So, you have your website up and running and have announced your presence in the digital world. You have noticed people coming and looking at the virtual window of your business; some come in to avail your services, a few just have a look and go out, and a few more just give a fleeting glance. This is when you realise that just having a website is not sufficient and you need to do something more to grow your business. The ‘more’ that you need to do is Lead Generation.
For your website traffic to grow you need to understand what is lead generation in digital marketing. A lead is a customer who is looking at your shop-window and the customer who has come in and gone without doing any business. Any person who has shown the slightest interest in your business is a lead.

What is lead generation?

It can be compared with enticing the customer standing at your shop-window with more information or offers to enter your shop and score definite business with them. In digital marketing terms, lead generation can be explained as cultivating interest in the customer to inquire and learn about your product/ service and convert them from potential customers to interested buyers.

How does lead generation help?

The ultimate goal of having a website is to grow your business. Lead generation helps to grow your business in the following ways:

• Generates traffic to your website
• Converts the visitors to leads
• Converts the leads to customers

The lead generation process involves various strategies. The strategies are not one size fits all. The strategies are devised based on the demands and needs of the business. A smart digital marketer will be able to come up with an effective lead generation process for you.

Lead generation strategies

Though businesses need tailor-made strategies for them to grow, there are a few strategies that form the base of every plan.

Search engine optimization-

SEO is one of the sure-shot methods of lead generation. It increases your website visibility on search engines. No one goes beyond the first page to look for websites. So, if your website is present on the first page, traffic increases. Thus, increasing the number of leads.

Pay per click advertising-

It is an inorganic way to attract customers to your website. In PPC advertising, you pay the search engine for every click on your website on the search engine page. It basically means you are paying the search engine to advertise your website and pay them according to the number of clicks you get.

Content marketing-

This is another effective lead generation strategy. Through content marketing, potential customers learn more about your business. The value of your product/ service is conveyed through content marketing. The information provided through various formats of content will build knowledge and interest in the customer about your product/service. Blogs, videos, infographics, and articles are some of the content marketing tools.

Social media-

With more than 50% of internet users having social media accounts, social media marketing has become a major lead generating strategy. Posting information relevant to your business on different social media platforms and linking them increases your visibility and credibility to great interest.

Apart from these four strategies, there are many more that can be used for lead generation for your business. The success of your plan will depend on how well you have figured out what is lead generation in digital marketing. If all this technicality is too much for you to take in, rely on a competent digital marketer or digital marketing firm to do the job for you.

Kolkata School of Digital Marketing is an advanced digital marketing training institute based in Kolkata. With our passion and love for digital marketing, we aim to create proficient digital marketers with in-depth knowledge about the various aspects of digital marketing. Our courses are designed keeping in mind the needs and developments of the ever-growing digital platform. Diploma in digital marketing, Pay per click, Google ads, Facebook ads, SEO course are the courses we provide at our institute.