By Raul Harman

In today’s very competitive market, your business needs to find a way to get close to your target audience and establish a good relationship with them. One of the best ways of achieving this is through a blog that is filled with informative and entertaining content.

A blog is a gathering place for people who enjoy a specific topic, news or niche, as well as people who like to follow a certain brand or business. A blog is a great platform that can support a business, by discovering new prospects and generating new leads. Generating quality leads means having more potential customers, and having more customers means more profit. Here are the top three converting inbound strategies that will get you more qualified leads.

1-Leverage social media and content marketing

In the world of competitive marketing we live in today, it’s very difficult to capture the hearts and minds of viewers. However, it’s also easier to approach people nowadays than it ever was before. People are globally connected on social media channels and marketers no longer need to focus their strategies on local levels such as a town or a city. Furthermore, the ultimate decision of making a purchase or not is entirely in the hands of the buyer, while marketers need to find a way to tip the scales in their favor.

Basically, inbound marketing is making your business, website or blog easily findable for a potential online customer, as well as convincing them to show interest in your business. Every visitor that shows enough interest is a lead. The best way to make your business more visible and attract leads is through social media channels.

It’s important to identify the perfect lead or customer and focus on the social media channels that are the most populated with the perfect leads. What marketers do today is offer solutions to problems that their leads may have in order to lure them back to their website or blog. Content plays a huge role in this marketing approach, because relevant, informative and educational content is the most appealing to potential customers. Furthermore, consistency is key for good content placement, as offering fresh content on a regular basis speaks of your knowledge, credibility and authenticity that will be interesting to leads.

2-Create an inbound funnel campaign

Social media marketing campaigns and promotions will definitely drive a lot of traffic to your website or blog. However, more traffic doesn’t necessarily mean more leads. As mentioned, a lead is a visitor that shows enough interest in your business, product or service. Traffic is just visitors that were lured to visit your website or blog by your promotions, and whether or not they will become leads is entirely up to you.

Content is an important factor here as well, as viewers came to your website or blog because of your promotional content in the first place. However, the trick is to attract leads and not give out everything you have for free. But still, you will have to give some to get some. This is where a funnel campaign comes into play, which is a visitor’s journey from viewer to lead and customer in the end. Your website or blog must still offer enough reliable and informative content that will make visitors stay a bit longer. The point of a funnel is to generate enough interest, so the visitors will decide to subscribe to your blog or give you their e-mail address in order to get more offers and content. So technically speaking, you have to tease them with good content. It’s better to ask for less and receive more.

For instance, asking for their e-mail will generate more leads than asking for their name, last name and e-mail together. Once you have people in a database, you have your leads and you must nurture them through promotions, e-mail newsletters and additional content to convert them to customers. This is a long and demanding process. Many startups start to run low on finances before they start turning profits from lead generation. In such cases one option is to turn to loan companies such as Bad Credit Loans for a financial stimulus that will help your business survive until it has stable revenue.

3-Find the best way to approach your target audience

Your message and your content are specifically designed for the target audience in hopes of capturing their attention. Furthermore, your target audience has the highest rate of potential leads and customers. That’s why it is very important to approach them the best way.

There are messages tailored to a wide variety of people that serve the purpose of getting their attention, but there are also messages designed for your target audience. These two messages are not and shouldn’t be the same. It’s important to remember that there is a need for a special kind of relationship with your target audience, because one of the best lead generators are word-of-mouth recommendations by followers and influencers.

Maintaining a good relationship with your target audience will help you locate influencers and leverage them to spread the news about you faster than any marketing campaign or promotion you may think of. As a matter of fact, influencers are an effective marketing campaign in their own way. Word-of-mouth promotion is one of the most effective ways of lead generation, but you will have to bond with your audience first in order to make that method produce the best results.

Lead generation is in fact a long and difficult process, but all the effort you put into this endeavor is well worth it. Make sure you don’t forget to nurture your leads once they start swarming your website or blog, because nurturing leads is the only way to convert them to customers.

_________

Raul Harman’s is a IT consultant and a writer who has a lot of experience about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. IoT and the world of mobile devices have been his focus in the previous years. Raul is a passionate runner and adventure seeker. Every spare moment he loves to spend in nature. He is a regular contributor on Technivorz and BizzmarkBlog.