Inbound lead generation works. It focuses on providing value, building relationships - and meeting customers where they are.
Here's how.
Inbound lead generation is a customer-centric marketing strategy that attracts potential customers to a brand with content and engaging experiences. It focuses on building trust and relationships to convert prospects into leads.
Outbound lead generation is the traditional approach, where businesses reach out to potential customers directly – typically through cold calling, cold emailing, and direct mail.
Inbound lead gen relies on drawing interested prospects towards the business and gives prospects control and choice of the content they consume.
Outbound methods can be effective: think advertising, trade shows, and email marketing. Generally, outbound is less targeted and more expensive than inbound marketing strategies.
Cold calling is simply far too intrusive. Who needs that kind of interruption, when you can research your next purchase from the palm of your hand?
The digital age has spawned bigger and better ways for marketers and sales pros to generate leads, and the growth of inbound lead generation has flicked a switch.
Content marketing and SEO came first, teaching us to focus on creating valuable content to attract leads.
Today you can attract leads through social media, email marketing, pop-ups and chatbots. Next, you can automate some seriously convenient email nurture programs.
An increasing emphasis on personalization, user experience and data analytics has refined inbound lead management into content experiences served as smoothly as a five-star supper.
AI-driven chatbots, interactive content and advanced CRM systems enable laser-targeted and deeply personalized lead generation. By enhancing customer journeys with better content at convenient touchpoints, you’re going to drive higher conversion rates. Here’s exactly why interactive content is king.
Marketers now have the ideas, tools and platforms to create a conveyor-belt system of engaged leads, primed and ready for sales professionals to start a direct conversation with.
Inbound lead generation works. It focuses on providing value, building relationships - and meeting customers where they are.
Here's how.
Relevant and valuable
Inbound strategies focus on creating valuable, relevant content that addresses the needs, problems and interests of a target audience. By providing helpful information, businesses build trust and credibility, making prospects more likely to engage with the brand.
Customer-centric all the way
Inbound lead gen revolves around the customer’s journey and preferences. By understanding the buyer persona and tailoring content to match their needs, businesses can attract the right audience and increase the chances of conversion.
Permission-based marketing
Unlike outbound methods, inbound strategies rely on permission-based marketing. Customers willingly opt-in to receive information, making them a more positive and receptive audience.
Relationships for the long-term
Inbound lead gen builds lasting relationships with prospects. It focuses on nurturing leads through the buyer’s journey, providing continuous value – and staying engaged with potential customers. This increases the likelihood of converting people into loyal clients.
Much more cost-effective
While inbound lead gen needs an initial investment in content creation and marketing efforts, it proves more cost-effective in the long run. Once established, valuable content continues to attract leads organically, reducing the need for ongoing outbound marketing expenditure.
Adapts to changing consumer behavior
Inbound strategies align with the way modern consumers research and make buying decisions. With the rise of digital, customers actively seek information and solutions online, making inbound methods more relevant and influential.
Not quite, both have their own merits. In the B2B sales process, in-person outreach and direct communication are essential for closing deals. In reality, the most successful marketing strategies often involve a combination of inbound and outbound tactics.
Let’s face it, large accounts need a bit of silver service from time to time – you shouldn’t automate your most important business relationships.
Inbound lead generation often intersects with product-led and marketing-led techniques. Try mixing them up to gain holistic working methods that better fit your goals. Let’s look at where they crossover.
Product-led growth marketing places the product as the North Star, driving acquisition, activation and retention. Inbound lead generation is its perfect partner, using content marketing, SEO and thought-provoking resources to attract users actively searching for connected content.
Answers to problems, guides and how-tos, ebooks and thought leadership all work as product-led inbound content. By providing content that high-intent prospects need, businesses can demonstrate the value of their product and encourage self-driven exploration.
Inbound lead generation is a marketing-led technique that puts marketing at the center of driving customer acquisition and engagement.
While inbound strategies focus on attracting prospects with valuable content, marketing-led approaches might also involve outbound techniques. Think billboards, adverts, and promotions to amplify reach, support campaigns and get in front of a wider audience.
