Lead Generation For Dummies

Lead Generation For Dummies

Released March 2014
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118816172

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Book description

Learn how to get your message heard above the online noise

The buying process is greatly changed. With the Internet, the buyer is in charge. If your product is going to compete, you need to master 21st century lead generation, and this book shows you how. It's packed with effective strategies for inbound and outbound marketing tactics that will generate leads in today's market. You'll learn the basics of lead generation, inbound and outbound marketing, lead nurturing, ways to track ROI, and how to score leads to know when one is "hot". Follow the steps to create your own personalized lead generation plan and learn how to sidestep common pitfalls.

  • Lead generation involves a strategy for generating consumer interest and inquiry into your product as well as a process for nurturing those leads until each is ready to buy

  • Techniques include content marketing through websites, blogs, social media, and SEO as well as outbound marketing strategies such as e-mail, PPC ads, content syndication, direct mail, and events

  • This book explores the basics of lead generation, inbound and outbound marketing, lead nurturing, tracking ROI on campaigns, lead scoring techniques, and ways to avoid many common pitfalls

  • Provides steps you can follow to create your own personalized lead generation plan

    • Lead Generation For Dummies is the extra edge you need to compete in today's technologically enhanced marketplace.

    Table of contents

      1. Introduction
        1. About This Book
        2. Conventions Used in This Book
        3. Foolish Assumptions
        4. Icons Used in This Book
        5. How This Book Is Organized
          1. Part I: Getting Started with Lead Generation
          2. Part II: Connecting Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation
          3. Part III: Linking Outbound Marketing with Lead Generation
          4. Part IV: The Middle of the Funnel
          5. Part V: Measuring Your Lead Generation Efforts
          6. Part VI: The Part of Tens
        6. Beyond the Book
        7. Where to Go from Here
      2. Part I: Getting Started with Lead Generation
        1. Chapter 1: Beginning Your Lead Generation Journey
          1. Growing Your Business
            1. Finding more leads
            2. Enhancing prospect relationships
            3. Maximizing your spending
            4. Being more strategic
          2. Tying It All Together
            1. Inbound marketing
            2. Content marketing
            3. Website
            4. Blog
            5. Social media
            6. Search engine optimization
            7. Outbound marketing
            8. PPC (pay-per-click) advertising
            9. Content syndication
            10. Direct mail
            11. Event marketing
            12. Inside sales
            13. Email marketing
            14. Lead nurturing and lead scoring
        2. Chapter 2: Identifying Your Leads
          1. Defining Your Leads
            1. Assessing demographic fit
            2. Applying firmographic profiles
            3. Qualifying leads with BANT
          2. Defining Your Sales Funnel
            1. Understanding your funnel stages
            2. Early-stage buyers
            3. Mid-stage buyers
            4. Late-stage buyers
        3. Chapter 3: Setting Your Lead Generation Goals
          1. Defining Your Key Metrics
            1. Asking important questions
            2. Establishing your goals
          2. Crafting Your Road Map
            1. Setting up your plan
            2. Creating a timeline to hit objectives
          3. Building a Business Case
            1. Choosing your stakeholders
            2. Coming up with your list of needs
            3. Developing your presentation slide deck
          4. Aligning Your Sales and Marketing Teams
            1. Crafting a sales and marketing workshop
            2. Managing your service-level agreements
        4. Chapter 4: Choosing the Right Technology
          1. Defining Your Options
          2. Discovering Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
          3. Looking into Marketing Automation
          4. Exploring Email Service Providers (ESP)
          5. Investigating Social Media Tracking Tools
          6. Looking at Social Media Management Tools
          7. Discovering Website Tracking Tools
          8. Making the Right Choice
            1. Planning your resource investment
            2. Training your team
        5. Chapter 5: Building a Rock-Star Team
          1. Identifying Who You Need for Success
            1. Marketing programs manager
            2. Social media manager
            3. Content marketing manager
            4. Marketing operations manager
            5. Online marketing manager
            6. Creative design manager
            7. Event marketing manager
          2. Recognizing the Right Traits for Success
            1. Having a solid understanding of technology
            2. Possessing fantastic communication skills
            3. Owning analytics
          3. Looking at Recruiting Options
            1. Leveraging LinkedIn
            2. Contracting an outside recruiting firm
            3. Posting a job listing
      3. Part II: Connecting Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation
        1. Chapter 6: Generating Leads with Content Marketing
          1. Exploring Content
            1. Being a thought leader
            2. Leveraging promotional content
            3. Considering different forms of content
          2. Delving into Content Planning
            1. Developing buyer personas
            2. Mapping buying stages
            3. Working with a content grid
            4. Creating content arcs and themes
          3. Doing More with Less in Your Content Marketing
            1. Coming up with your big rock content pieces
            2. Slicing and dicing
            3. Repurposing
            4. Rewriting and redesigning
          4. Defining Content’s Relationship with Other Lead Generation Efforts
