Just because the next two months are going to be a little different, it doesn’t mean that you should down tools and not think about your lead generation strategy in the lead up to Christmas. In fact, this could be the best time to capture leads as so many people are looking for ways to fill their time, especially with the outside world offering little by the way of entertainment.
This doesn’t mean that leads are waiting around to hand their details over to just anyone. People in all industries are looking to thought leaders who provide genuine help and support through content which is honest and easy to digest. To help you keep up your marketing efforts over December, we’ve got 7 great ideas you can use to ensure you go into 2021 with a host of leads hotter than a mug of mulled wine – and stay sane in the process.
1. Host a thought-leading webinar
No one should know the industry you work in like your business, and that’s why potential leads should be looking to you to impart wisdom which will ultimately help them become a success. Webinars are a great way to showcase your knowledge to multiple people in an interactive way, whilst also giving you options post-webinar to repurpose content to capture more leads.
First of all, you need to define a topic of conversation for your webinar which will make people want to spend their time with you – usually an hour – in exchange for their details. A good place to start is a challenge, pain point or issue currently affecting your target audience’s industry.
Once you have a topic settled, look to people in the industry who are already solving these issues who you could partner with for the webinar. They could even be current clients who are not only successful in their field and therefore well known by potential leads, but they’ll also be willing to sing your praises to your target audience.
Another way to increase the amount of leads you capture as sign-ups for your webinar is to offer them something exclusive for joining. This could be a piece of content which is only given to attendees and not widely available on your website and could even be co-authored by the guests you have on your webinar. The benefit of this is that after a fair amount of time has passed, you can publish this content on your site for everyone else.
Be sure to record your webinar as attendees nearly always ask for the recording. You can also use the recording as a way to capture leads once your webinar has finished. We recommend creating a blog post with highlight clips of the webinar to show people its value and encourage them to download the full recording by passing on their details. You could even use this email content as part of your cold prospecting strategy – see more about our B2B email data here.
2. Produce an industry-specific report
People want to know what’s happening in their industry to see how they compare. Research reports allow them to get a deeper insight without having to put in the groundwork themselves. And when you know you’re getting an insightful piece of content, potential leads are much more likely to pass on their details in exchange for that knowledge.
The first thing to do is find an angle which is not being widely covered in your target industry. For example, everyone is talking about working from home and a host of companies have already covered this area well. What’s unique to the proposition you’re providing? Can you find a way to survey people and have your unique proposition solve the current challenges in your industry? You can choose to do this yourself and run a survey, but there are many companies who can think of unique angles for you and run surveys on your behalf.
Once you have the results of the survey, you need to analyse them and package them in a way which is digestible for your potential leads. The easiest way to do this is to write them up into PDF format which can be downloaded from your website or emails. Think of a strong headline to name your report with and have an eye-catching front cover which will entice people in.
The benefit of a report can be two-fold. First, you’ll support your lead generation efforts by creating a piece of content which is of genuine use to your potential leads. Second, your findings can be sent out to publications within your industry to generate PR and backlinks to your site. This second stream of promotion has the added benefit of bringing in further leads which may not have seen the initial promotion of your report.
3. Run a social media competition
Traditionally, sending a gift to your potential leads place of work was seen as an easy way to curry favour with them. However, many people are currently working from home. Getting GDPR-compliant home addresses for leads is close to impossible and sending gift packages to an empty desk is a waste of your time and budget. We suggest investing the budget you do have into a social media competition which you could also cross promote via email so you are reaching people on all angles.
One plus of running a social media competition is that you can combine the money you would have spent sending multiple packages to leads into, say, three prizes of greater worth. For example, instead of 200 company branded diaries for 2021, you could get three Christmas hampers from Fortnum & Masons. Much more enticing than a notebook.
With a big prize for your competition, you should see much more involvement. Now it just depends how you want to run it. For B2B lead capturing, you don’t want to run a standard ‘follow us and tag a friend’ competition as this only grows your social media presence. Instead, think of an angle where people may want to share their story or a piece of advice which you’ll feature in a piece of content – and everyone who enters will be placed into a prize draw for those Fortnum & Mason gift baskets.
