Lead generation marketing is the process of sparking interest in the minds of your prospects about your brand, products, and services. The goal is to start the research and inquiry process so that the prospect enters your sales funnel and moves closer to becoming a paying customer. 

Despite the fact that lead generation is what drives businesses forward, an estimated 68% of B2B brands say that they struggle with the concept. Even with the struggles, brands of all types recognize that lead generation is critical to their brand’s growth. Sixty-nine percent of B2C marketers and 85% of B2B marketers say that lead generation alone is of their biggest priorities for their digital marketing efforts. The better brands are able to understand the role of demand generation in their digital strategies, the easier it will be for them to maximize their efforts and see higher returns.  

The evolution of lead generation marketing

Over the past two years, the entire marketing world, including demand gen, has undergone a massive shift in practice and objectives. Before the explosion of the internet and social media, brands were largely in control of the sales funnel. They were in charge of broadcasting their wares so that customers would become exposed to their offerings. The advertisements would spark the interest of the customers and they would in turn contact the brands to learn more.

The first steps, however, were taken by the businesses and they controlled the messaging that prospective customers received. With the growth of the Internet, however, the shift relegated control over the initial process into the hands of the customers. Suddenly, there was no more need to wait for the brands to initiate the conversations-- if a customer had a question, they could research online to learn about solutions, compare options, read reviews, and make a decision. They were the ones who started the conversations with the companies.

It is estimated that as much as 67% of the buyer’s journey now takes place online and that 94% of B2B buyers will research online before making a purchase. This shift has also impacted the ever-pressing question, “what is lead gen?” Now, lead gen must reflect the changing concepts behind marketing. It has shifted from revolving around the brand to revolving around the customer. It is about building relationships with prospects instead of broadcasting your company name as far as you can reach.

Instead, your goals as a marketer include understanding the pain points of customers and the motivations behind their behaviors, rather than looking at broad demographics. Even the data you gather from your marketing efforts and use to guide future endeavors is focused on the individual behaviors on your website and the types of content that elicited the best results.  

Fitting lead generation into your marketing strategy

Demand generation should guide your digital strategy. Before you begin to build out your website, you want to make sure that your content has a specific purpose within your sales funnel.

1. Begin by outlining your targeted customers and their buyer’s journey.
2. Lay out the types of content that will best reach each type of target customer at each stage.
3. Look at the content you already have and determine what is still needed.
4. Connect your content with links and CTAs that encourage people to move from one stage of their buyer’s journey to the next.
5. Create valuable gated content, such as webinars, case studies, or white papers, that encourage people to give you their contact information.
6. Develop a sign up for your email list that will encourage people to register to receive your emails or blog posts on a regular basis.
7. Focus your efforts on serving your readers and providing them with valuable information that keeps them coming back.

Lead generation should stretch across all forms of content creation, from your social media postings to your paid advertising. When your focus is always on creating valuable content for your users and meeting their needs, you will bring more people into your sales funnel and be able to turn them into leads. To create a better digital strategy test you knowledge with the BrightEdge Digital Marketing Quiz.  

Creating effective sites to drive lead generation

Your lead generation process should focus on encouraging people towards a specific page, known as a landing page.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a web page that users visit to fulfill a specific purpose, most often to convert into official leads. Landing pages might encourage people to make a purchase or they might provide download forms for an ebook or a registration for for a webinar. Regardless of its purpose, the landing page is one of the most important aspects in the development of an effective lead gen model.

How do I create an effective landing page?

Landing pages are largely governed by psychology. Although we might like to think that we make our decisions based upon logic, research has shown that psychological principles and emotions play a large role. For these reasons, you want to keep the following best practices in mind.

1. Minimize the number of form fields on your registration to decrease the ‘cost’ to the brain.
2. Use the idea of scarcity when reasonable to encourage people to take advantage of your offer quickly.
3. Use an appropriate image to help people visualize and connect with your offer.
4. Use brief, descriptive language to help people see the value of what you have to offer.
5. Make it easy for people to know exactly what you want them to do by including only one offer per page.
6. Boost your credibility by including any protections you can offer customers, such as payment protections, free shipping, or awards that speak to your reputation.
7. Make your CTA appealing and valuable.