What inbound lead generation and product-led marketing have in common, is their reliance on content marketing and product education. Inbound content marketing is the backbone of inbound lead generation, as it provides valuable information to prospects.
In product-led approaches, the product’s value and use can be communicated through educational content, product demonstrations, and the cool kid on the block: user-generated content.
User-centric approach. All three techniques share a user-first approach – or, a shared awareness of content design. Inbound lead generation tailors content to address user pain points, with the goal of reaching people with the right content, at the right time. Product-led marketing prioritizes seamless online experiences to get you subscribed and sharing – quickly.
Data-led optimization. All benefit from the inarguable quality of data. By tracking user behavior, engagement metrics and conversion rates, businesses can map and refine content. Ultimately, data gives marketers the ability to directly improve customer acquisition and retention.
Lead nurturing, onboarding, and delighting. Inbound lead gen often involves lead nurturing through email marketing and automation. Similarly, product-led techniques focus on onboarding and guiding users through product features and benefits.
Once people are using your product, you want to keep them at it, help them see its value, and then turn them into a fan. A well-planned experience nurtures leads from their first interaction with the brand, through their journey to becoming active users and loyal, happy customers.
Lead generation is a critical process for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, as it forms the foundation for acquiring new customers and driving business growth.
While the ultimate goal of attracting and converting leads remains the same, there are significant similarities and differences in the approaches used by B2B and B2C businesses.
Here’s how they’re similar.
Target audience identification
Everything starts with your customer, always. (So how will you get to know them?)
Multichannel marketing
B2B and B2C businesses use websites, social media platforms, email marketing, content marketing, SEO and online advertising. Both recognize the importance of having a strong online presence.
Content marketing
Both use relevant, valuable content to attract, educate and nurture leads throughout the buying journey.
Lead nurturing
B2B and B2C use email marketing and other strategies to stay linked with leads, build trust and convert them into customers.
Measurement and analytics
Using analytics and metrics, both business types monitor campaign performance, track lead conversion rates and continuously optimize their strategies.
And here’s how they’re different.
Sales cycle length
The length of the sales cycle. B2B sales cycles are longer and more complex, involving multiple decision-makers and a more thorough evaluation process. B2C sales cycles are shorter and focus more on impulse purchases.
Target audience size
B2B businesses typically target a smaller and more niche audience compared to B2C companies, which usually have a broader and more extensive consumer base. B2B lead generation focuses on reaching key decision-makers in specific organizations. B2C lead generation aims to attract a large pool of consumers.
Purchase decision factors
B2B buyers prioritize cost-effectiveness, return on investment (ROI) and long-term value. B2C consumers are influenced by emotional triggers, brand affinity and personal preferences.
Personalization and relationship building
B2B and B2C lead generation value personalization, but B2B lead gen often emphasizes building strong and lasting relationships with potential clients. Personalized content, tailored offers and one-on-one interactions play a crucial role in nurturing B2B leads through the sales cycle. B2C lead gen may focus more on mass personalization, reaching a broader audience with personalized messages but on a larger scale.
Purchase frequency
B2B purchases are typically less frequent and involve higher-value transactions, such as enterprise software or industrial equipment. B2C purchases are more frequent and usually involve lower-value consumer goods and services.
You’re going to need to create long-form content for B2B lead generation campaigns.
We’ve got a guide to help you do exactly that.
To attract, capture, and convert potential customers/leads into future sales, businesses follow a series of steps.
At each stage of the lead magnet funnel, content is offered to help conversion happen. You can choose various content types, for different stages, topics and audiences.
Remember: Sales, Marketing and Customer Success should be working together to build a clear picture of best-fit customers.
You’ll do well to also position the business as an authority in the industry – a thought leader.
Here’s how to make a lead magnet for high-intent leads and use engagement data to continuously improve your lead generation strategy.
It’s worth remembering that top-performing lead magnets are immediately attractive and engaging.
Make it as easy as possible for people to understand your offer, see your CTA, and fill out your lead capture form.
You can add a form at any point inside a Turtl Doc, with a soft or hard gate. Turtl’s native forms allow for name and email capture, but you are also able to use third-party forms if you’d prefer.