            1. Email
            2. Social media
            3. Website
            4. Blog
            5. Webinars and presentations
            6. Paid programs
        2. Chapter 7: Putting Your Best Foot Forward with Your Website
          1. Exploring Website Usability and Design
            1. Making your site scannable
            2. Implementing clear conversion paths
            3. Improving website readability
          2. Creating Calls-to-Action (CTAs) That Convert
            1. Working with CTA best practices
            2. Leveraging the home page CTA
            3. Including an obvious contact link
            4. Offering a chat option
          3. Developing Landing Pages That Work
            1. Sticking with short forms
            2. Designing for success
        3. Chapter 8: Humanizing Your Brand with a Blog
          1. Inspiring Readers with Your Blog Content
            1. Going from promotional content to thought leadership
            2. Making sure each post is visual
            3. Newsjacking
          2. Creating Clear Conversion Goals
            1. Placing your blog subscription forms
            2. Including related resources
          3. Leveraging Social Sharing
            1. Adding a Twitter Tweet/Share button
            2. Adding a Facebook Like button
            3. Adding a LinkedIn Share button
            4. Adding a Google +1 button
            5. Adding a Pinterest Pin It button
          4. Handling Commenting on Your Blog
          5. Identifying a Guest Blogging Network
            1. Creating your blog guidelines
            2. Deciding your guest blog cadence
          6. Creating an Internal Blogging Program
            1. Developing internal guidelines
            2. Evangelizing your program
            3. Crafting incentives for participation
        4. Chapter 9: Creating Lasting Relationships Through Social Media
          1. Sharing on Social Media
            1. Utilizing the 4-1-1 rule
            2. Creating contagious content
          2. Getting the Most out of Facebook
            1. Understanding engagement
            2. Telling a visual story
            3. Developing Promoted Posts
            4. Creating sponsored stories
            5. Promoting through Facebook ads
            6. Developing Facebook tabs
            7. Tracking your results
          3. Leveraging Twitter
            1. Messaging through Twitter
            2. Building promoted posts in search and timeline
            3. Promoted accounts and trends
            4. Configuring your Twitter Lead Generation Cards
            5. Tracking your results
          4. Engaging Through LinkedIn
            1. Building out and optimizing your company page
            2. Joining and starting LinkedIn Groups
            3. Leveraging LinkedIn Sponsored Updates
            4. Setting up LinkedIn ads
          5. Building Your Google+ Presence
            1. Acknowledging the relationship between Google+ and search engine optimization (SEO)
            2. Getting noticed with Google+ Hangouts
          6. Getting Visual with Pinterest
            1. Pinning your top assets
            2. Promoting your events through images
            3. Showcasing your company culture
          7. Attracting Attention with SlideShare
            1. Optimizing SlideShare for SEO
            2. Collecting leads through forms
        5. Chapter 10: Getting Found Through Search Engine Optimization
          1. Maximizing Different Traffic Sources
            1. Discovering site visitors with organic search
            2. Attracting site visitors with paid search
          2. Knowing Your Search Engines
            1. Grasping Google
            2. Embracing Bing
            3. Looking at Yahoo!
          3. Making the Most out of Google Algorithm Updates
            1. Understanding Hummingbird
            2. Avoiding over-optimization
            3. Getting quality link-backs
            4. Leveraging authentic content
            5. Connecting social media
          4. Choosing Your Keywords
            1. Building a better keyword list
            2. Optimizing for keywords
            3. Creating power content
          5. Perfecting On-Page SEO
            1. Assigning title tags
            2. Structuring your URLs
            3. Wording your meta description
          6. Utilizing Links in a Natural Way
            1. Starting with on-page links
            2. Leveraging influencer relationships
          7. Defining Your SEO Measurements and Analytics
      4. Part III: Linking Outbound Marketing with Lead Generation
        1. Chapter 11: Helping Buyers Find You with Pay-Per-Click Ads
          1. Getting Started
            1. Starting a Google AdWords account
            2. Creating your offer mix
            3. Defining your audience
            4. Choosing your keywords
            5. Making ad-specific landing pages
          2. Creating Your Ad Copy
            1. Targeting and relevancy
            2. Crafting your title
            3. Writing your ad copy and CTAs
            4. Creating a sample PPC ad
          3. Tracking Your Ad Performance
            1. Google Quality Score
            2. Exploring basic PPC metrics
            3. Creating conversion tracking
        2. Chapter 12: Casting a Wide Net with Content Syndication
          1. Accomplishing Your Goals with Content Syndication
            1. Generating targeted leads
            2. Considering SEO implications
            3. Working with paid content syndication
            4. Choosing the right content
            5. Choosing the right vendor
            6. Testing in paid content syndication
          2. Implementing Non-Paid Content Syndication
            1. Sharing your content through Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds
            2. Sharing your content through social media
        3. Chapter 13: Targeting with a Personal Touch Through Direct Mail
          1. Making Direct Mail Work for You
            1. Setting your objectives
            2. Defining your audience
            3. Choosing your offer
            4. Syncing to your marketing automation
          2. Focusing on Creative Execution
