What Is Inbound Lead Generation and How To Use It?

Generating leads is the cornerstone of many businesses. You first need to generate leads so that they can then be converted into sales. Not all leads will become sales, so you need to ensure you have plenty of leads to follow up on if you want your business to be successful. Lead generation is generally something that is used by B2B businesses, rather than B2C companies that may focus on sales without generating leads. Inbound lead generation is one of the ways you can create leads for your business. It focuses on allowing customers to come to you, rather than the business initiating contact as with outbound lead generation. Understanding inbound lead generation and how to use it will help you to start bringing in more leads in a way that customers often prefer.

What Is Inbound Lead Generation?

Inbound lead generation uses content to bring in leads who are searching for a product or service that they need. It focuses on getting customers to come to you, rather than more intrusive outbound marketing. Inbound lead generation can be highly targeted so that only the most appropriate audience will see it. Outbound lead generation can be targeted to some extent, but it’s much more difficult to avoid showing your marketing efforts to people who aren’t interested in it.

When you use inbound lead generation techniques, you market your products or services to people at a time that’s suitable for them. Various types of content and techniques might be used to generate leads using inbound methods. For example, a landing page offering a free ebook download, blog articles, or a survey could all be used as inbound lead generation content.

You can split leads into marketing qualified leads (MQLs) or sales qualified leads (SQLs). An MQL is interested in your product but not yet ready to buy. Sending them more content can continue to move them in the right direction. An SQL is interested in making a purchase, and it’s time for your sales team to take over.

How to Use Inbound Lead Generation

There are many different strategies and techniques that you can use for inbound lead generation. You can make use of a number of different types of marketing and content to provide your audience with useful information. Here are a few of the strategies that you can use if you want to make the most of inbound lead generation.

Nurture Your Email List

Email marketing is extremely cost-effective and a great way to get your message to both potential customers and existing customers. The median ROI for email marketing is 122%, so it’s a great way to create leads for your business.

Focusing on building your email list is an excellent use of your time and money if you want to foster more leads. And a good way to grow your email list is to use a range of inbound marketing methods to get people to give you their email. Try using opt-in forms on your site to encourage people to sign up. You can offer content in return, such as a useful ebook or a series of educational emails

Grow a Blog

Blogging is a great way to improve your inbound lead generation. Running a blog on your website helps to improve SEO and it gives you a chance to consistently point out high-quality content. You can show that you know what you’re talking about while providing people with helpful content that answers their queries.

To start a blog that performs well, you need to understand your audience. You could just run a generic business blog, but what would you be offering that other blogs aren’t? Making your blog stand out and ensuring it gives your audience what they want can help you to improve your leads. A service like WebX360 blog writing can help you to manage your blog and ensure you’re regularly uploading quality content. It’s important to keep your blog content fresh.

Write a Book

Ebooks are effective pieces of content that you can use in multiple ways. You can offer an ebook for free to anyone who fills in your lead generation form. You could also sell your book online, whether it’s on your own site or through a site like Amazon. Even if you choose to make money from selling your book, reducing the price so it’s low or even free for a special offer period can be a great idea to create some interest in it.

An ebook does take a lot of effort to write, but you can use it as a lead generation tool using a number of methods. As well as selling or giving away the whole thing, you might use some of it as a free sample to get people interested in it. You could also repurpose the content contained in it, turning it into a series of blog posts or emails, or making some video or audio content based on what you’ve written.

Make a Podcast or Videos

Both podcasts and video content have proved to be hugely popular with all kinds of people. They both present excellent ways to engage your audience, talk informatively about various things, and be entertaining. Everybody seems to be starting a podcast these days, so you have to be careful about what you choose to do. There’s no point in starting a podcast that a hundred other people are doing. Before you do anything, make sure it’s right for your audience. Millennials, in particular, are big podcast listeners with more than a quarter of 25-34-year-olds listening to them, while Gen Z isn’t far behind. 16% of Americans aged 45-54 also listen to podcasts.

Video content is very engaging, and you can make different types of content to educate, inform and entertain your audience. YouTube is a popular platform for uploading your content, and it also makes it easy to share your videos on your own website or on other social media sites. Inbound lead generation helps to bring in leads by providing them with helpful content. Make sure you employ a variety of strategies to make it work for you.