It’s easy to add a form at any point in a Turtl Doc. Just toggle the ‘sign-up shown’ button. To use a soft gate, choose ‘sign-up optional.’
Follow best-practice advice on lead nurturing and find out what a good email open rate looks like.
The point of lead scoring is to centralize and communicate if a lead is ready to buy. We tweaked our lead scoring models and tailored them to speed up sales cycles.
The more information you pass to Sales about each lead, the better they can prioritize, direct, and attend to opportunities.
Data helps identify successful tactics, areas for improvement, and the overall ROI of lead generation efforts.
Turtl Analytics shows exactly how your content is performing.
The lead generation process is not static; it is an ongoing, iterative cycle. Businesses continuously optimize lead generation strategies based on insights gained from data analysis, customer feedback and market trends.
Lead generation uses various techniques and tools to attract potential customers and convert them into leads. Here are some popular lead generation ideas and tools to try out.
B2B content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract and engage the right audience.
Tools: Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Wix and SquareSpace allow you to manage, publish and edit content.
Use email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact and social media management tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to promote your content.
Great content marketing lead gen campaigns hit the spot with your audience.
This lead-generation campaign was so successful, that other departments at KellyOCG begged to adopt it.
It ended up being the consulting group’s biggest lead-gen campaign to date.
For us, measuring the impact of marketing materials is as important as creating good content. This access to analytics is precisely why we use Turtl for our marketing materials. Powerful, engaging content marketing is all about personalization and relevance. The ability to figure out through data what is working with the viewers and driving more engagement plays a huge part in ensuring our content marketing strategy delivers a strong return on investment.
Social media helps to reach and engage your audience. Make sure to share valuable content, interact with followers, run social media ads and participate in discussions.
Tools: Buffer, Sprout Social and Hootsuite schedule posts, track engagement and measure the effectiveness of social media campaigns.
Email marketing sends targeted and personalized emails to prospects and leads. It’s an effective way to nurture leads and build lasting relationships.
Tools: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact and HubSpot help create and automate email campaigns, segment audiences and track performance.
For inspo, we’ve highlighted some of the best B2C and B2B email marketing examples we’ve seen recently.
By optimizing content, businesses can attract organic traffic from potential customers searching for relevant keywords. Read our simple guide to SEO and soak up tips from experts on what to do. It includes the most common SEO mistakes people make.
Tools: SEMrush, Moz and Google Search Console provide insights on keyword rankings, competitor analysis and opportunities for improving website SEO. Here are nine free tools for SEO to get you up and running.
Online and in-person events allow you to showcase expertise, provide valuable insights and interact with potential customers.
Tools: Zoom and GoToWebinar host virtual events, engage participants and capture lead information.
Offer a great lead magnet as an ebook, template or guide to tempt people to share contact information. Next, drive traffic to its landing page using a simple form to capture leads. Whether you choose to gate content or not, there are different ways to approach gating to help decide what works best for your goals.
Tools: Unbounce, Leadpages and Instapage simplify the creation of attractive, conversion-focused landing pages.
Email capture forms
Place a form strategically near a compelling statistic, answers to questions, or social proof.
Tools: You can add a soft or hard gated form at any stage of a Turtl Doc. Customize a native Turtl lead generation form, or embed one from your preferred app.
Adding chatbots and live chat features to websites means you can engage with visitors in real-time, answer questions and capture more leads.
Tools: Intercom and Drift enable businesses to set up automated chatbots. Live chat tools such as LiveChat and Tawk.to facilitate real-time interactions with website visitors.
Encouraging existing customers to refer new leads is an effective way to snap up high-quality leads with a built-in trust factor.
Tools: ReferralCandy and Ambassador help set up and manage referral programs, track referrals and reward advocates.
Offering additional content upgrades (e.g., bonus material, checklists) in blog posts or articles entices visitors to switch their email addresses for the premium content.
Tools: Email marketing platforms with automation capabilities make it easy to deliver content upgrades and capture leads automatically.