Demand gen is a critical part of online marketing, and understanding what lead gen marketing is can help you amplify your entire marketing effort. By transforming your digital strategy to reflect the best practices for lead generation, you can capture more potential customers, boosting your revenue and the ROI of your efforts.  

Keyword research is the process of choosing the best queries to write and optimize your content around. Keyword research allows you to write in the language appealing to your audience. It can influence the amount of traffic your content will receive. Keyword research impacts how well you your content aligns with your audience. Our research at BrightEdge has found that 51 percent of the channel traffic arriving on your site comes through organic search. Your ability to create content that resonates with your target audience, provide them with value, and rank higher in the SERPs to drive the visibility and success of your website is all part of SEO management. Properly used, preparing for content development with keyword search will allow you to identify topics that your target customers are most likely to appreciate. This helps you build a relevant website that will boost engagement metrics, encourage social sharing and backlinks, and help you build your domain authority and rank. Considering that an estimated 93 percent of online experiences begin with search, improving your reputation online and building your visibility will influence your digital success.

How to perform keyword research with a keyword finder

Keyword research involves carefully analyzing the behavior of your target audience so that you can identify the topics that are most likely to interest them. There are a variety of factors that you can explore to make sure that you are uncovering topics that will appeal to your target audience.

• The search rate or query volume
• The top-ranking pages for the keyword
• The traffic pages on your own website

As you look at the search rate, you can see how often people search for the term. This can offer great insight into the popularity of the topic. After identifying topics with strong search rates, you can then explore the top-ten ranking pages for that particular keyword. By looking at the top-ranking pages, you can understand the intent of people searching for this term to ensure that it aligns with your brand. You can also see what helps those pages stand out for the search engines and users and find areas where you can improve within your own content to boost your rankings. As you create your content and begin to build strong traffic to your site, your own domain itself can also offer insight for your keyword research. You can examine patterns and trends within your visitors’ behavior, such as the types of content that draw the most traffic, the content that results in the most conversions, and the topics that generate with revenue. This will help you understand the areas that are the most popular with your specific customers. As you create content, you want to ensure that you select topics that will drive traffic to your website while also using the vocabulary that your customers are likely to use themselves. This will help you build a website full of useful content that will appeal to your customers.

How keyword research impacts your business

Keyword research can help you effectively optimize every level of your business because of its ability to help you tap into trends. It can:

• help you identify trends in products and naming
• make your PPC spend more efficient
• create marketing emails more aligned with customer interests

Organic search should be viewed as the focal point of your marketing campaign planning given that 94 percent of B2B buyers and 81 percent of customers research online before making a purchase. These insights, therefore, can help you ensure that all parts of your site will be prepared for search and to drive them down your funnel.  

A keyword finder, for example, can identify trends in products and naming that will help you as you prepare for product development, product launch, and PPC advertising. With PPC, you will be able to efficiently use the right keywords and leverage the content that these searchers want to see. This will help you improve your ROI and performance. The information from a keyword search can also help you tap into the interests of your target audience so that your marketing emails are more engaging for users, thereby improving your response rates. See how Verifi doubled their indexed longtail keywords and saw a 37% increase in organic traffic

How Data Cube can help with a keyword research

A keyword finder can help marketers identify valuable keywords, trends, and insights that will guide their content production. The problem that many run into, however, is the sheer amount of time required to track down the statistics and information needed to understand the necessary insights about a particular keyword or topic. The Data Cube from BrightEdge, however, has the information for billions of keywords in one convenient spot, making the entire process faster and easier. Using the Data Cube as a keyword finder, people can:

• plug in topics that they believe would be a good fit for their website
• receive information about that keyword as well as related keywords
• look at the traffic rates and the estimated difficulty of ranking for these matches
• sort their results by categories, including high-volume keywords, high-value keywords, and long-tail keywords, helping them uncover the topics that will work best for their particular situation with a single click.

