What Does it Take to Pull Off an Effective Integrated Lead Generation Campaign?

Strategy first. Executions last. 7 Questions to get you there.

OK, I’m going to ‘fess up.

Among my ten all time absolute favorite things to do is putting together integrated lead generation campaigns. Ah! There’s nothing quite like the smell of a freshly baked lead generation campaign idea, hot out of the oven, sprinkled with a healthy dose of optimism and enthusiasm.

What makes it even better is when the campaign is humming along and generating leads and sales.

And better yet? The excitement when the team gets an email generated though the marketing software notifying them that there’s a new lead in the sales funnel, or that an older lead has converted on another offer.

What is an Integrated Lead Generation Campaign?

There are a lot of moving part to executing an effective lead generation campaign, but let’s start at the beginning with a definition:

An integrated lead generation campaign is a set of marketing strategies and tactics coordinated under a master plan and executed by multi-disciplined team whose objectives are to acquire and nurture leads and create new sales.

Hmmm. That comes off as being pretty academic doesn’t it? But the key words – coordinated / plan / team / objectives – are the fundamentals. Integrated lead generation is not a “set it and forget it” exercise, or a series of one off attempts are trying to get an appointment with a prospect.

Strategy First: The Key 7 Questions You Need to Address at the Beginning of an Integrated Lead Generation Campaign

If you’ve decided that you want to do an integrated lead generation campaign, our core recommendations are: (1) strategy and planning first, (2) clever and eye catching executions second, and after launch, (3) always be measuring and refining. So, to help you kick things off, here are 7 strategy and planning questions you’ll want to kick around with your team:

Question: Exactly what are we trying to do?

Answer: Establish goals, objectives and prepare a campaign plan

You simply can’t get to where you want to go without acampaign plan. Your plan starts with a clear definition of what you’re trying to sell and to whom, and then goes into details like objectives, strategies, tactics, actions, assignment of responsibilities, and budget.

Question: Who’s doing what?

Answer: You need a multi-disciplined team

Integrated lead generation must not be just the responsibility of the marketing department! Right from the very beginning, your team needs to have a subject matter expert, a marketing resource, content producers like a writer, and critically important, the individual who will be responsible for making contact with the prospect and seeing the relationship through to a sale.

Question: How are we going to entice prospects?

Answer: Strong, compelling and targeted offers

Your plan needs to be centered on the one or two offers that you’ll use to fill the top of your funnel and to nurture your prospect through the sales funnel. These can be anything from whitepapers to eBooks to checklists, and so on. Make them interesting, give them a clever title, and above all, bear in mind that offers need to be relevant to your target and audience. Tip: make sure that the offers you use are built on helping that target solve a pain or address a critical issue.

Question: How are we going to reach eyeballs?

Answer: Multi-platform strategies and tactics – onsite and offsite

One of the most difficult parts of the strategy will be to build and execute the media plan for promoting the offer. Between digital and traditional media, and between onsite and offsite channels, your team will be faced with a bewildering set of options. The rule: select and use as many channels as appropriate to reach the target, but always make your website your campaign headquarters.

Question: What do we need to capture leads?

Answer: Call to action buttons, landing pages and marketing software

You will need infrastructure and marketing technology like HubSpot to create call to action buttons and landing pages with forms to capture information about a prospect. There is an ever growing body of literature on best practices related to both of these tools. When it comes to recording lead acquisition, the days of Excel spreadsheets should be long over as there are significantly more powerful and robust technologies available that provide the types of metrics today’s marketers need in order to deliver ROI.

Question: How are we going to nurture leads that aren’t sales ready?

Answer: Marketing automation

If your marketing plan calls for a one touch and done approach, go back to the planning board. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll get a sale without first building and sustaining a relationship with a lead. That’s where marketing technology featuring automation comes into play. Essentially, the campaign’s design should include steps and actions beyond the first touch that will be executed though emails, and ultimately, through a call from your team’s sales resource. Check out HubSpot’s marketing automation capabilities – they’re awesome.

Question:  How are we going to tell if it’s working?

Answer: Measure everything

At the beginning of your campaign plan, you set goals and objectives, right? Well, after launch, you’ll want to be continually measuring campaign activities to find out what’s working and what’s not working so you can make continual improvements to the campaign. Of course, you’ll want to measure conversions, like site visitors to leads, but the ultimate measurement is number of new clients and potential revenue.

What About Your Other Nine Favorite Things?

Hey! You’re getting a little bit personal and nosy here, aren’t you?

Let’s just say that they don’t involve marketing, and I can guarantee that unlike Julie Andrews singing “These are a Few of My Favorite Things” in the Sound of Music, I don’t waltz around my cul de sac singing about my favorite things to my neighbors. On the other hand, I do sing to my granddaughter, and I have high hopes that one day she’ll be the next Bonnie Raitt.

First things first (like strategy before executions): I gotta find a guitar that fits her.