Lead Generation: What is it, Effective Strategies & Tools

Lead generation is the process of creating consumer interest in your products or services. With lead generation, you can attract leads (your potential customer) into a marketing software system with the hope of nurturing them through the buying process.

Once a lead is generated, you can then instruct them about your offerings and begin converting them into a customer.

Without leads, your business will most assuredly fail, so today, I want to show you proven hacks that will grow your leads by 113 percent.

Ready? Here are my top lead generation tips.

What Is Lead Generation?

A lead is a person who indicates an interest in your product or service.

Lead generation is the process by which you generate this interest, and place people in your sales funnel. In inbound lead generation, this is most likely to happen by someone filling out a form and giving you their contact details.

Marketers, particularly B2C marketers, rely on several channels to drive leads to their businesses and boost their conversion rate:

SEO
paid ads
social media
email
landing pages

Often, these channels don’t yield results marketers can bank on though. If you’ve spent a lot of time creating content, hoping to attract the right leads, but you still aren’t getting results, it can be discouraging. Hear this: you’re not alone.

At one time in my content marketing career, I struggled to acquire leads.

With a renewed focus on lead generation, I was able to turn this around, and you can follow these tips to do the same thing.

Why Is Lead Generation Important for Businesses?

Lead generation is a key goal for most businesses because, without leads, there are no sales, and consequently, no revenue.

Sure, a firm may have several important goals, but a large percentage of organizational goals focus on lead generation. When done well, lead generation can nurture qualified prospects from tentative interest all the way to the customers and ambassadors your brand relies on.

Lead generation is important because it asks the fundamental question, “what does your potential customer want?”

Once you’re able to answer that question and tie it to a high-converting landing page, you’ll consistently generate leads. You’ve still got to turn the lead into a customer, but it’s the starting point, and once you’ve got a sales pipeline full of leads, it’s much easier to tweak your sales strategies.

6 Proven Lead Generation Hacks

Hack #1: Lead generation starts at home—review your homepage messaging

For most marketers, their homepage receives the most visits. Tandberg (since acquired by Cisco), a leader in the field of teleconferencing,increased its lead generation by 50% from a simple homepage CTA that blended with other elements such as the headline, subtitle, and images.

If you’ve been actively promoting your site, your homepage will begetting visitors from referring sites, social media sites, search engines and other sources.

Stuart J. Davidson shared how he reached140,753 page views within twelve months, since re-launching his blog. Since the homepage receives a tremendous amount of traffic, don’t you think that reviewing andadjusting your homepage messaging might help you generate more leads?

I’m confident that it works; that it is, in fact, one of the best lead generation tips for you to absorb. For example, Alex Chris, founder of Digital Marketing Pro, said that one of the areas he tweaked, which led to over 400,000 visitors per month to his site, was the homepage. This also led to several thousand leads!

He showcased five sticky posts, together with a list of the latest posts. He also added a must-read section on his sidebar, which is important if you want people to find your best content the moment that they arrive at your blog homepage. This is how Chris’ homepage looks as I write this article:

Although the sidebar usually shows up on every page on most WordPress themes by default, you can permanently set it for your homepage only.

On the flip side, if you have an offer (e.g. an e-book, a report, software) on your landing page, you’ve got to ensure that your messaging (copy) and offer are in sync.

The two should synch, so that visitors will not be confused when they get to your homepage.

Hack #2: Link to your webinars directly in your content

One of the best lead generation tips you should take away from this post is how a webinar can work brilliantly in your favor.

A webinar is a relatively low-cost way to get your useful message in front of a targeted audience who actually asked for it when they registered.

A small consulting firm used webinars to generate over 100 new, qualified leads and resulted in six opportunity-based meetings. This, in turn, led to $50,000 in services being discussed.

And, 52% of marketers believe that webinars and seminars are the most effective methods for generating targeted leads.

If you can host a webinar and link to it directly in your content, your leads will take you more seriously, because you’ve provided value before asking them to register.

This is quite different from a webinar landing page that doesn’t offer much value to the user.

For example, the screenshot below shows how Quality Matters links to its webinar registration page from within its success stories (a blog post).

The challenge that most people face, when they host webinars, is getting enough people to register. But, you can drive webinar registration by linking directly to it. Uberflip knows how to invite blog readers to register for upcoming webinars right from a post. Here’s an example:

If you’re not using webinars todrive leads to your business, you have to start today. – Lewis Howes

When people are engaged, magical things can happen, right on the spot.

Engagement is the sole purpose of hosting a webinar. Stay time (duration) is influenced by the ease of entering into the webinar, the topic, and whether or not attendees stick around during the Q&A.

If you want to take your lead generation to the next level, you should consider hosting a webinar. Successful internet marketers know the power behind a well-planned webinar.

You can generate leads, nurture them and build a thriving business, solely with webinars. According to a survey conducted by ReadyTalk, 30%–40% of webinar attendees are turned into leads.

There’s no doubt that bringing the right people together in a virtual platform increases trust, leads, and sales. No matter what your industry may be, you have to recognize that people want to belong.

People want to learn from the experts.

And, you don’t have to be an influencer to successfully host a webinar.

The most important factor in increasing user engagement is how useful your webinar is.

In fact,38% of attendees will stick around if your topic is hot and what you’re sharing with them will yield significant results in their business and life.

If you’re a B2B marketer, one of the most effective ways to generate qualified leads, apart from word-of-mouth referrals, is webinars. When you bring people together for the sole purpose of educating them, you’ll generate hot leads.

However, you need to make your webinar a part of your content. Naturally, your blog readers, email subscribers, and customers might have developed an emotional connection with your content. When they’re reading your post, they have a mindset that you’re only interested in solving their problems.

Blogging is a great way to build trust. If you want more people to register, reserve their slot and attend your webinar, then you have to establish a level of trust with them. That’s when blogging comes into play.

The role of webinars in the sales process can’t be ignored, because most companies have experienced higher sales when they hosted a webinar.

The more useful and interesting your blog posts are, the better. Consequently, when you link to your webinar from within your content, it’s a sign that you want to offer more value to your readers without giving them the idea that you’re out to make some quick bucks.

When you have the attention and trust of your attendees, you can recommend a product or service that’ll help them. You have a responsibility to qualify your leads and map your leads’ buying journey. Every stage of the customer buying process is important during the webinar.

Yes, you can sell, but there is a smart way to do it, especially when you’re mindful of your brand and reputation. You don’t want anything that will hurt it or separate you and your audience.

Here’s exactly how to sell during the webinar:

Welcome questions: For each webinar that we host, we usually leave up to 30 minutes for questions.

Without a doubt, this is a sure way to tell attendees that we care about them and not their money. It created a stronger bond that led to more qualified sales and customers in the long run.

Give value before asking for anything: Whether you’re hosting a webinar, writing a blog post, or speaking at an event, you have to offer tangible help before asking for the sale or any other thing that would require the attendee to move out of their comfort zone (e.g., purchase your product). This how to draw in your potential customer – and, hopefully, keep them.

Educate them. Use interesting storytelling methodology to engage them. Address the questions that are occupying their minds. You can then pitch your offer because you truly believe that it can help them move forward.

Launch a poll: Polls can foster engagement and improve customer satisfaction. Polls are simple survey questionnaires that look like this:

For example, through a poll, Tomoson found that nearly 60% of marketers plan to boost influencer marketing budgets.

Similarly, you can use polls during your webinar.

Make them an irresistible offer: If you want to make more sales or acquire better leads, you have to offer your attendees what they can’t resist. If your offer is great and timely you’ll see an increased sales conversion that ranges from 5%–60%. Remember that when you sell or recommend an offer during the webinar, you need to brand your slides. In other words, your company logo, colors, and icons should be used prominently in the presentation design.

When you do that, your brand will always stay fresh in attendees’ minds. This is a priceless and efficient way to get the sale the moment that you ask for it.

Premium content: Another proven way to sell during the webinar is to offer premium content. It could be your new training videos that you haven’t released on YouTube or a few chapters of your upcoming book.

To grow your business and nurture a passionate audience and customers that will stand the test of time, you’ve got to feed them with premium content.

This is the type of content that offers tremendous value and scarcity.

This means that users can’t find it elsewhere, not even in a Google search. Hosting a webinar and linking to it from within your post is one of the ten most effective ways to promote your premium content.

A webinar is quite different from a blog post, video or podcast. According toAscend 2,

When you compare all of the lead generation tactics, webinars are the second most effectivedelivery mechanismof premium content for digital marketers.

Yes, you have to have adedicated webinar page on your site, but always link to both your old and your new webinars within your content. Our dedicated page now accounts for over 20% of our webinar leads per month.

Don’t forget the purpose of this section. It’s not about hosting a webinar, but rather link to your past and future webinars from within your content because you want to establish contact with first-time visitors to your blog and also cement the relationship that you’ve got with your customers.

If you want more people to register for your webinar, you’ve got to partner up with influential bloggers and leverage your homepage (which always attracts the most views).

You’ve also got to blog about your webinar and link to the landing page from your blog posts. Also, don’t forget to market your webinar through social media. And, don’t be afraid of paid media or promoting your webinar through keynote speakers.

Linking to or citing a high-value webinar within your content will position you as a go-to expert in your industry who cares about people. Several marketers who applied this technique have succeeded wildly at lead generation.

Hack #3: Use Google as your login

You should use Google as your login because you can personalize your efforts. Effective marketing can be efficiently deployed when you see and address your customers not as a group, but as individuals. That’s why SugarCRM and Trello believe in connecting with individuals.

Most digital companies have not been using this hack to get more leads. The truth is that Google is popular, and most bloggers, content marketers, and online entrepreneurs have a Google account.

The social world has brought us convenience across the web. Our full names, residential addresses, phone numbers, and more are now stored on trusted sites such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter. This has made it possible for marketers to create a flexible and simple sign-up flow.

You can acquire more customers to your business by limiting the amount of information that they need to input in the forms. That’s how successful companies are built. It can work for you, too.

These days, you don’t need to request much information from your prospects before they can become qualified leads. Better yet, you don’t need them to fill a long-form before you can keep in touch with them.

Since they’ve got all of their personal details on trusted sites like Facebook and Google, you can just ask users to sign up using those sites. For example, you can sign up with Facebook if you want to join Pinterest.

Since Pinterest started using this strategy, they’ve increased their users. Pinterest now has over 50 billion pins and millions of active, loyal users.

Hack #4: Specialize: Separate your lead generation team from your sales team

If you want to convert the visitors that come to your landing pages and take your lead gen to the next level, you’ve got to continually test out your landing page elements, including the headline, subtitles, bullet points, call-to-actions, and more. Consider this a prime piece of real estate in your marketing strategy. In other words, take advantage of what is to offer and experiment with what drives the best results.

You’ve got to keep testing before you can get it right. A/B testing is not negotiable.

But, there’s an aspect of your content marketing strategy that you have to set limits on. It’s about who’s in charge of generating leads and who manages the sales process.

To grow your leads by 113% or more, you have to “specialize.”

In his classic book, Is It Wise To Specialize?, author John O’Sullivan shares the powerful influence of specialization on a child, and how early sports specialization can have an effect on a child’s athletic performance.

O’Sullivan recognized that we’re always tempted to do more. Life itself will push us beyond our limits, but we must learn to specialize. Niche down and identify areas where your strengths are.

When it comes to lead nurturing, which is an all-important aspect of running a successful online business, you’ve got to separate your lead generation team from your sales team.

According to Marketo, lead generation describes the marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing [a] sales pipeline.

On the other hand, the sales team is primarily concerned with the exchange of goods and services for money; it’s the action of selling something.

As you can see from the two definitions, lead generation isn’t about selling. Sales also don’t dwell so much on stimulating interest, because that aspect is being coordinated by the team in charge of lead generation.

After selling to a customer, the sales team also has the responsibility of initiating a great customer experience that leads to a high rate of customer retention.

Retaining the customer is important if the business wants to thrive.

Each marketing practice requires a different mindset. For example, the team in charge of lead generation creates awareness for a product.

They also inspire, educate and persuade prospects to take action. But, the sales team is responsible for increasing the revenue of the organization.

Remember that the objective of having separate teams that will handle lead generation and sales is to improve your customer satisfaction.

That’s truly where the profit lies.

Hack #5: Use strong verbs to write powerful headlines that draw attention

A verb is a “doing” word. Or, better yet, it’s an “action” word.

If you want to create a lasting impression in your writing, you have to draw attention with verbs. But first, answer this question:

What makes a headline powerful?

Isn’t it the structure, keywords used, length, topic, and, most importantly, the action word (verb) that appear in a given headline? Each of these can and should evoke curiosity and persuade people to click.

If you can give adequate attention to crafting your headline, you’ll not only generate targeted leads, but there’s a possibility that your search rankings will improve tremendously because of a lower bounce rate and the additional time that your visitors are spending on your page.

Copywriters all over the world know the power behind a well-crafted headline. It’s the same reason why Ted Nicholas believes that 73% of buying decisions are made at the point of the headline. And, eight out of ten people will click your headline if it catches their attention. So, what are you going to do about your headlines?

No matter the platform — your blog, social media networks, other blogs (when you write a guest post), or when you create any type of content that will drive leads — you’ve got to make sure that your headline contains strong verbs. According to Wikieducator, you’ve got toput muscle in your writing.

A strong verb is a specific, descriptive verb used in writing. Strong verbs are used to convey a direct message. You’ve always got to have it in the back of your mind that we live in a fast-paced world.

Think about it. We’re all about fast Internet, fast websites, fast food; we want everything now. There is no time to wait. Now, imagine how impatient your target audience will be if your writing isn’t straight to the point or doesn’t offer any immediate reward.

So, how can strong verbs enhance your writing?

When you use strong verbs in your headline, it’ll make you a better writer. Your writing will be concise and descriptive. This is exactly what your prospects want.

Here’s an example of a weak verb in this sentence:

She is going to school

Though the sentence is correct, it’s weak. We can omit the “is going” and replace it with a strong verb. The question that you need to ask yourself is, how does she go to school? Does she crawl, skip, walk, run, ride a bicycle, etc.?

Let’s make the sentence better by including a strong verb:

She walks to school
She rides to school
She skips to school

In the same vein, instead of using weak verbs in your headlines, you should replace themwith a strong verb. That way, you’ll convey your message or idea in a more concise and captivating manner.

Examples of strong verbs are:

Nurture
Terminate
Improve
Increase
Revive
Change
Expand
Boost
Attack
Focus
Write
Drive
Engage

I’m not the only one who understands the power behind strong verbs. Authority content marketers, like Brian Clark and the entire Copyblogger Media team, use strong verbs to craft headlines that you can’t ignore. Take a look:

Seth Godin, the renowned author of over fifteen bestselling books, also uses strong verbs to write his captivating blog posts. Take a look:

Note: Strong verbs in your headline will not grow your leads 113% all by themselves. But, they can add flavor, meaning, conviction and clarity to your headline, so that your readers and potential customers will relate to your message.

Having strong verbs in your landing page headline, blog post headlines, and more will increase your conversions, especially when you testthem out.

For example, at a time, CityCliq, a company that provides low-cost, search engine optimized webpages for businesses, ran an A/B test. They used VWO software to test four different versions of their landing page headline:

Businesses grow faster online!
Online advertising that works!
Get found faster!
Create a webpage for your business

At the end of the A/B test, the fourth headline version, which sends a direct, more descriptive, more relevant, more concise and clear headline, outperformed the others. It generated a 90% increase in conversion rate.

In addition to using strong verbs in your headlines, you also have to focus on length. Headlines that are too long tend to be easily forgotten or ignored.

According to areport by the Guardian, an international news agency that’s been creating headlines for decades, headlines with just eight words generateda 21% higher click-through rate than longer headlines.

If you can’t come up with headlines of exactly eight words, a study by Nielsen Norman Group revealed that headlines between five and nine words seem to garner higher click-through rates, too. So, the next time you write a headline, make sure that you integrate strong verbs.

Hack #6: Create an irresistible offer and syndicate across blog communities

Ultimately, you want to get people to say “yes” to your offer. As marketers, that’s exactly what we want.

It all boils down to creating a top-notch and high-value offer. This simple formula explains it better:

High value offer + persuasion = irresistible

If you have difficulty growing your leads, it could be that your offer isn’t compelling. It’s not irresistible.

How do you recognizean irresistible offer? Chris Guillebeau shared a unique perspective on it:

A compelling offer is like a slice of orange at mile 18. It’s a marriage proposal from the guy or girl you’ve been waiting for your whole life. An offer you can’t refuse is like the $20,000 Bonderman Fellowship offered every year to graduating seniors at the University of Washington.

You want them to say yes to download your latest e-book, yes to your email forms, yes to your webinar or yes to your premium physical product on Amazon.

An irresistible offer will help youattract clients and retain them. To do that, follow the irresistible offer rules, as laid down by Jonathan Mead, founder of Paid to Exist.

Remember that when your offer is scarce, relevant, in high demand and exclusive, it becomes desirable.

People will naturally want to get their hands on it.

For example, in 2004, when Google launched a private beta of their free email service (Gmail), only 1,000 leaders were invited to share their honest opinions. These leaders were also allowed to invite their fans, friends, and family to test out the free email service.

Guess what happened during the initial beta phase of Gmail? Demand was high because it was exclusive to a group of people — not to the whole world.

At a point, Google started selling Gmail service. In fact, its eBay invitations were sold at $150 and other specific accounts sold for thousands of dollars.

Isn’t it funny that a free email service can be sold for $150 or more, just because it was exclusive, robust, and praised by thought leaders? That’s the power of an irresistible offer. When you offer one, your prospects and customers will see the gap between their problems and your solutions.

If you’re looking for an idea to create an irresistible offer for your audience, let me give you an example. Let’s assume that you created a report that will help people save on money on plane tickets.

People read, apply your tips and share their success stories on how they saved $200, $380, or $350. Many others can testify of the ease of securing their tickets at a reduced cost.

As you can see, the report is compelling and offers some practical advice that works. In this case, the length of the report doesn’t matter. Even if it’s only two pages, it’s an irresistible offer, because anyone who wants to save on airplane tickets will be attracted to the report.

Domino’s Pizza had an irresistible offer. Tom Monaghan was on the verge of bankruptcy when he strategized on how to take his company to the next level. It was a risk, but a single promotional idea changed everything:30 minutes or less… or it’s free.

Most people ordered Domino’s Pizza just because of the terms. (They’ve since dropped the guarantee.)

BlueHost also delivers irresistible offers—their web hosting plan starts at $3.49 per month, whereas other competitors such as A Small Orange, Godaddy and Hostgator start at $4.00 per month.

The difference may not be clear to you, but to a total beginner who just started out with a site, this is compelling because they can save some money.Your compelling offer has to be something that people want to buy.

In the same vein, if you want to get more email subscribers, your lead magnet has to be highly valuable, free to download and exclusive. A typical example is Michael Hyatt’s:

In order to be sure what offers will be irresistible or weak, you’ve gotto test it out. In his book, How to Create Irresistible Offers, author Robert W. Bly says that it’s possible to improve the response rate to your promotions anywhere from 10%-90%, just by creating and testing different offers.

Derek Halpern uses a powerful lead magnet to persuade people to join his email list. Though a lot of people don’t like pop-ups since the majority of them annoyingly disrupt reading, his offer (headline) makes a bold promise, so people tend to respond to it, especially first-time visitors.

In all, the way people perceive your offer will go a long way in persuading them to become leads or to drive them away. Perceived value can be applied to your lead magnets for building a list. You couldpresent the retail value of the offer that you’re giving away for free.

Types of Lead Generation

There are lots of different ways to generate leads. A convenient distinction in lead generation is outbound versus inbound, although there will be a crossover between the two.

Different businesses will use different lead generation tactics, so it’s about tweaking the type of lead generation you do until you find what works best.

Inbound Lead Generation

Inbound lead generation is when the prospect initiates the interaction with your business. Most often, this is done through content marketing.

A potential customer will find your content through the search engines or a social media link, love your article, and fill in a form with their contact details. From here, you can use your email marketing to progress the lead through the sales funnel, building the relationship until the prospect is ready to buy.

Seventy percent of marketers are actively investing in content marketing as a lead generation strategy, and it’s something that businesses have focused on a lot more in recent years.

The main types of inbound lead generation are:

videos
blogs
guides and e-books
pillar pages and content clusters
social media posts
infographics
newsletters
press releases

These are all content types that are strategically placed so people discover them organically.

Outbound Lead Generation

Outbound lead generation is when you initiate the interaction with the prospect. This may be done through a paid advert on Google or social media, cold email outreach, direct mail, or many other channels.

While inbound lead generation has become very popular in recent years, outbound marketing is still very important. Most businesses will find the best strategy is a mix of both inbound and outbound marketing to achieve their lead generation goals.

Some outbound marketing options include:

paid search ads
social media ads
radio ads
TV ads
direct mail
cold email
cold calls
print ads

Each option has its benefits and drawbacks, so it’s important to consider your budget and find out what will work best for you.

Lead Generation and SEO

A basic requisite for lead generation is to have people interacting with your business.

In the modern world, this is most likely to happen online, which means you’ve got two options: organic traffic or paid traffic.

When you’re looking for an answer to a question, what’s the first thing you do? The vast majority of people will type a query in a search engine. Google processes more than 3.5 billion searches every day, and the businesses that appear at the top of these search results are benefiting.

Search engine optimization is the perfect tactic because you reach people at the exact moment they’re looking for the information you have. You know they’re engaged, and they’re ripe to be converted into a lead.

The other big benefit of SEO is that you’re not paying for each click.

You’re building assets through your content, and if you practice good SEO, that page will be able to keep converting leads year after year.

Lead Generation and Paid Ads

The problem with SEO and inbound marketing, in general, is that it can be a slow process.

When you create a blog, you’re aiming for it to rank at best a few months down the line. If you need immediate results, then paid ads can be a much better option.

By investing in paid search ads or social media ads, you can get your brand in front of a very targeted audience. This is great for your visibility and allows you to drive a high volume of traffic to your landing pages.

Unlike with SEO though, you’re paying for each click, so it’s vitally important that everything you do is optimized. From your headlines to your landing pages, everything has to be geared towards turning visitors into solid leads.

Running paid ads is something of an art, and it can take time, but with these essential paid marketing steps, it can become a big part of your lead generation.

5 Top Lead Generation Tools

Automation is a huge part of marketing and sales, and the right tools can make all the difference to your lead generation.

Here are some of the most important parts of your lead generation and the tools I recommend to help make your processes more efficient.

CRM – Zoho CRM

It’s one thing getting leads, but you’ve also got to be able to organize them.

Once someone gives you their contact details, what happens to them? Ideally, you want to put them into your CRM, from where you can organize your sales funnels.

In my list of the best CRMs, I found that Zoho CRM was the best option. It’s a great all-in-one platform that makes it easy to track your leads from prospect to repeat customer.

Email Finder – Voila Norbert

For outbound marketing, one of the most important things is being able to find new prospects to add to your sales funnel.

Many people use LinkedIn to research potential customers and find contact emails. People don’t love getting cold emails though, so as you might imagine, they don’t advertise their contact details too easily.

This is where a lead generation tool like Voila Norbert comes in. Once you’ve found a potential customer, it will find relevant email addresses so you know you’re reaching the right people with your email outreach.

Form Generator – Gravity Forms

Getting contact details is just as important for inbound marketing, and your forms play a big part in this.

It’s easy to think a form is just a form, but an optimized form will result in a lot more leads. Luckily, it’s easy to generate highly optimized forms using simple plugins.

For WordPress websites, I found that Gravity Forms is a great option, allowing you to quickly generate lead-generating forms.

If you want to see some more options, then check out my favorite form plugins for WordPress.

Landing Page Builder – Leadpages

Landing pages are an essential part of lead generation. Small changes to your landing pages can make a big difference to your conversion rate, and you want it to be as easy as possible to optimize this process.

In my article on the “4 Best Landing Page Creation Tools,” I found that Leadpages was the best option.

Leadpages offers tons of features with lots of highly optimized templates to choose from, simple A/B testing, and an intuitive layout, it’s a perfect platform to build successful landing pages.

Email Marketing Services – Sendinblue

Email marketing plays a massive part in nurturing leads.

Most leads are going to end up in your sales funnel because they’ve given you their email address, so you need the right email marketing service to help you with the process. In my article on the best email marketing services, Sendinblue was one of my top options because it’s so easy to use.

Sometimes it’s best to keep things nice and simple, and that’s exactly what Sendinblue helps you to do.

4 Amazing Lead Generation Examples

Lead generation is an art, and there’s always room for optimization. Here are some examples of companies that have had great success with different lead generation campaigns.

You’ll notice that many of these campaigns have similarities, and one, in particular, is the omnichannel approach. This is a great way to ensure you’re maximizing your reach and bringing as many leads into your sales funnel as possible.

Here are four amazing lead generation examples to check out:

Comarch uses LinkedIn to fill its pipeline two years ahead of schedule.
Magic of Colby uses cold email to book over 200 virtual events in one season.
An online education provider boosts efficiency by over 50 percent.
Ramaley Group refreshes its web presence and builds smarter sales funnels.

These case studies can give you some good ideas on how to improve your lead generation, but the most important thing is finding out what works for you. It’s important to pay close attention to your analytics and keep A/B testing your approach.

It’s all in the optimization, so make sure you’re testing everything out to get the best possible conversion rate.

Conclusion

Don’t get fooled by every fancy lead generation tool out there. Use tools for the right purpose—automation.

But, remember that driving quality leads and engagement to your business will take time.

Building any real, successful business takes time. Nurturing your social network presence, crafting a solid email marketing campaign, diligently working on creating and producing quality content–all of these tasks require a significant amount of time and focus. You’ll expend energy, but you have to move out of your comfort zone to achieve results – particularly when it comes to building your lead generation campaign.

You need data-driven content to nurture your leads. And, if you want to maximize your time, you have to repurpose your content and expand your reach so that you can drive fresh leads to your business.

You may not grow your leads by 113% in a week, but, with consistency, you’ll likely surpass that milestone.

“Hacks” are not some magical push-button tactics that don’t have a strong foundation. On the contrary, they’ve been proven to work and many successful brands and industry leaders still use them to acquire new leads and convert them into customers.

Real satisfaction comes from what you learn in the process of applying these proven lead generation tips.

It’s the same with increasing sales. You have to make up your mind to learn along the way because your customers believe in you—and you can’t afford to let them down with outdated advice.

What other lead generation hacks have worked for you? Share your case studies, questions, or opinions.

What is Demand Generation?

Marketing your business can feel like an uphill battle, but it all comes down to making your target audience care about what you’re selling.

What’s the best way to do that? Shifting their perspective so they understand not just what you do, but what problem you solve. Help them recognize they need what you offer to create a demand for your products or services.

This process is called demand generation.

If you do it well, demand generation can create awareness with your desired audiences, deliver more qualified leads to your sales team, and help link your marketing efforts to revenue.

Overview of Demand Generation

Demand generation is creating interest in your products or services to build a healthy pipeline of qualified leads for your sales team.

It’s a broad term covering all your marketing and sales initiatives at every stage of the sales funnel. When you can provide valuable information to the right audience at the right time, you can develop awareness and demand for what you sell.

The best demand generation strategies consider every step in the buyer’s journey, from the first time someone interacts with your company, to the moment they become a customer. Demand generation initiatives should align your marketing and sales teams to help grow your business.

Why is Demand Generation Important?

Demand generation is vital as it helps position you differently with potential customers. Rather than focusing on selling your solution, demand generation creates awareness of a need.

If you help audiences understand they have a need and how that need affects their businesses, they are more likely to be receptive to sales messaging that will come later.

If you want to grow your business, you’ll need to develop a robust pipeline of new customers. Demand generation places the focus on being attentive to their needs and creating awareness and interest before selling. If you can optimize every point of contact you have with your target audiences, you can increase the quality of the leads you’re bringing in through the funnel.

Demand generation also helps create interest and awareness so that you become a trusted source of information. It helps you create more thoughtful and cohesive marketing outreach to improve people’s experience when interacting with your company.

Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation

Demand generation and lead generation aren’t quite the same, so let’s look at each one to get an idea of where they overlap and where they differ.

They’re similar in that they share the ultimate goal of growing your business and increasing sales, and they both work to attract new customers to your business. However, the approach and immediate goals are quite different.

Lead Generation

Lead generation, also known as lead gen, focuses on gaining a person’s information in exchange for content. The goal is to gain that contact information to facilitate contact and engagement for sales and marketing purposes.

Lead generation assumes your audience already knows they have a problem and are seeking a solution via products or services on the market. They’re in a place where they are ready to assess your business to see if you might be able to help them solve an existing problem.

Lead generation focuses on getting contact information from prospective customers, so it likely involves gated content or other ways to make this transaction happen.

Demand Generation

Demand generation, occasionally referred to as demand gen, is more about awareness and interest and how you can position your company as an important source of information.

Letting you etting in front of your target audiences to create awareness for a need and generate interest in your business. The hopeful result is that as your target audience grows more interested in your company, the more receptive they’ll be once you interact with them.

Get people excited about what you do, and they’re more likely to look to you once they realize they have a need. Creating a demand for your product or service means educating people on the challenges they’re facing and helping them understand why it’s worthwhile to invest resources in a solution.

Demand generation casts a broader net with ungated content used to raise awareness of your brand and solutions. The goal is increased visibility and interest in what you do.

B2B Demand Generation Strategies

What are signs that demand generation might help your company move forward in growth plans? You may recognize a need for more and better leads or higher customer retention. You may realize better systems in your sales and marketing process could create a better experience for your customers.

Once you have created your B2B strategies recognize how valuable demand generation can be. How can you implement it? Here are 10 strategies you can use to make it work for you.

1. Target Your Ideal Customers With Buyer Personas

Creating buyer personas is an important start when targeting audiences with your marketing. These fictional profiles of your ideal customers can help you focus on who you need to reach and what they need to hear from you. A complete buyer persona should have details such as a fictitious name, job role, age, gender, and typical objections and concerns.

These can help you target your ads more effectively and ensure the content you create addresses what your audience wants to read.

Without this focus, it’s easy to get distracted by the message you want to put out, which may or may not resonate. Buyer personas also help your marketing teams work cohesively by creating clear targets for your ads and content.

For each profile, consider who this person is, what influences their purchasing decisions, what challenges they face, and what questions they tend to have before they reach a decision. Being able to reach prospects with ads and content that feel personalized to their experiences and challenges can go a long way towards winning over new customers.

2. Produce Valuable Content People Want to Read

People are busy, and there’s a lot of content out there competing for attention. As much as we’d like to believe people are interested in our content, few people wake up hoping to find a new article or whitepaper to read. However, the right content can significantly shift purchasing decisions.

How can you create pieces that resonate with your prospects and makes them want more? Invest in content of the highest quality. Inbound marketing can be an important part of demand generation, so don’t falter when putting resources into content marketing.

Is content creation an overnight strategy? Not at all. It’s a long-term investment that requires a lot of effort.

If you’re already creating content and don’t feel like you’re gaining much traction, consider what you’re publishing and how it differs from other content in your industry. If it’s similar to what others are publishing, it may not be enough to help you stand out. Consider the following ideas:

Look for new ways to tackle the same topics.
Offer a new angle on an old subject.
Curate insights from other experts.

3. Offer Valuable Content for Free

Should you save your best content for your lead generation efforts? Ask for contact information and other insights in exchange for it? Not at the demand generation stage. Remember that when we talk about demand generation, we’re talking about awareness and visibility. This means creating content for prospects at all stages of the buyer’s journey and consistently showing up as a trusted resource at each stage.

Don’t worry that you’re giving away your best content for free. Demonstrating your insight and authority on relevant topics is a valuable way to show customers that you understand their needs. Create resources they can’t resist reading and sharing, and you could be the first person they think of when they’re ready to move forward with a purchase.

4. Use Platform Features to Extend Reach

Look for ways to extend your reach through established platform features you may already be using.

For example, Facebook advertising is a popular channel for companies to build visibility with relevant audiences. With in-depth targeting features allowing you to reach specific audiences and measure results via analytics, this can be an essential element in your marketing.

Facebook has a built-in feature allowing you to create lookalike audiences, which are custom audiences similar to people who are already interested in what you sell. You just need to create these audiences in the app, and you can benefit from the expanded reach they’ll give you.

Plus, these aren’t random users. They closely match people you’ve already connected with. You can also try larger audiences or smaller custom audiences based on interests and create your lookalikes from there.