From the Data Cube, you can also click through to see the top-ten pages for the keyword in question. If the keyword is one you track, you can click on it. Once you arrive on the keyword page, you will see a View Recommendations button in the upper right hand corner. Uncover more insights by clicking through to the keyword recommendations.

By clicking on this, you will be taken to a new page, where you can select Top Ten Pages. Here you can see the pages that rank the highest for this particular keyword. You can analyze them to better understand the characteristics which help these pages rank highly and what your site needs to do to earn a spot on the first page of results. View the top ten pages for a keyword to build your own content development strategy.

The Data Cube can also be used to uncover insights into competitor sites. By putting in the URL of a competitor, you can perform a site comparison, which will reveal keywords for which your competitor ranks but you do not. This can help you start to build prospective keyword ideas. You can also look at how they are performing in other aspects of the SERPs, such as universal search. If they are earning a number of Quick Answers, for example, you can examine the highlighted pages to see what changes might benefit your own internal strategy. Perform a competitor gap analysis to build keyword ideas.

Keyword search can be a valuable component of a marketing strategy because it guides your content creation and site development. With this research, your entire domain is prepared for the search engines and the customers who land on your page from the SERPs. Using a keyword search platform, like Data Cube will help you uncover the valuable information you need for optimal optimization without wasting time.

Webinar: Why Share16? - August 17 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET

Share16, BrightEdge’s 6th annual digital marketing conference, is only 11 weeks away and shaping up to be the best one yet. In an upcoming webinar, we will give you a sneak peek into the latest Share16 updates and why you need to attend and what’s new this year.

You’ll learn about the incredible value you get from being a part of this Forbes and Inc. Magazine top rated event - you won’t want to miss out!

We will discuss how our approach is very different than other events in a number of ways, all leading to a better attendee experience.  This includes the sessions, speakers, and networking activities at the conference.

High Quality Content

You will learn how we select session topics around the most pressing issues facing digital marketers, how we find marketers from top brands to speak at our conference, and how we work with them to deliver great presentations full of actionable takeaways.  Our sessions are full of the highest concentration of search, content and digital brand marketers and industry thought-leaders who enjoy presenting high quality content uniquely crafted to ensure real value from Share16.

What’s New?

We’ll also discuss major upgrades we’ve made to make the event more fun and provided creative ways to help attendees interact with each other.  Share16 attracts the best digital marketing teams from leading brands, most of whom want to meet and learn from others facing similar challenges. Our enhanced networking party will have delicious food and drinks, along with a number of fun game-like activities that will make it easier to meet new people and form lasting connections.  We even added a special cable car bus tour of San Francisco with lunch served, for those taking the full day of BrightEdge University training on Monday. Share16 will have a new mobile event app - you’ll be sure to leave Share16 feeling connected, inspired, and ready to tackle marketing challenges to elevate your performance.

This webinar will be full of exciting information about Share16 and how the conference will help you grow in your career and accelerate your business.

Register for the Share16 webinar!

Google Local optimization underlies a strong online strategy for any business with a physical presence or storefront. An estimated 73 percent of online activity relates to local. In other words, people regularly use the internet to find information about businesses and other places of interest around them.

What brands should pay even closer attention to, however, is the impact of these local searches on business. Customers look for local information throughout the buyer’s journey, and when they reach the conversion point, local searches are twice as likely as non-local searches to result in a purchase. In fact, an estimated 78 percent of local-mobile searches resulted in a purchase often within a few hours.

For brands to succeed on a local level, they need to prepare for their regional audience. Even if you regularly work with people well outside your geographic area, failing to optimize for the local users will hamper your reach, reputation, and business growth.  

What is Google Local?

Google Local involves making your page more locally relevant for users looking for businesses or places of interest that are geographically near them. This refers to queries such as “SEO companies near me” or “pizza places open now”.

When people conduct local searches, Google will currently present to them three main businesses, which are featured on the local 3-pack. These three businesses are at the center of the page with their name, address, number of stars, and a photo, immediately drawing the eye. Underneath these results, users have the option of clicking to see more businesses or just scrolling through the organic results. The high-profile location of this 3-pack makes it particularly important for those who want to optimize their content for local search.