Interactive content such as quizzes, polls and assessments engage and encourage visitors to provide their information in exchange for personalized results. There;s no doubt
Tools: Create interactive surveys, polls and quizzes in Turtl and capture lead data. You can edit in real time to increase relevance and impact.
These popups appear when a visitor is about to leave the website, offering them a compelling reason to stay – if they provide some information.
Tools: Website plugins like OptinMonster and Sumo create exit-intent popups with targeted offers to capture leads before they leave the site.
Display customer testimonials, reviews and case studies on websites to build trust while inviting visitors to become leads.
Tools: Trustpilot and Testimonial Hero collect and showcase customer feedback and testimonials.
As you can see, lead generation covers a diverse range of ideas and tools to attract, engage and convert potential customers into leads. There are also many software options to help drive successful lead generation. Let’s see what’s available.
There are numerous software and lead generation platforms available, each offering unique features to help businesses attract, capture and convert. Here are some of the top software and platforms widely used for lead generation:
Tools that show intent signals further improve handover to Sales, lead qualification, and top-of-funnel content tweaking.
The best content for inbound lead generation is content that provides real value. Here are some types of content that excel in lead generation.
Want to win more leads from your content? Watch our lead-gen webinar now for content ideas that work.
Follow these steps for a winning formula and get the most out of your inbound lead generation.
Use qualifying questions in your content through surveys, quizzes and polls. Interactive feedback features are appealing and popular, so use them to your advantage. Gather teams to ask the right questions at strategic journey stages. These interactions can:
You can also drill into engagement metrics and cherry-pick prospects who are warming faster than others.
Personalized lead magnets are more effective at reaching readers across your target audience. Using personalization tailors the reader’s journey through your content and is proven to increase engagement by up to 84%.
Data about your audience can influence interactive parts of your content (e.g. polls, surveys) to keep their attention on the page and dramatically improve conversion rates. You can also trigger personalized content journeys with Turtl CTAs and give people an experience they won’t forget.
Turtl’s Personalization Engine can automate relevant content journeys and deliver tailored content in minutes.
We all know how crucial it is to measure the performance of our lead generation strategy but the question is how should we do it?
Before deciding on a metric of success, sit down with stakeholders and C-suite members and align on what success looks like in relation to your organization’s goals. When that’s nailed down, pick the metric.
Some of the most common metrics are:
Whichever you go for, this data will give you invaluable insight into the revenue and/or growth your output is contributing.
We’ve also written in detail about pipeline acceleration, to help you remove blockers and streamline revenue operations.
You’ve created compelling content, you’ve promoted it like a pro, and you’ve measured its success – now comes the final piece of the puzzle. Closing the loop is crucial to make sure all your hard work pays off. And it’s not too hard these days thanks to automation.
Reporting on your content’s performance is made simple by integrating your lead magnet software with your CRM to auto-load updates and activity. A happy boss gets the data, happy content marketers get insights for further improvements and Sales are happy to discover more about potential clients.
It doesn’t stop there – automation makes following up with readers of your lead magnet a breeze.
Better lead magnet software has built-in follow-up features to take the work out of chasing prospects.
But even if your follow-ups are super effective and your reports are top-class, it’s worth benchmarking your lead magnets’ performance. Competitive intelligence tools like BuzzSumo, Ahrefs, and Semrush will help you compare your organization’s performance against your competitors in areas like web traffic, social media mentions, organic search visibility, etc. Turtl can benchmark your content’s performance against that across teams at your company, or your entire global industry.
Content marketing is a crucial part of a successful lead generation strategy – if you can nail this, you’ll have a content machine that brings in leads all day long.
Generating leads is hard work. Planning how to get them, producing the content to attract them, holding their attention until they’re ready to buy – there’s a lot involved in turning casual readers into valued customers.
Automation lightens the load and takes over some parts of the process. Marketing automation tools are designed to eliminate repetitive marketing tasks and give back time to work on high-level projects that really move the needle. Tools on the market today streamline everything from simple tasks like adding email addresses to databases to more complex jobs like sales lead rotation.
Automating interactions with leads is something every marketing team should consider if they want to maximize output. Lead scoring software like Hubspot lets you plug in your lead scoring models and automatically alerts you as soon as a hot lead comes your way. Pipeline management can be simplified by using tools like Zapier which automate nurture campaigns and bring leads smoothly through the funnel.
