Ever wonder why some brands seem to thrive online while others struggle to find their footing?

Perhaps the answer lies in their approach to online marketing.

When executed well, online marketing can provide powerful and efficient tools for brands to grow.

But if done poorly, it can do quite the opposite.

Here we’ll discuss how to generate more leads and sales through online marketing.

Invest In Lead Generation

To start, it’s important to understand the difference between lead generation and lead conversion. The former is simply the process of getting interested potential customers to click a link or button to learn more about a product or service.

The latter involves taking interested leads and turning them into paying customers.

Often, the line between the two can be blurred. For example, if you’re driving traffic to a lead generation page where they can make an inquiry, you’ve successfully converted that lead into a customer. Or if you’re delivering a webinar on SEO techniques and then follow up with a sales call, you’ve effectively lead gened and then converted a potential customer into a paying customer.

Based on this definition, if you’re struggling to generate leads, you might want to re-evaluate your approach. Instead of focusing solely on acquiring traffic, focus on turning that traffic into leads that you can convert into customers. This approach will help you identify the right leads and then drive them to action.

Create A Lead Magnet

Having a lead magnet on your website can prove to be quite the boon to your lead generation efforts. A lead magnet is simply a freebie that draws a potential customer in with the promise of additional benefits.

One popular and proven example of a lead magnet is a free download or a whitepaper. Other possibilities include a free consultation or a free trial offer.

These are often presented in the form of an eBook or a downloadable PDF. Some marketers consider white papers to be the bread and butter of their lead generation campaigns. Because they’re usually relatively high-quality and free, many brands choose to distribute them for outreach purposes.

The advantage of a lead magnet is that it draws a potential customer in with the promise of additional benefits. Once they’re on your site, you can follow up with a call to action that urges them to take the next step. In some cases, this step may involve purchasing a product or service, but it could also be as simple as signing up for a newsletter or subscribing to a blog.

Having a lead magnet on your site will also help with SEO. If Google can determine that you’ve created a free lead magnet, it may consider your website to be of higher quality than others.

Make SEO A Priority

SEO is a discipline that involves optimizing a website to appear higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

In theory, this makes it easier for consumers to find your product or service online. But how does SEO actually work?

SEO is not exactly “Search Engine Optimization”, as commonly referred to. It’s a discipline that involves taking into consideration a number of factors, including on-site and off-site optimization, content creation, link building, and more.

As a marketer, your first priority should be to understand what makes your product or service special. From there, you can develop a strategy to help grow your business.

Be Brave In Reaching Out

Often, the distinction between a marketing plan and a sales plan is blurred. To attract leads, you may want to establish a marketing plan to drive traffic to your website. From there, you can capture their interest with a call to action and guide them through the conversion process.

But once you’ve caught their attention, you need to be brave enough to follow up.

In order to generate more leads, you might want to consider using a tool like Hello Bar which allows you to capture emails at the click of a button. Alternatively, you could use a form with a single field—a simple “email address” field—which helps you connect with customers without invading their privacy.

Follow up with a few carefully chosen, relevant messages. Then, measure the effectiveness of your follow-up campaign with a quick Google search to see if users are indeed searching for your company or product name. Finally, track the conversion rate for all touchpoints, including your website, social media channels, and email marketing campaigns. With this data, you can identify patterns and then adjust your approach as needed.

Measure And Optimize Your Efforts

With every change you make, you experiment to see how things perform. If you notice that your conversion rate rises after you change something on your site, you can be sure that your tests were successful. And likewise, if you notice that it drops after a change, you can be certain that your experiment had unintended consequences.

With that in mind, it’s important to measure the success of your online marketing efforts. The first step is to set a lead conversion goal—that is, the percentage of leads that you want to convert into customers.

With that goal in mind, you can then track the performance of your website, social media, and email marketing campaigns. This data will prove useful for identifying what’s working and what needs to be changed. For example, if you notice that the number of leads you’re receiving is on the decline, you might want to consider lowering your conversion rate goal a little. Or if you notice that the majority of your leads are converting into customers, you can be sure that your strategy is on the right track.

To summarize, in order to generate more leads and sales, you need to consider a number of factors. First, you need to find the right audience — that is, the people or groups of people who will be most interested in your product or service.

Once you’ve found that audience, you need to use online marketing to attract their attention. From there, you can guide them through the conversion process with a call to action and additional offers. Finally, you need to measure and optimize your efforts.