Increasing visibility often means looking for ways to expand or duplicate your efforts to reach more people. Lookalike audiences are a great way to try this in your advertising.

However, is Facebook for every business? Likely not. It’s often best-suited for B2C brands where customers can purchase right from the app or make quick decisions on something they can easily purchase from your site.

5. Use Display Ads to Raise Brand Awareness

Using display ads effectively can be another way to get your brand in front of new audiences. Further, managed placements allow advertisers to specify where they want their ads to appear, allowing them to target relevant audiences.

If you can control where your ads appear, you can focus your efforts on individuals who are likely to be interested in what you offer.

Display advertising is less about conversions and more about getting your name and brand out in front of prospects. They can allow you to access prospects and raise awareness of your brand and message. Managed placements can also help you focus your investment with effective targeting and outreach.

6. Increase Conversion Rates With Display Remarketing

Remarketing can be a powerful way to build awareness, help prospects remember you after your initial interactions, and boost conversion rates.

There are a lot of distractions that can pull a prospect away after they visit your website. If you notice that many users seem to visit once and not return, it would be valuable to understand why and explore ways to regain their attention.

This is where remarketing comes in, allowing you to increase repeat visitors and even extend the amount of time visitors spend on your website.

Effective marketing often means that a prospect needs to see your brand and encounter your messaging multiple times before you become memorable. Remarketing helps you build on new traffic you’ve managed to attract and bring these individuals back to your website to learn more.

7. Optimize Your Campaigns With Contact Segmentation

Demand generation is all about delivering the right message. If your message doesn’t fit the audience you’ve targeted, they are unlikely to convert.

With this in mind, consider how it might affect your target audiences to see content that doesn’t suit where they are in their path to becoming your customer.

Someone who has never heard of your company isn’t quite ready to see in-depth content that answers questions customers typically have closer to purchase. Instead, they need introductory content to help them recognize a challenge in their organization and a first look at how you solve those types of problems.

For a prospect further along in the buying process will have identified their need, learned what you do, and explored what you offer. They’ll want more detail and have more specific questions that pertain to their unique situation.

You can use contact segmentation to manage this in your customer relationship management (CRM) system, which means organizing your customer contacts into groups based on what stage they’re in. Once your contacts are defined, you can target campaigns to each group to deliver content they are likely to find valuable.

When your outreach resonates with the recipient, they’ll be more likely to welcome further contact rather than remove themselves from your mailing lists or otherwise cut contact. Another benefit of contact segmentation is that you’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns better and adjust as needed to best suit your audience.

8. Power Up Your Email Marketing

Once you have someone’s email address, how quickly do you reach out with marketing emails? Are you sending emails to your entire mailing list? If so, you risk putting off whole groups of prospects by making them feel overwhelmed, or worse, like your company doesn’t understand them.

Instead, email marketing should carry out the idea that you need to deliver the correct information to the right people with impeccable timing. The shotgun approach of spamming people with multiple emails is likely to earn you a long list of “unsubscribe” responses.

Consider your email marketing to be a powerful way to communicate with customers at scale. However, to do so effectively, you need to make them feel unique and understood.

This means sending emails that directly address different groups, speaking to their concerns, and answering their questions. These groups may be broken out by stage in the buying process and even by industry.

Effective email campaigns require testing, so get ready to not only target groups of similar prospects but also to test your email marketing. Try A/B testing on your subject lines, copy, visual elements, and CTAs. Test different variations and optimize your campaigns using the best performing elements.

9. Offer a Free Tool or App

When you first raise awareness of your brand, you’ll need to win over people who can be brand ambassadors. One of the best ways you can win over new prospects is to offer a free tool, an app, or another resource your target audience can’t ignore.

Does giving away valuable resources go against your sales goals? Not when it comes to demand generation. Remember that in this process, you want to boost visibility and get your brand noticed. Expanding your reach may mean giving away something valuable in exchange for the impact it will have in your initial campaigns.

This is especially important for new brands trying to win attention in crowded markets. Allowing prospects to experience your brand and connect with your company in a personal way can pave a smooth road down the line to larger purchases.

10. Explore Lead Scoring to Evaluate Success

Testing different strategies for demand generation can bring you some successes and some losses. In many cases, you’ll track leads coming into your company and consider each a win, but what if they never convert to a customer?

Increasing the number of leads coming into your company can’t be your only focus if they don’t go on to become happy customers. As you evaluate the quality of the leads you generate, you’ll begin to realize that some leads make it further through the customer journey, while others move through stages to become a customer.

What’s the difference? When you begin to analyze the different actions your leads take when engaging your company, you’ll start to notice patterns of behavior that are more likely to lead to conversion.

If you can find a way to track the interactions prospects have had with your company and compare them to outcomes, you can discover behaviors that increase the chance that a prospect will convert. Once you do this, you can repeat those interactions to win customers.

Lead scoring, or evaluating incoming leads, is a way of measuring the quality of your leads to ensure you can invest in initiatives that attract the best quality leads. Remember that demand generation is raising awareness and generating excitement for your company or brand. It’s not about attracting big audiences who don’t have a genuine interest in your business.

Lead scoring allows you to evaluate your customers’ behavior over time to determine their level of interest in your business. It can take into account various actions showing intent, such as which pages of your website they’ve viewed and if they’ve engaged in behavior indicating they want to see more of what you can do. They might show this by requesting more information or signing up for demonstrations of your products.

If you’re struggling to gain leads, don’t worry about the quality at first. Just keep implementing strategies to increase your reach and bring more people to your business. Once you have increased your leads to the point that you need to start identifying the most valuable ones to nurture, then you’re likely in a position to consider lead scoring.

Demand Generation Case Studies

Need more proof of how demand generation can increase interest in your brand and benefit your company? Check out the following two examples of companies who have benefited from demand generation:

Premise, a data and analysis company, engaged demand generation, inbound marketing, and lead management. They used CRM implementation, lead scoring, and a content audit to improve their results across all marketing initiatives. Results included a streamlined CRM with all data organized, clear strategies identified and implemented, refined content strategy, and improved campaigns via social media, email, blog posts, and other programs.
Okta, a company managing workforce and customer identity and authentication, worked to empower its sales and marketing teams. Using marketing automation, chatbots, and AI, Okta enhanced their customer experience at every point of contact. Since implementing Drift, Okta has benefited from a 30 percent increase in their pipeline and doubled their conversion rate from marketing qualified leads to sales qualified leads.

Tools to Grow Demand Generation

There are a few tools that can be beneficial as you grow your demand generation efforts. Using these tools can help ensure you’re working effectively to reach your goals.