Personalizing your readers’ experience boosts the chance of converting them into a lead, and Turtl lets you do this hands-off by automating the personalization process.
Research by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company shows that companies that excel at personalization generate 40% more revenue from it than their competitors.
Simply put, it pays to be good at personalization. Turtl’s content automation platform uses personalization to power up lead-generation content. Find out how inside this guide.
We’ve packaged up some of our favorite lead generation examples from our favorite Turtl customers. Increased conversion rates, creative content solutions and making the most of intuitive MarTech, we’ve covered it all.
Frost and Sullivan, a consultancy business, blended in with the crowd. They needed to revitalize their content to convert more leads.
Their diversified lead magnet content went from looking generically corporate, to stand-out, standout, unmissable, and un-put-downable.
See how Frost and Sullivan also used analytics to skyrocket their content performance.
When events – their main source of lead generation – became impossible in a pandemic, Informa Connect got creative fast.
They delivered content in a new format. They were also quick. Quick to market and quick to turn around the content, using Turtl’s editing software. The gated content also got more sign-ups than a standard lead capture form.
Get more intel on Informa Connect’s unique ebook content strategy in our customer example.
This talent management and recruitment specialist needed to turn reads into leads.
When they revisited their B2B content marketing strategy, Guidant Global realized PDFs weren’t good for their lead generation campaign objectives. Their new content got more interest, created more intrigue and was relevant in the moment – thanks to their super quick turnaround.
Get the lowdown on how the whole business has adopted Turtl.
IR Magazine’s lead generation campaigns weren’t taking off. So they said CYA to PDFs.
The magazine used to embed magazine issues as PDFs on its website using a specific PDF viewer. Integrating lead capture forms was fiddly at best. Converting to a digital magazine format kept their new content sparkly and their lead capture forms in one place. And it increased their submissions.
See how IR magazine went from a one-designer bottleneck to regularly producing superb content.
After 8 years, the lead generation from Kantar’s Brand Footprint report had stalled. It needed a glow-up.
With the content chunked up into chapters instead of one long PDF, readers could scan through the report and choose the areas that interested them. Data gave Kantar full sight of which content was popular and what they could tweak or improve. Serving a sneak peek of chapters proved to be the winning strategy to increase sign-ups – their content was too enticing.
Our customer example tells you more about Kantar’s wider content objectives and how Turtl helped them reach new potential.
Mind struggled to get businesses to take part in their Workplace Wellbeing Index. They needed sign-ups. And to get sign-ups, they had to cut through a hefty amount of Twitter and LinkedIn noise.
This lead generation campaign had a solid follow-up. From signing up to the DM list, Mind had the data it needed to promote its Workplace Wellbeing Index. The mid-document sign-up form worked perfectly. Their data told them interest was highest in the middle of the document – so it was strategically positioned to drive the most leads.
Their Mentally Healthy Workplace resource generated 147 new subscribers.
See an example of Mind’s digital resources in our customer example.
Redstor’s lead magnets were only bringing in 30-40 MQLs a month. But their new CMO had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Content was more relevant to their customers because of interactivity and personalization. As well as that, their sales team could follow up with leads more effectively and with better brand consistency with all their content in one place. .
567% increase in MQLs vs their previous PDF content.
Get more of Redstor’s CMO’s marketing nuggets of wisdom in our customer example.
When a new target market suddenly emerged, Telenet needed to act quickly to capitalize on generating leads and building trust.
Data, data, and more data. They recorded and analyzed every reader interaction. They made sure that the next touchpoint was even more timely and relevant than the last for their potential customers.
Learn more about the success of Telenet’s feedback loop in creating personalized, on-point content in our customer example.
You’ve read the examples. You’re armed with all the lead gen knowledge you need.
Start creating lead magnets in Turtl today. We’ve got templates to get you started quickly, or you can start with a blank canvas. Our free trial means you can send out a lead magnet with lead capture forms and access to our full analytics suite, so you know exactly what is working well and what isn’t.