            1. Choosing the right medium
            2. Avoiding the junk mail look
          3. Having an Integrated Approach
        4. Chapter 14: Seizing the Opportunity to Connect Through Events
          1. Leading Through Webinars
            1. Educating your audience
            2. Setting up your webinar program and calendar
            3. Knowing what to do before an event
            4. Creating the right presentation
            5. Repurposing your webinar content
            6. Testing out sponsored versus hosted webinars
          2. Building Your Virtual Event Presence
            1. Creating your presence
            2. Including thought leadership
            3. Hosting your own virtual event
          3. Engaging Your Audience Through Physical Events
            1. Setting the stage and creating a theme
            2. Attracting an audience with games and interactive booth tools
            3. Generating demand with contests and sweepstakes
            4. Choosing booth content and swag
            5. Consider guerilla and outdoor marketing at your events
            6. Syncing with marketing automation
          4. Having an Event Promotion and Follow-Up Plan
            1. Thinking about pre-event promotion
            2. Engaging during an event
            3. Perfecting the follow-up
        5. Chapter 15: Creating the Final Touch with Inside Sales
          1. Forming an Inside Sales Team
            1. Hiring the best
            2. Setting goals and quotas
          2. Syncing Your Marketing Automation Tool with Your CRM
            1. Providing interesting moments to sales
            2. Enabling sales to send trackable emails
          3. Defining the Lead Path
            1. Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)
            2. Sales-accepted leads (SALs)
            3. Sales-qualified leads (SQL)
          4. Enabling Your Sales Team with Content
            1. Developing sales presentations
            2. Providing collateral
            3. Training your sales team
      5. Part IV: The Middle of the Funnel
        1. Chapter 16: Communicating Through Email Marketing
          1. Reaching the Right People
            1. Keeping your data clean
            2. Segmenting and targeting
            3. Considering paid email programs
          2. Engaging with Email
            1. Navigating the email opt-in
            2. Keeping yourself out of the spam filter
            3. Listening to social cues
          3. Designing Emails
            1. Writing a compelling subject line
            2. Crafting copy that converts
            3. Including visual design
            4. Keeping it mobile-friendly
            5. Placing your calls-to-action (CTAs)
          4. Practicing Basic Email Metrics
        2. Chapter 17: Learning the Basics of Lead Nurturing
          1. Setting Up a Basic Lead Nurturing Campaign
            1. Incoming lead-processing campaigns
            2. “Staying in touch” campaigns
            3. Accelerating leads down the funnel
            4. Using interest-based campaigns
            5. Recycling leads
          2. Going Beyond Email to Multichannel Nurturing
        3. Chapter 18: Perfecting Your Lead-Generation Techniques with Lead Scoring
          1. Establishing the Basics of Lead Scoring
            1. Knowing the difference between implicit and explicit scoring
            2. Defining active versus latent buying behavior
          2. Creating a Scoring Model
            1. Setting up your scoring matrix
            2. Prioritizing sales time
      6. Part V: Measuring Your Lead Generation Efforts
        1. Chapter 19: Testing and Optimizing Your Campaigns
          1. Understanding How to Test
            1. A/B testing
            2. Optimizing through multivariate testing
          2. Creating Your Ideal Testing Process
            1. Formulating your question
            2. Defining success
            3. Constructing your hypothesis
            4. Conducting your test
          3. Checking Your Tests off of the List
        2. Chapter 20: Developing Lead-Generation Metrics
          1. Designing Programs to be Measurable
            1. Creating obtainable goals
            2. Measuring in a marketing automation platform
            3. Building a revenue modeler
          2. Measuring and Optimizing Your Programs
            1. Tracking investment
            2. Knowing the most common metrics
            3. Working with first-touch and multi-touch attribution
            4. Tracking influence
          3. Knowing the Challenges of Lead-Generation Metrics
      7. Part VI: The Part of Tens
        1. Chapter 21: Ten Common Lead-Generation Pitfalls
          1. Measuring Quantity over Quality
          2. Not Understanding Your Audience
          3. Not Paying Attention to Buying Stage
          4. Serving Up Only Promotional Content
          5. Including too Many Calls-to-Action
          6. Don’t Rely Only on Inbound Marketing for Lead Generation
          7. Not Aligning Sales and Marketing
          8. Failing to Nurture Leads after Acquisition
          9. Not Testing Your Campaigns
          10. Being Boring
        2. Chapter 22: Ten Lead-Generation Influencers to Watch
          1. Seth Godin
          2. Guy Kawasaki
          3. Jay Baer
          4. Chris Brogan
          5. Jon Miller
          6. Gary Vaynerchuk
          7. Mari Smith
          8. Ardath Albee
          9. Ann Handley
          10. Robert Scoble
        3. Chapter 23: Ten Powerful Lead-Generation Tactics
          1. Going Guerilla
          2. Making Viral Videos
          3. Delving into Influencer Marketing
          4. Using Memes
          5. Creating Campaigns Around Current Events
          6. Engaging with Infographics
          7. Trying a Jingle or a Song
          8. Introducing a Google Hangout Series
          9. Creating “Chocolate Cake” Content Pieces
          10. Using an Automated Voicemail in a Campaign
      8. About the Author
      9. Cheat Sheet
      10. More Dummies Products

    Product information

    • Title: Lead Generation For Dummies
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: March 2014
    • Publisher(s): For Dummies
    • ISBN: 9781118816172