Filling the Funnel: Why Focusing on Lead Gen Isn’t Enough

Quality Content Marketing Paves the Way in the Buyer’s Journey

Spend even five minutes in the B2C or B2B world, and you’ll hear about the concept of the marketing and sales funnel. Lead gen is toward the bottom of that funnel, after your business has attracted visitors, and before creating a lifelong customer through engagement and positive brand experiences.

simple illustration of the sales funnel, showing from top to bottom purpose, reach, act, convert, engageEvery business owner wants to convert leads to customers, so it makes sense that maximizing the number of possible leads would give you the biggest possibility of converting at least some of them.

But the path your business takes to get there is what’s most crucial. In short, it’s not enough to prioritize what you’ll do when you receive a lead; business owners must dedicate time, thought, and energy into the actions that attract the leads, especially content marketing.

A digital marketing agency like iFocus Marketing can help you layer marketing tactics designed to work cohesively to build your business and generate qualified leads.

Prepare to Engage Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Before you can generate leads or give your potential customers your white-glove treatment, you have to know your business and be able to define it. Clarify the message you want to send to potential buyers through your words and visual standards. You’ll then need to update your website, social media accounts, and any other public presence to align with your brand. 

Compare this new messaging to what your clients are looking for. Research keywords, and review the data from your current marketing efforts so you can identify your next steps. Get used to interpreting marketing data; you’ll need to do it a lot. Our digital marketing company near Kansas City can help you with these analyses and marketing strategy development.

Build Awareness with SEO and Google Ads

Put your keyword research to good use and ensure the words and long-tail phrases people are using to find your business and related services are the ones built into your website body copy, metadata, and URL structures.

User experience (UX) on your website is important, too; Google’s web crawlers take note. Remember that search engine optimization is a long-game, so you won’t see immediate results.

Promote sales, specials, and your business’s general existence via Google Ads, using a pre-set budget with messaging targeted straight to your demographic. PPC and Search ads are a short-game that get your business in front of your audience quickly.

a busy digital illustration showing all the different components that contribute to driving consumers from the top of the marketing funnel to the bottom

Create Interest with Content

Potential clients devour engaging content, with 47 percent of buyers viewing three to five pieces of content before reaching out to a sales rep or considering ordering your product, according to a Demand Gen Report survey. The same survey showed that 96 percent of B2B buyers want content from industry thought leaders.

By creating relevant and unique content, you position your business in a role of expert and authority on your industry, ultimately building the trust of your potential customers.

What is considered “marketing content”? It’s essentially anything you’re putting out into the world, but especially blogs, social media posts, and your website.

Blog content should utilize that keyword research you completed when you were strategizing your next steps in filling the sales funnel, and your social media posts should stir conversation. Simply posting isn’t enough; your audience is looking for meaningful and valuable information and interaction. Leave the sales pitches to paid ads and PPC, never in organic social posts.

Make Lead Generation Easy

Your business offerings will often speak for themselves, so once you’ve gotten the lead, converting it is pretty painless.

But generating the lead relies on your potential client to do some work. You want to make that as easy as possible for them, so they don’t balk at the amount of time it will take to reach out.

Your website, social media ads, and PPC ads should make it clear what someone should do when they’re interested in learning more about your product or service. Simple and concise website forms to capture contact information and click-to-call interfaces to auto-dial your phone number are two methods that are easy to add to an existing website.

Work with Google Ads Specialists and Digital Marketing Experts in Overland Park, KS

iFocus Marketing serves a variety of clients in a range of industries across the United States, and our proven digital marketing techniques and customized, strategic approach to building your business have brought us where we are today.

We work with dozens of clients just like you, who came to us looking to reach their business goals using the latest digital marketing tactics, and collaborate with them to create a plan that supports and drives lead generation.

At iFocus, we know your budget is best spent on marketing channels that your potential clients are already using and that you can acquire data from to ensure you see the greatest ROI. Our digital marketing company near Kansas City can help you with these analyses and marketing strategy development.

Fill your sales funnel with qualified leads and dedicated clients with guidance from iFocus Marketing. Contact us for a free marketing strategy proposal.

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