What is Digital Lead Investing?

Introduction: 

No matter the business type, scale, demography, or sector, one thing that unites all commercial ventures is their need to generate more leads. Since the advent of industrialization in the 1700s, the need to sell products, goods, and services became apparent. Consequently, globalization in the early 1900s only meant a broader market and more prospects to sell to. A century later, generating new customers or LEADS has become an entire industry on its own.

Today, lead generation is the most competitive market space out there. And the shape this industry has taken today is miles apart from what it used to be. And while traditional lead-generation methods may have ruled the industry from the 1950s to 1990s, the introduction of the Internet took lead-generation to a new level. As of 2022, Digital Lead Investing is the prime mover and will be so for a long time to come.  

Today, over 68% of businesses are struggling with lead generation (source: CSO Insights) mainly because either they are still using traditional methods of generating leads (which are outdated) or do not have a clear workflow for their digital strategy. This article will help you navigate the ins & outs of Digital Lead Investing and how to get started on it.  

What is Digital Lead Investing? 

Digital Lead Investing is the process of leveraging various online channels like social media, Pay-Per-Click Ads, Search Engine Optimization, and Content Marketing to generate leads. Digital Lead Investing relies on internet-based channels to reach out to prospective target audiences and gives your brand/business unprecedented visibility. With Web 3.0, digital channels have gained immense popularity and lead generation tactics are not exempted from this.  

Why leverage Digital Lead Investing? 

Digital channels can help to reach out to a larger audience in less time and budget. When you consider the traditional approaches, they are time-consuming, expense-intensive, and not specific. Be it a door-to-door visit, a newspaper print, or even a TV commercial ad, these traditional approaches do not cater to the specific audience. Also, it is difficult to track in real time. With digital lead investing, you not only solve these problems but also add a host of other conveniences. It is an easy decision because you, as a business owner, should be investing in digital strategies for your lead generation workflow.  

Benefits of Digital Lead Investing: 

Wide Visibility: The billboard or newspaper ads are mostly local. Whereas a social media post can be viewed across countries within minutes.  

Less Time Consuming: Creating print ads is time intensive. Once you conceptualize your print ad, you need to get it printed, and then distribution is a headache. With online channels, you can create collaterals within minutes and share globally with a single tap of a button. You can also save time on cold callings and unqualified leads.  

Save Cost Leakages: Digital platforms are cheaper. Creating social media posts is free of cost. SEO is an organic method that is again does not cost a penny. And as far as PPC is concerned, by carefully selecting competitive keywords, you can put up an ad at 1/4th of the price of a TV commercial ad.  

Real-time Tracking: Digital platforms come with an in-built performance analyzer that gives impeccable insight into your consumer’s behavior in real time. This enables marketers to take instant decisions to optimize the campaigns and tailor them to the need of the audience. This also means you can scale up or down your lead generation tactics as and when required.  

Automation: With digital channels, you can automate certain aspects of your lead generation methodology. This allows business owners to concentrate on other areas that need more attention.  

Insights: Digital platforms let you tap into consumer behavior in detail which was cumbersome before. Understanding the mindset of the audience has always been a pain point and with digital channels, one can access everything they want to know about their audience.  

Exponential Growth: Because digital lead investing saves time, effort, and money, businesses can grow very rapidly.  

Audience Specific: Digital channels offer laser-specific campaigns to reach out to the audience you want. Because of this, the conversion ratios are high for Digital Lead Investing.  

What channels are available for Digital Lead Investing? 

