Lead Generation: Why B2B businesses are hooked
Whereas lead generation can mean different things to different people, the aim of it is always the same. It is about putting effective measures in place for cultivating contact information about potential customers – also known as prospects - that can then be used for commercial gain.
That information can just be an email address, for instance, or a phone number. It might come from your website, a salesperson, a direct mail piece or a competition. You may receive that lead through email, on the phone or by post.
Whatever type of information your business deems valuable, as a B2B pro, you know that you want as much of it as possible.
In this guide, we’ll look at how a business can create a system for generating leads using digital marketing tools by focusing on Google Responsive Text Advertising Pay Per Click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO).
PPC and seo explained
It’s important to note that PPC takes many forms including social media PPC and display advertising PPC. However, in this guide we are only referring to PPC in terms of Google Ads Responsive Text Advertising. This is because when it comes to strategic digital marketing, this is the only type of PPC advertising that falls under the ‘search marketing’ umbrella. Other formats are aligned to more traditional forms of advertising and are not search engine orientated.
Despite differing in their implementation, SEO and PPC campaigns are applied with the same objectives in mind: To get what you do or sell in front of people who matter when they are using the internet. They are designed to get a webpage to rank highly in the search engines.
And for businesses with high-ranking webpages, the rewards can be big.
Benefits of a high-ranking website
A highly ranking website or webpage can increase website visits, sales and enquiries. It can also lead to higher footfall for bricks and mortar premises. Applied in the right way PPC and SEO tactics and tools have the potential to deliver lucrative business opportunities, which is why search marketing is such as potentially powerful tool for many businesses – large and small.
But not only that, compared to the rest of the tools in the promotional toolbox – publicity, direct mail, advertising and personal selling – search marketing has the potential to deliver a business a better quality of lead. Unlike other forms of promotion, search marketing can target customers who are already in the market for what you do or sell.
This has significant consequences.
Because, when it comes to defining ‘leads’ marketers commonly differentiate between marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs) – and the two are anything but equal.
We take a closer look at why in our blog ‘MQLs and SQLs and the difference between them’.