At one time, lead generation involved canvassing from door to door in order to drive sales. In today’s socially interconnected world, business people are more concerned with how many ‘friends’ they have on Facebook, or connections on LinkedIn, or even followers on Twitter. It seems more and more that networking and lead generation has been turned over to the realm of the Internet. For those of us who did not grow up with these technologies, it can be difficult to know exactly how you can get started with sales lead generation online.
However, this is no reason to neglect online lead generation in favor of offline, traditional methods. In truth, you should use a balance of online and offline marketing pacote de tv. methods in order to reach your customers where they are. If you are wondering about the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and online methods, look no further.
What can online marketing do that offline cannot?
For one thing, by using online lead generation you can engage masses of your customers at any given time, often at a very low cost. By using all of the mediums available online, paid ads, organic search, social media, and even email marketing, you can reach a mass audience. What’s more is that due to the fact that visitors typically have to either search for your website or opt-in to your marketing messages, when visitors find you they are typically already qualified leads. As opposed to ‘spray and pray’ methods, these methods put your messages in the hands of those visitors who are most likely to convert.
Reaching the same size of audience via traditional methods is often cost prohibitive. On the other hand, the cost of online methods is often free or available at an extremely low cost. For instance, the cost of labor for a sales team is much greater than the cost of setting up a decent website, running paid ads, and creating a quality email list.
What can offline do that online cannot?
Compared with online marketing, it is much easier to engage with customers on a personal level, overcome any objections, and finally convert the prospect. Despite the prevalence of online marketing, nothing beats talking to a live person. In a world where so many of our interactions happen online, in an impersonal environment, having the opportunity to speak with a real person can be a real treat for many customers. Online channels only allow you to engage with your audience, however it leaves conversion solely up to them.
So, will sales lead generation online replace offline methods?
Well, the popularity of outbound telemarketing and the prevalence of direct mailings in your mailbox is a clear indicator that offline lead generation is not going away any time soon. So the answer to that question is a clear and resounding ‘No’. However, online marketing has firmly supplanted itself as one of the best, most cost effective methods for engaging with prospects. This is especially true when trying to reach a large audience, but do not neglect offline methods as the best way to convert those leads.