build a truly exceptional lead-generation website, you need to implement strategies that nurture your leads after they sign up to maximize your potential profits and keep expenses low.

9. Put the Call Out for Follows on Social Media

Social media often gets overlooked as it typically does not provide the initial, endorphin-pumping ROIs that a paid ad campaign would, for example.

There are two problems with this.

The first is a misunderstanding of what your company's social media accounts should be used for when it comes to digital marketing. Similar to blogs, your objective is to regularly send out engaging, relevant content to your followers.

Unfortunately, most brands put in the bare minimum effort and deliver cold, lifeless posts that do not motivate them to engage.

The second issue is that it does not acknowledge the visitor's mindset, which is crucial for acquiring new leads.

The truth is that many would-be interested leads simply don't care about the content brands post on their website. These users spend most of their online time on social media. If that demographic happens to align with your target buyer persona, then you must meet your audience where they spend their time.

Regarding your lead-generation website, you can help your social media by simply providing CTAs to follow your brand on other accounts. Make it easy for visitors to consume the type of content they want to see rather than limiting your offerings to what's on the page.

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Staying active on social media can help you quickly reach new audiences and provide unique platforms for you to share your offers and content. You can also link back to content on your website to increase your traffic and further drive your lead conversions.

10. Build a Chatbot

Finally, you can help drive engagement on your website by creating a customized chatbot. These automated helpers can speak to users about the content they are reading and help them find solutions faster. This massively improves your UX, which is key to lead generation.

Chatbots can provide users with a sense of self-dependence. While you're actively helping them find information, they feel like they are in control of making educated decisions as a consumer. When a visitor feels good about their experience, they're much more agreeable to signing up, subscribing, or even making a purchase.

You can easily build your very own chatbot by using platforms such as ManyChat or Chatbot. Not only can it improve your lead-gen website, but it can also help cut down on the number of support requests your customer service team receives.

Set Up Your Lead Generation Website the Right Way

Every business needs to make a profit, but it all starts with a steady stream of qualified leads. While some strategies might bring quicker results than others, it takes synergy among multiple digital marketing channels to get the best possible results.

Ensure that your website is worth visiting. Make sure that it runs well, provides attractive offers, and educates the visitor with high-quality content that establishes you as an industry authority.

Take advantage of the free tools available to you such as Google Analytics to test your content and develop landing pages that convert.

Finally, provide alternative options for visitors to engage with your brand such as chatbots, social media feeds, and email marketing lists. The more personalized your messages, the more likely you are to improve your conversion rate.