Lead Generation
Marketing to Entice Consumers
Companies who are investing only in bottom-of-funnel lead generation marketing tactics are seeing their lead generation dry up. It's important to ensure touch points with customers at every step of the sales funnel, from the general awareness stage right through to nurturing a customer with high purchase intent. Customers may land on your page through an online ad or a search, but if your competitors have better top-of-funnel awareness you could lose the lead.
Bottom-of-Funnel Marketing
With the invention of the internet soon came online advertising and search engine marketing (SEM). These are referred to as bottom-of-funnel lead generation tactics because targeting allows them to be shown to customers late in the lead generation process when their purchase intent is high. These tactics were incredibly high-return for years, because a perfect storm was occurring. First of all, there were very few competitors who were playing in this landscape because it was new and not a lot of people had any idea how to do it, let alone do it well. Second, the people who were investing had large enough budgets to do online advertising on a large scale. Third, people were not yet feeling inundated by advertising so they were not as quick to divert their attention.
Now, the Search and Display ad game is a tight race, and who crosses the finish line first really comes down to spend and strategy. With all the competition in the space, bottom-of-funnel has become an expensive place to play the lead generation game. The return on investment (ROI) has dropped significantly. These tactics are still significant to a high-conversion marketing strategy, but they must be used as part of a larger strategy, not be the strategy.
Building Trust
A sale doesn’t begin when a customer is in your store or on your website debating a purchase, it begins much sooner than that. There’s a popular marketing theory called the rule of seven which states that a consumer needs to see and hear messages from or about your brand seven times in order to have it mean something to them. These touch points could be a message on a billboard, driving past your location’s signage, a direct mail marketing piece, a post their friend liked on social media, and maybe a Google Search ad when they were looking for a product or service in the same vein as yours. The more high-quality messages a consumer sees from your brand, the more they will find you reputable. The sales game is all about trust, and it takes time to earn it.
In the interest of lead generation, it’s best to ensure you are reaching your customer with effective messaging in a variety of places so that when the time comes to pick a product or service, they’re primed to make you their top choice.
“”With all the competition in the space, bottom-of-funnel has become an expensive place to play and the return on investment (ROI) has dropped significantly. These tactics are still significant to a high-conversion marketing strategy, but they must be used as part of a larger strategy, not be the strategy.