Optimizing your content for Google Local, therefore, means designing your site and your Google+ page to improve the frequency with which you appear in this 3-pack and the positive impression you make upon users who see it. As in all SEO efforts, high rank means awareness and traffic and an implied endorsement from Google.  

How do I succeed with Google Local?

Pay attention to the NAP

The NAP refers to your name, address, and phone number. Google wants to see businesses that keep this information consistent across all websites and listings. When the NAP is consistent, the search engine can be confident that it is displaying the right information to users on the SERPs. Google wants to provide its users with an optimal user experience, and inaccurate information would confuse people and detract from this goal.

Every time your name, address, and phone number are written online, it can create a listing in other directories. Regularly monitor the web for mentions of your brand and reach out to sites to correct any incorrect information. If you find one that needs to be updated, look for the "Claim this business" or similar link to update and control the information,

You want to create your own listing on the various popular online directories, such as Yelp, to ensure that they receive the right information. Style the name of your brand always the same way, ensuring consistency with ‘and’ versus ‘&’, for example. When your NAP is consistent, it can influence the performance of your brand properties on Google Local by as much as 16 percent.

Fill out your Google+ business profile thoroughly and correctly

Google Local pulls from your Google+ business profile when creating your listing for the local 3-pack, so you want to make sure that you pay attention to how your brand is presented on the popular social media platform. Therefore, fill out your profile thoroughly and correctly. This means paying attention to the categories you select to ensure that they accurately reflect your type of business. Use keywords when describing your brand, including both your products and services as well as your location. One study found that using notable keywords, the right categories, and being located near where the person performs the search can impact your performance in Google Local by as much as 19.6 percent.

Attract reviews on Google

Reviews can be very influential on the results that you are listed for as well as the amount of attention your listing receives. As an example, here are the results from the query ‘pizza near me’.

Then here are the results, ‘best pizza near me’.

According to Nielsen, 92 percent say that they trust earned media, such as reviews from friends or family, more than all other forms of advertising. The reviews on your website might not be from someone that a particular user knows personally, but they do offer third-party validation of your brand and can help you lay the foundation for building a relationship of trust.

There are a few ways that you can encourage your customers to leave you these valuable reviews. Consider:

• Letting customers know after they make a purchase, such as in a follow-up email, that reviews are appreciated.
• Include links to your Google+ profile on your brand’s correspondence, such as emails and newsletters.
• Invite people connected to you on Google+ through your circles to leave you reviews.

 

How BrightEdge can help with Google Local

As you begin to develop your optimization for Google Local, use a platform with the ability to help you throughout the process. BrightEdge has numerous capabilities for businesses interested in growing their local audience.

Content creation

The BrightEdge Data Cube will help you uncover local keywords that you can use throughout the optimization process. For example, your local keywords can be used to produce content that is geared towards your local audience. The keywords can also be used in your brand description on Google+ and your website. This will help you improve your relevance to your local audience, and appear higher on organic queries.

Creating local keyword groups

As you uncover the important local keywords that you want to optimize your site for, you can create a keyword group to use to track your progress. You can create charts that monitor the correlation between your local keywords and the brand’s growth and revenue.

Monitoring your appearance with Google Local searches

When you open the BrightEdge Data Cube, you can also perform a site analysis that will enable you to see how your site is performing in the universal search results. You can also narrow your data down to show just how you appear in local 3-packs. This will allow you to see your progress and the keywords for which you are successfully appearing in these local searches. You can then do the same for your competitors to gauge their progress as well.

Local search engine insight

BrightEdge also provides local SEO support for more than 100 cities throughout the US and around the globe. You can use these Google local tools to look directly at your search performance and that of your competitors in your targeted geographic area.

Google local is a powerful means of reaching out to the customers in the same area as you. Customers often like to do business with those in their region, so optimizing your page to meet these customers can help you grow your business and improve your reputation.  

Case study – see how Yelp did it