Why Collecting Data Is the Most Important Part of Lead Generation

Data driven persona
Picture by Olu Eletu by way of Unsplash.

Conversions are vital to entrepreneurs. (Duh.)

However give attention to them too carefully and you’ve got the advertising equal of a one-night stand; you lose clients and gross sales as a result of your lead gen is geared in the direction of scoring a conversion with none thoughts paid to constructing long-term relationships with clients.

At Unbounce’s Call to Action Conference, Mike King of digital advertising company iPullRank instructed us the reality about lead generation: it isn’t about us and our want for extra conversions. It’s about our viewers and their wants for our answer.

Mike King CTAConfMike King CTAConf
Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

So how do you guarantee your lead era meets the wants of the individuals who would possibly change into long-term clients? King says all of it comes down to 1 factor: creating data-driven personas:

There are completely different charges of visitation based mostly on completely different personas. Additionally, completely different personas convert at completely different charges. Understanding which pockets of these audiences are most precious to you goes to assist you to do lead gen successfully.

In different phrases, King needs you to change your lead era framework from this:

Standard lead gen modelStandard lead gen model
What number of of you deal with lead-generation like a to-do listing, giving each step the identical precedence? Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

To this:

Ideal lead gen modelIdeal lead gen model
You don’t wish to get to “carried out.” You wish to get all of your steps as near “fulfilled” as doable. And no, you shouldn’t be placing the identical quantity of effort into every step. Should you spend extra time on “nurture,” you shouldn’t need to spend as a lot time on “shut.” Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

And he needs you to use data-driven personas to drive that transition. Learn all about how King builds personas under (or watch the presentation recording here).

Gathering information on your personas

Step 1: Run your mailing listing via FullContact

Should you’re doing lead gen, then you definitely’re seemingly additionally constructing a mailing listing. However King defined that you would be able to take issues a step additional with companies like FullContact, which let you accumulate extra enriched information on contacts, resembling age, social profile data and different particulars.

After importing your listing into FullContact, you would possibly get a mailing listing that appears like this:

FullContact email listFullContact email list
Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

“You’ve this huge sheet with all this information in your customers,” King mentioned, “and you’ll section on quite a lot of axes.”

With that data available, it’s time to go even deeper.

Step 2: Drop mailing listing Twitter handles into DemographicsPro

FullContact connects the names in your mailing listing to their Twitter handles, Mike defined, so seize these handles and drop them right into a social analytics web site like DemographicsPro.

You’ll get much more information in your customers, together with a 20-page report that features gender, marital standing, revenue and extra:

FullContact Twitter handlesFullContact Twitter handles
Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

What’s subsequent?

Step 3: Add your mailing listing to Fb Viewers Insights

When you’ve acquired mailing listing and Twitter information, it’s time to gather Fb information via the location’s Audience Insights function.

“You’re going to get a bunch of demographic and psychographic information based mostly on what’s happening in Fb,” King defined. Fb additionally provides you the chance to section your information into particular teams resembling “ladies over 35.”

The most effective half about Fb Viewers Insights? You should utilize it even should you don’t have a really huge mailing listing but, and even should you don’t have a whole lot of details about your potential clients. Irrespective of how subtle your lead era technique is, you may nonetheless use Fb Viewers Insights to be taught extra about what your leads truly need.

As King put it:

“Provided that Fb has over 1.2 billion customers, it’s a reasonably helpful panel for analysis.”

Fb Viewers Insights additionally connects to Acxiom’s Personicx service, which can assist you section your information all the way down to one thing like this:

Acxiom segmentsAcxiom segments
Acxiom divides customers into classes like “Apple Pie Households” and “Savvy Singles.” Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

Acxiom’s Personicx service helps predict your clients’ behaviors, which in flip helps you goal your advertising.

Step 4: Test every thing you be taught towards your Google Analytics information

Google Analytics’s demographics embody a whole lot of unknowns, which suggests it’s not essentially the most effective device to seize demographic information — that’s why King likes to make use of a mixture of different companies to construct his personas — but it surely’s nonetheless a sensible concept to evaluate what you find out about your clients towards the way in which they behave once they go to your web site.

At this level, should you’ve accomplished Steps 1-4, you’ve gotten the data you’ll want to create a data-driven persona. Creating personas is value a whole article by itself, so let me direct you to Unbounce’s information to creating personas and integrating them into your landing page. Use the entire element out of your information assortment to construct out your personas and make them as very like a totally fleshed individual as doable.

Creating personasCreating personas
Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

Persona + hook = efficient lead era

When you create your data-driven personas, how do you flip that mannequin into an efficient lead era marketing campaign?

Mike King, who’s each a marketer and a rapper, provides us a well-known metaphor to make use of as our information:

The effectiveness of any lead era marketing campaign comes all the way down to your “hook.” Personas enable you tailor that hook and measure segmented efficiency.

In different phrases, you need your advertising marketing campaign to stay in your clients’ minds identical to they had been listening to a rap hook.

From there, it’s a matter of determining the place to distribute your acquisition funds, based mostly on the place your personas are, what their wants are and the way you’re utilizing your hook to satisfy these wants.

Personas are additionally your first line of protection in lead qualification:

Lead qualificationLead qualification
Supply: Mike King’s CTA Conf Presentation.

Use personas to spend extra time with certified leads, as a result of they’re those who’re most definitely to show into these long-term clients you’re in search of. As Venngage’s State of Lead Gen places it, “growing the general technique means that you can establish precisely who you’re going after (and who you’re not going after).”

And that’s all there may be to it. Positive, it’s a must to do the work of making and testing your hook, and also you additionally need to nurture your leads when you’ve certified them, however you’re already a lot nearer to long-term buyer relationships than you had been if you had been working the usual lead era mannequin and hoping to gather one-night stands.

So begin interested by data-driven personas, and use data-collecting instruments to make your lead era higher. It’s value placing within the time to assist ensure your new clients are ones which can be going to stay round.

Watch Mike King’s full speak, How to Generate Those Leads All Day, Everyday, after which tell us: How do you create personas? Are you going to implement any of King’s suggestions to enhance your personas and your lead era?