What kinds of tools can help? Look for those that feature marketing, chatbots, email bots, content, or marketing system integration.

1. Marketing Automation

Let’s look at what each of these types of tools can do for you and why they are important in demand generation.

When people get busy, repetitive tasks can fall by the wayside, A host of marketing automation tools can increase efficiency and ensure that time-consuming or repetitive tasks are completed without delay.

2. Bots

Companies like Drift offer tools like chatbots and email bots that act as support systems for your sales teams. Chatbots can send reminders to your salespeople when it’s time to follow up with a client or take the next step in outreach.

Your sales team can even receive emails before sales meetings that give them a quick reminder of the client’s company information, where the client is in the funnel, and what interactions have already taken place to ensure a seamless return to the conversation.

What is Demand Generation - Drift Chatbot diagram

Email bots can help marketing teams send effective email outreach at scale, flag important customer issues as they arise, and direct replies to the correct sales contact.

Content Storage

Having the right content for a potential customer means you’ll need salespeople to quickly find resources. A company like BuyerDeck offers a content repository to help your sales team keep all the resources they need organized and accessible.

What is Demand Generation - BuyerDeck Content Repository example

Customer Relationship Management

A critical element in B2B marketing is keeping your customer contact information updated and organized so anyone on your sales team can easily access it. Look for CRM software options like Nutshell, Zoho, or Hubspot to ensure you’re keeping track of your customers and where they are in your funnel.

What is Demand Generation - Nutshell CRM software example

System Integration

Don’t forget that to make this all work optimally, you’ll want to integrate your whole marketing system to ensure activities happen seamlessly, and you aren’t repeating work or having to step in to update from one system to another manually. Connecting each component can ensure you can always access a high-level view of customer history and information.

Resources to Learn More About Demand Generation

Curious about demand generation and how to implement the strategies we’ve discussed here? You can learn how to position yourself as an authority and reach your customers effectively.

You’ll want to research methods, implement what’s a good fit for your business, and test to measure results. Repeat and scale what works until you’ve expanded your outreach.

There’s a wealth of information if you want to understand what demand generation is and how it might benefit your business. Check out the following resources to learn more:

What is Demand Generation? A Complete Beginner’s Guide from the Wishpond blog
Everything You Need to Know About Demand Generation: Strategies, Tactics, and Examples from the CoSchedule blog
Demand Predictions for 2021 from Demand Gen Live 2021
Demand Gen Radio hosted by David Lewis, CEO of DemandGen
State of Demand Gen podcast by Refine Labs

Conclusion

As businesses shift online, more and more opportunities arise to connect with prospects in new ways. One of those new strategies is demand generation.

Out hope is that after you’re read this post, you have a much clearer idea of what demand generation is and some strategies you can use to improve it.

As companies use these methods, they quickly learn to automate their efforts to expand their reach and make their marketing investments pay off.

Demand generation depends on your company being able to show up when it matters with content that impacts your potential customers. As you do this, customers begin to connect their challenges to the solutions you offer, and you’ll be able to effectively move them along their buying journey.

Marketing to customers in a way that places their needs at the center of every initiative can be a new angle for companies used to more direct selling techniques. Demand generation focuses on your ability to offer value at every stage and interaction so a customer is already relying on you for information and resources by the time they are ready to buy.

If you’d like help separating lead gen from demand gen or implementing any of the strategies here, reach out for support. We can help you create powerful demand generation strategies and identify which strategies will work best for you.

What demand generation strategies are you currently using for your business? Which of these will you try next?

How to Target Generation Z Through Paid Ads

Because the oldest Gen Zers are reaching an age where they can make their own purchasing decisions, you have a whole new audience you can target with your paid ads.

Search interest in Gen Z has climbed so high that as of March 2021, searches for Generation Z surpassed searches for baby boomers and millennials.

In order for your ads to be successful, you need to understand the demographics and characteristics of Gen Z so you can tailor your campaign accordingly.

The ages of those considered to be in Generation Z vary by source.

To add to the confusion, there’s also different terminology used to describe them. While the name “Gen Z” appears to have stuck, this generation of young consumers is sometimes also known as the Zoomers, in contrast to baby boomers.

For this article, I’m using the definition from Pew Research Center, which categorizes anyone born from 1997 to 2012 as part of Gen Z.

generation z and other generations defined

What Is Unique About Generation Z?

Just as baby boomers were defined by the postwar world, Gen Zers have their own unique characteristics tied to the age they were born.

For starters, they’re the first generation to grow up with access to technology throughout their lives. In 1995, two years before the first Zoomers were born, just 44.4 million people worldwide used the internet. By 2000, that number had climbed to 413 million, before roughly doubling every five years up until 2015.

The oldest Gen Zers turned 10 in 2007, the year Apple launched its first iPhone. They’ve pretty much always had access to social media, with the first social platforms starting to gain traction in the mid-noughties.

number of people using social media platforms - generation z

Generation Z isn’t just unique because they’re digital natives.

They’re the most diverse generation in history. Just 52 percent of US Gen Zers are white, and almost one-quarter have at least one immigrant parent (compared to one in seven Millennials).

What’s more, despite the growing cost of college tuition, Gen Z are better educated than earlier generations. Of 18 to 21-year-olds who weren’t in high school in 2018, 57 percent were in college, compared to 52 percent of Millennials in 2003, and 43 percent of Gen Xers in 1987.

Perhaps as a result of their educational exploits, they’re also less likely to work in their teens and early 20s:

Only 18 percent of Gen Zers aged 15-17 in 2018 were employed, compared to 27 percent of Millennials in 2002, and 41 percent of Gen Xers in 1986
62 percent of adult Gen Zers aged 18 to 22 were employed in 2018, compared to 71 percent of Millennials and 79 percent of Gen Xers at comparable ages

Why You Should Use Paid Ads to Target Generation Z

They might be young, but Generation Z is already impacting our economy. In the US alone, they spend an estimated $44 billion a year. Taking their influence on all household spending into account, their annual economic impact climbs to a staggering $600 billion.

So, you should be targeting them through ads, right?

Not necessarily. Generation Z isn’t the best target audience for every brand.

For instance, they don’t seem to like alcohol as much as older generations. Just 15 percent of drinking-age Gen Zers say they drink at least once a week, compared to 28 percent of Millennials and 36 percent of Baby Boomers.

They also watch less TV. They watch over 30 minutes less broadcast TV per day, and they don’t watch any more online TV than the average internet user.

While they might not be a fantastic audience for brands in the alcohol or broadcast TV spaces, there are definitely some things Generation Zers do enjoy.

For instance, they love gaming. Indeed, two-thirds of Gen Z males describe gaming as a core part of their personal identity.

