The year 2020 has been a defining year for many businesses. It revealed what kind of foundation and values that make a business weather any kind of storm or make it last.
Notably, it has also created a huge business shift. In order to adapt and thrive in the new normal, businesses have to create new strategies, especially when it comes to generating leads. Otherwise, it will be like slowly cutting your lifeline.
What Lead Generation Will Look Like in 2021
Some strategies have worked well during the pandemic while some didn’t. Thus, it will be a combination of old and new strategies.
So, how do you go about with your lead gen in the coming year? Read on and find out how to thrive and grow in 2021.
Focus on your digital and remote audience
In 2018, a Tech Pro Research survey had shown that 70 percent of businesses are investing in digitalization. This will take even more precedence since the new normal encourages social distancing and other rules to ensure safety. This means that you should focus more on your digital and remote audience rather than on offline networking when getting new business leads.
Get savvier on social media
According to Statista, there are 3.96 billion active social media users in the world, and 3.91 billion of them use their mobile devices. Furthermore, a research conducted by Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College revealed that 75 percent of B2B buyers are influenced by what they see on social media. Being able to capture a portion of that audience can do great wonders to your sales and revenue.
Boost your social media engagement by partnering with influencers and affiliate marketers in your marketing campaigns. Make sure that your audience can understand who you are and what you represent. Lastly, capitalize on those engagements you make by directing your audience back to your website.
Recognize the changing SEO landscape
There are two big changes happening in the SEO landscape – Position Zero and voice searches.
How significant are these changes and how do they affect your lead gen campaigns?
According to Ahrefs, 54.68 percent of clicks from Google came from Position Zero or otherwise known as Featured Snippets. In case you don’t know yet, Featured Snippets are those search results that answer your questions after you type your search keywords.
If you look at the screenshot below, you’ll see that they dominate the whole screen of your PC and you actually have to scroll down to check the other search results.
Another big change is the increasing dominance of voice searches. According to Adobe, 48 percent of mobile users are using their voice assistants at least daily. Furthermore, more than 20 percent of those voice searches are triggered by only 25 keywords.
Optimize your website for better conversion
The new normal has pushed people to stay longer in their homes. That means consumers will do most of their shopping online in the comfort of their homes. That also means that your website will now become the equivalent of your physical store. It also has the power to become one of your biggest lead gen tools — that is if you do it right.
The good news — it is possible by combining data analytics and conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy.
With data analytics, you will be able to know who your audience is including what they like and the reason why they stay. It will also tell you the web pages and channels that perform the best. With the same analytics, you can then create a CRO strategy that will lead your visitors to convert
Automate your customer engagement
According to Invespcro, 80 percent of businesses that adopted marketing automation saw an increase in their leads, and 77 percent had higher conversions than before.
The logic is simple — when you automate, you make it easier for your visitors, the more pleasant the experience, the higher the likelihood of conversion.
Therefore, you have to make sure to eliminate any situation where they have to input their information manually. Instead, create an experience that is faster and less annoying for your visitors.
Enhance the experience even more by implementing a real-time response strategy. According to LiveChat, it takes 51 seconds for a customer to abandon the queue before they can talk to someone. Thus, they advised us to make the wait shorter to prevent customers from leaving.
Make your content more interactive
The Content Marketing Institute said that 75 percent of marketers agree that non-gated interactive content becomes a higher form of lead nurturing because it provides higher customer engagement and gives them a taste of what the brand is. So if you haven’t tried it yet, consider creating interactive content if you want to up your lead generation strategy.
It’s Not Too Late
There’s no doubt that a lot of changes have happened in 2020. Even the competition got even steeper. Thus, there’s no other way but to improve your lead gen game plan if you want to get a bigger share.
Use the tips and statistics we provided above as a guide in creating your lead generation strategy for 2021 or even for the last quarter of 2020. You can also reach out to us and see what Callbox can do to improve your strategy and acquire better and high-quality leads.
