Here's a simple fact: You can't convert traffic you don't have. This means you need leads to make sales and to get leads you need to figure out how to attract prospects.

At Screaming Garlic our marketing services focus on using inbound lead generation strategies. Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into leads. And the inbound method works because it's less intrusive.

Inbound enables prospects to form an organic interest in your business.  It's these prospects that are initiating the relationship with you -- versus you, the business, initiating the relationship with them. This makes it easier and more natural for them to want to buy from you somewhere down the line.

How To Generate Leads

There are 5 essential components that make up inbound lead generation:

1. Visitor: 

A visitor has discovered your business through one of your marketing channels, whether that’s your website, blog, or social media page. On any of these channels, you’ll need to have a ...

2. Call-to-Action (CTA): 

A call-to-action or CTA is an image, button, or message that calls website visitors to take some sort of action. When it comes to lead generation, this action is to navigate to a ...

3. Landing Page: 

A landing page is a web page a visitor lands on for a distinct purpose. While a landing page can be used for various reasons, one of its most frequent uses is to capture leads through ...

4. Forms: 

Forms are typically hosted on landing pages, although they can technically be embedded anywhere on your site. They consist of a series of fields (like in our example above) that collect information in exchange for an ...

5. Offer: 

An offer is the content or something of value that's being "offered" on the landing page. The offer must have enough value to a visitor to merit providing their personal information in exchange for access to it.

Once you put all these elements together, you can use your various promotional channels to link and drive traffic to the landing page so you can start generating leads. Here are some example pathways for lead generation:

 Seems Like a Lot of Work ... Aren't There Shortcuts?

Tempatations abound. The urgency to fill a sales funnel can make marketers do strange things. Buying leads sure seems like a worthwhile shortcut, doesn't it? Buying sale leads, as opposed to generating them organically, is much easier and takes far less time and effort, despite being more expensive. So why shouldn't you just buy leads?

First and foremost, any leads you've purchased don't actually know you. Typically, they've "opted in" at some other site when signing up for something, and didn't actually opt in to receiving anything from your company. The messages you send them are therefore unwanted messages, and sending unwanted messages is intrusive, not inviting. 

If they never opted in to receive messages from you specifically, then there's a high likelihood they could flag your messages as spam. This is quite dangerous for you. Not only does this train their inbox to show only emails they want to see, but it indicates to their email provider which emails to filter out. Once enough people click flag your messages as spam, you go on a "blacklist," which is then shared with other email providers. Once you get on the blacklist, it’s really, really hard to get back off of it. In addition, your email deliverability and IP reputation will likely be harmed.

It's always, always, always better to generate leads organically rather than buy them. 

Want more information on building an opt-in mail list? Contact us below: