Future Of Lead Generation: Must-Know Marketing Trends

1.38 billion! That is the number of Google search results generated just for ‘lead generation’. Allow that to sink in for a while – 1,380,000,000. With billions of results generated in less than a second for a single search, how then do you know where to start picking out the best informational diamond among the mountain of data?

Fear not, for we are here to guide you through the knowledge of this crucial marketing practice and how you and your business can use it to effectively and efficiently generate more potential leads to convert to regular and loyal consumers.

So, what is a lead? A lead refers to an interested company or an individual looking to purchase your services or product. Leads with prior knowledge about your business and who display a certain level of interest are called warm or acquired leads. In contrast, leads that do not have any prior knowledge about your business are called cold or sourced leads.

Lead generation marketing is a marketing strategy process that focuses on attracting potential leads to your business and implementing certain practices and methods to nurture their interest. The end goal of lead generation marketing is to convert the potential leads into loyal and regular consumers.

So here are some of the best lead generation strategies you should be aware of that might help you achieve the boost in conversion rate your business has been searching for this year.

Trend #1: AI-based Conversational Marketing

The implementation of chatbots for conversational marketing has been increasing. Chatbots are AI that can be programmed for customer interaction. Consumers appreciate the quick response to their queries, something that can be quite hard should businesses rely on a physical workforce to respond. Chatbots can be programmed to provide automated responses to greet and guide leads in actual-world time. This is crucial according to a lead response research conducted in 2018 that found that consumers expect businesses to respond to their queries within five minutes. Yet only 7% of companies reply within that time frame.

Chatbots are an ideal method to help collect lead data such as personal contact information, style preferences, feedback, and any other beneficial information. All this information provided during the engagement with the chatbot can be stored for future lead scoring. When setting up AI-based conversational marketing strategies, do take note to ensure automation in a thoughtful manner. Chatbots have often gained notoriety for spamming page visitors with an annoying amount of notifications as soon as they visit the page – something that you might want to avoid.  

Trend #2: Voice Search or Conversational Marketing

Smart home devices such as Amazon, Google Assistant, and Alexa have seen a rising trend over the years as people are using them to automate certain aspects of their homes. Voice search is currently one of the leading search methods, and businesses should start to consider optimising their web pages and content for it. 

To ensure that more lead is generated, you need to tweak your content to become more conversational. The key focus is on long-tail keywords. This is important for conversational marketing because it relates closely to real-life speech patterns. So instead of just spewing strings of keywords like “best vacuum cleaner”, prospective leads are more likely to pose queries like “Google, what vacuum are cleaner best suits for cleaning homes?” 

Trend #3: Video Content Marketing

These days, more consumers prefer getting information through video content to reading. Hence, your business is more likely to retain, impress, engage, and convert leads through video content marketing.

Video content marketing can come in the form of demonstrations, webinars, live streams, webcasts, video hosting platforms, short informational videos, and social media.

Trend #4: Influencer Marketing

Influencers and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) marketing are a great way to generate leads. These groups of individuals could range from celebrities to online influencers or key professionals. The critical point of influencer marketing is to partner with the right influencer with the same values your brand believes in.

Having high influencing individuals promoting and vouching for your product or service can significantly boost lead generation, especially when they have a large following of people like your target audience. It is vital that they link back to or mention your business page. In turn, your website must feature their testimonial so potential leads can see their endorsement. This method of lead generation marketing is particularly beneficial and can go a long way if done right. 

Trend #5: Facebook Ad Marketing

Facebook ads are a must-have and must-do social media marketing strategy in any marketing campaign. Furthermore, it is also an excellent method to generate qualified leads for your business. Potential leads can quickly view the customised ad, and a form with all their pre-filled Facebook information details will be generated. All they need to do is to agree to share the information with your business in exchange for the information they are looking for. 

From there, the information can be synced with your current Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and future page placement and targeted opportunities can be generated quickly for the individual.

Final thoughts

Lead conversion and meaningful content creation are often the two things that businesses and marketers have to overcome. While the five lead generation marketing trends that we recommend are just some of the strategies your business should consider, it is good to keep in mind that strategies for lead generation are constantly evolving. The key thing to note for all businesses is always to innovate, regularly update their resources to keep up with time and ensure that you thoughtfully optimise the business experience to stay ahead of the game.

If you are looking to up your game in lead generation, get our digital marketing agency to help! As a well-established SEO agency in Singapore, we offer a wide range of lead generation marketing strategies and services, including those mentioned above. For more information on what we can provide for your business’s marketing campaign needs, contact us at +65 6208 8111!