Digital Lead Investing relies on 4 channels: 

1. Social Media: While there are numerous social media platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are 3 of the most used channels to implement lead-generation tactics. Half of the world’s population is on these channels and the visibility these channels provide is second to none. Also, these channels are a perfect way to increase customer engagement and interaction. And with 66% of companies generating leads through social media by spending an average of 6 hours on social media per week, the importance of social media cannot be dumbed down. (Source: Social Media Examiner) Just make sure to bifurcate functionality from the clutter.  
2. SEO (Blogs & Websites): By implementing proper SEO techniques, you can rank your website higher. Every time, a prospect uses the specified keyword to search on the engines, SEO will enable your website to pop up at the top. And by curating blogs with relevant and captivating topics, businesses can make their websites informative and beneficial for their prospects, thereby, driving more sales. All these without splurging a dime.  
3. Pay-Per-Click Ads (Google Ads): A paid method of digital advertisement, 45% of clicks go to the top three PPC ads with 65% of all high-intent searches getting clicked upon by online visitors.  
4. Content Marketing: The above three channels are part of it, but content marketing is a broader term. This includes planning platform-specific content, distribution, review, and analysis. Content Marketing has improved lead generation both in terms of quantity and quality by 74%. (Source: Curata, 2017) 

How to build a successful Digital Lead Investing strategy? 

Because digital channels are getting competitive by the minute, it is important to build a strategy to navigate your way through the Digital Lead Investing process. Here are 5 proven steps to help you implement a sound Digital Lead Investing strategy.  

1. Start by defining your goals: Establish what you as a business owner want to achieve. This will help you curate the next steps accordingly. There can be a myriad of things you want to achieve. It could be to book an appointment, set up a call, or subscribe to a newsletter or you just might want to redirect the traffic from the landing page to the main website. Accordingly, you need to curate the next steps. Make sure your goals are achievable and specific. 
2. Delineate a budget: This is important as you might want to allocate a set amount of money for each channel. Without this, you cannot measure your ROI. 
3. Learn about your audience: The more you know about your audience, the more you will be able to tailor your messaging that suits them. Learn about their choices and preferences like on which platform they interact the most. All of these will help you with higher conversion rates. 
4. Identify appropriate channels: Each platform has its own tone of messaging. What works for LinkedIn might not work for Instagram. Finding the right messaging for the right platform can make an enormous difference. 
5. Add value to channels: Make sure not to just sell your products but also to add value. To harness the full potential of the digital channels, it is important we show benefits to our prospects. And because digital platforms are flooded with the content of all types, we must not only be unique but useful as well.  

Myths Vs Reality

Having established the benefits and the strategy for optimizing your Digital Lead Investing process, it is time to know some of the minutes. And because there is a giga-load of information available on the internet, it is imperative that we sift through these and differentiate the myths from the reality.  

1. Do not rely on a single channel: There is a common misunderstanding when it comes to lead generation that the only social media you need to leverage is LinkedIn. Always take an omnichannel approach and make your messaging consistent by cross-promoting across various channels. Believe it or not, Facebook remains a favorite social media platform for lead generation. 
2. There is nothing called Instant Gratification: Because of the competitive nature of this space, marketers are inclined to think that their marketing efforts will fetch instantaneous results. As with all good things, Digital Lead Investing takes time. Patience is key. Set up a time frame of 4-6 months and be consistent. 
3. Go for 100% automation: Contrary to popular belief, you can automate your lead generation process from end to end. Schedule in advance and aim to deliver value at every step and you are bound to experience success.
4. The only sales funnel you need is that of Inbound Leads: You do not need to spend time and resources on outreach programs given you put enough upfront investment into automating the lead generation funnel.  

Traditional Lead Generation Vs Digital Lead Investing 

Traditional Lead Generation is also called push marketing where you push your products/services to the prospects. While this was dominant from the mid-50s to the early 90s, with the advent of the internet, this is no longer true. Digital platforms have brought forth a barrage of content where now the audience does not want to be pushed for a purchase. Digital lead Investing is called Pull Marketing, whereby showing values you attract your prospects to make the purchase.  

A sound lead generation strategy involves carefully balanced aspects of both forms.

 Conclusion 

Digital Lead Investing when executed correctly can help your business grow exponentially, help you target more sales-qualified leads, boost your ROI, and create a presence that can last forever. If you are not sure how to get started on it, Valasys Media can assist you with the same.

We are an award-winning, full-service, tech-empowered, and data-driven B2B Lead generation company with years of experience and a client-profile that is spread across the globe. Interested to learn more? Contact us for more details on how to best implement Digital Lead Investing for your business.