The benefit of this style of competition is that your potential leads share the details alongside a story which you can then repurpose into a piece of content to capture more leads. The leads benefit from the possibility of winning and also from being featured in your content – gaining backlinks to their site.
All you need to do is find a compelling reason for people to share their story/advice. Examples could include ‘20 {industry} heroes from 2020’, ‘End of year advice from experts in {industry}’, ‘What people in {industry} are predicting for next year’. You’ll be surprised the amount of people willing to share their stories and advice, especially when there’s a prize to be won.
4. Cleanse your current datasets
While the first three tips will help you actively collect leads into next year, it’s a good idea to use this quieter time of the year to ensure the data you have is clean and usable. Doing this now will give you a solid dataset to depend on and allow you to focus on the potential uncertainty of 2021.
And that’s one of the main issues facing marketing campaigns right now, we’ve never been less able to fully predict what’s going to happen. This means we can spend all of our time and resources planning a specific campaign, only for government legislation to change and throw our ideas into a different direction. Think how much more difficult this would be to manage if your marketing data is also in disarray. 2021 will start to feel like you’re herding sheep with headless chickens.
To help in this area, we’ve created a downloadable ebook which will help you clean up your data ahead of the New Year. Inside you’ll see how dirty data negatively affects your business, how to implement data cleansing and the ongoing benefits of having a clean database.
5. Brush up on some professional development
If you find that December is a quieter month for you, you could use that time to learn new skills which will help you achieve your professional goals in 2021. Whilst we’re sure you’re a bit of an expert in your field, rapid new developments in every industry are making the need to upskill more important than ever.
In the same way that keeping your data clean, taking the time to develop your professional skills gives you a strong base to work from. Good professional development should grow your confidence in what you’re already doing as well as providing new ways to look at problems you may be facing. And let’s be honest, the more you learn about what does and doesn’t work, the more of a concentrated effort you can put into capturing leads for your business.
Taking part in training courses – even those online – can also lead to you making new connections and widening your professional network. When this happens, you’ll have more people to share knowledge with for everyone’s continued success. It also gives you someone outside of your friends and family who can truly understand where you’re coming from if you need to vent.
6. Plan your strategy
Sometimes we are so busy being pulled from pillar to post that it is hard to find the time to actually sit down and strategize our sales and marketing plans in depth.
Why not use the time to think about your data sets, your content, your messaging and to set up and plan your email workflows ahead of time?
Our buy online tool – Marketscan Online – can be used to research contacts and industries. We have also recently launched our brand-new email broadcasting system, Marketscan Edge, which allows you to plan and schedule in advance email workflows and automations.
It has an easy to use drag and drop system, so you don’t need to be a skilled developer to set up powerful lead generation email campaigns. Doing the planning now means that you can go into Christmas knowing that your marketing strategy is ready to go as soon as you return to work in January.
7. Get some much deserved ‘me’ time
Despite the obvious difference in how we’ll be able to unwind this December – whether that’s getting away or toasting the year at your office Christmas party – it doesn’t mean you won’t still be able to take some time for yourself at the end of the year. It’s been a wild one after all and we could all do with a little time to reflect on what we’ve achieved in the chaos.
It’s also highly likely to be just as eventful in 2021 so taking the time to rest while things are quieter will give you the energy you need to ramp up lead generation in the new year. Even if you’ll be at home, take a week or two off, allow yourself some time to focus on something other than capturing leads, and connect with friends and family – even let yourself get bored!
It’s in those moments of boredom that your subconscious will keep working away and the spark of an idea might come to you when you’re not looking for it. Make sure you write these ideas down somewhere, so you don’t forget them when getting back to work after Christmas.
We’ve got a Christmas surprise coming your way…
Keep your eyes peeled across the Marketscan channels in the coming month as we’ve got a big surprise which you won’t want to miss!