More generally, they have very different ideas of “consumption” than previous generations. To them, the act of buying simply means having access to a product or service, not necessarily owning it.

Or, as consulting firm McKinsey puts it:

As access becomes the new form of consumption, unlimited access to goods and services (such as car-riding services, video streaming, and subscriptions) creates value. Products become services, and services connect consumers.

At this point, I’m going to assume your brand is relevant to Gen Z, and you’re eager to reach them.

With that in mind, here’s a word of warning: advertising to Generation Z is a double-edged sword.

They received their first smartphone at the age of 10.3 and spend an average of three hours a day on their mobile devices. As a result, many Gen Z experience ad exhaustion. They’re 12 percent more likely than average to use ad blockers, with 49 percent saying it’s because there are too many ads on the internet.

However, their buying habits suggest they’re actually extremely receptive to seeing the right sort of ads.

For starters, 44 percent describe social media as a popular source for product inspiration, while 69 percent want to buy directly via social media. What’s more, they’re more inclined than Millennials to make impulse purchases.

Strategies to Target Generation Z Through Paid Ads

It boils down to this: if you target Generation Z with the right products, they might be more likely to purchase it in-store or through social commerce (if you offer it). With that in mind, in this section, I’ll discuss how to target them effectively.

First, a quick disclaimer—you should only target the oldest members of Generation Z. Just as a millennial born in the early 1980s may not share much common ground with one born in the mid-90s, there’s likely to be a lot of disparity between young and (comparatively) old Gen Zers.

These strategies are relevant to reaching young adults right now, but trends will change by the time the youngest Zoomers come of age.

Showcase Diversity in Your Paid Ads Targeted at Generation Z

I’ve already noted that Gen Z is the most diverse US generation of all time. Zoomers recognize and champion this, with 71 percent eager to see more diversity in advertising.

While they respond positively to authentic, genuine expressions of diversity, they immediately see through ads that latch onto it as a way to sell a product. As one respondent to a Facebook survey put it: “It has to be authentic diversity, not just brand image.”

Say you’re in fashion e-commerce. You should absolutely use diverse models and messaging, but don’t latch onto Black History Month or International Women’s Day to promote your latest flash sale.

Treat Gen Z as Adults in Paid Ads

Generation Z hates being patronized.

This should be obvious—we’ve all been teenagers, after all. Yet so many articles about marketing to Gen Z talk about how they have the attention span of a goldfish.

Not only is that untrue, it’s also extremely patronizing. It suggests Gen Z are so obsessed with their phones or playing Fortnite, that they’re simply unable to focus on your brilliant ads.

In reality, Zoomers have better recollection of ads than Millennials or Gen Xers, particularly for skippable ads lasting less than two seconds.

Also, they’re the most educated generation in history and more comfortable with technology than their parents. If you don’t give them the credit they deserve, don’t expect them to buy from you.

Create Paid Ads for Multiple Social Channels to Reach Generation Z

Zoomers were raised on a diet of social media. Facebook is older than a lot of Gen Zers, so it’s hardly surprising they’re bored of it.

That’s not to say they don’t use Facebook at all; one-third check it on a daily basis. But they check lots of other channels, too. One in nine use TikTok every day, while one in ten are daily Discord users.

popular social media platforms for generation z

The lesson here is simple: to target Gen Z effectively, you need to focus on a diverse range of platforms, while keeping one eye on the “next big thing” in social media.

Take a Stance on Social Justice Issues in Your Paid Ads for Generation Z

You might think your online presence should be geared toward selling your product and building brand awareness.

Zoomers disagree.

Two-thirds say it’s no longer acceptable for companies to stay silent on social justice issues, while three-quarters believe brands have more responsibility than ever to promote social justice.

What’s more, they’re open to brands joining in the conversation via the groups and communities they’re part of.

percentage of generation z who would be open to brands commenting in their online groups

That means you should incorporate key issues like climate change and the Black Lives Matter movement into your messaging. But, don’t simply use it as a platform for selling—it has to be genuine.

Showcase Low Price Points in Your Paid Ads Targeted at Gen Z

Gen Z is just entering the workforce, so they typically don’t have a ton of money. What’s more, they were hit particularly hard by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in terms of job retention.

As a result, the older end of the Gen Z spectrum is much more financially aware. Because of this, you could get a lot of traction from targeted ads that demonstrate the affordability and value of your products.

Examples of Paid Ads Targeted at Generation Z

Advertising to Generation Z can be a real minefield. Some advertisers get it exactly right, but unsurprisingly, lots of others don’t. Here are two examples of ads that get it spot on, and two that missed the mark.

Good: Just Eat

Food delivery services saw big sales growth during the coronavirus pandemic. But with competition from the likes of Uber and Deliveroo, UK-based delivery service Just Eat needed to stand out.

Its answer? A collaboration with the rapper Snoop Dogg!

As a quick glance at the Billboard Hot 100 will tell you, Gen Z love a collaboration, and this ad certainly resonated, clocking up almost 13.5 million views on YouTube.

Take a look at the comments and you can see it’s gained the sort of response you’d typically expect from a “real” music video:

generation z responses to "just eat it" ad

Bad: The British Army

No one likes to be stereotyped, and Gen Z is no exception. Given that they make up more than one-third of the world’s population, it’s understandable they want to be seen as individuals, not all grouped in together.

Despite this, the British Army launched a recruitment campaign aimed at young adults, branding them “Phone Zombies” and “Selfie Addicts”.

That’s a tough sell. If a brand insulted me, I wouldn’t buy a pair of socks from them, let alone potentially lay down my life for them!

As an aside, 61 percent of Gen Zers describe themselves as “global citizens,” which suggests a career in the armed forces might not be a natural fit for them anyway, regardless of the advertising.

Good: ASOS

Fashion retailer ASOS launched a whole range targeted at Gen Z in which all the clothes are animal-free, sustainable, and gender-fluid.

As part of this, the brand ran a poll through Instagram Stories to ask whether clothes should be gendered, with two-thirds of respondents insisting they shouldn’t be.

This was effectively a double win. Not only did the campaign raise awareness of the Collusion line, but it also proved ASOS cares about the same issues as its audience, and understands the importance of expressing your identity.

Bad: Thortful

Here’s an ad found on the subreddit /r/FellowKid, which is dedicated to naming and shaming terrible examples of Gen Z-focused marketing.

To be fair, Thortful does a lot of good advertising. It has a huge inventory of greetings cards, many of which are actually funny, but this ad is objectively pretty bad.

thortful bad example of ad for generation z

It smacks of an advertiser desperately trying to link their product to something that’s popular with a young audience.

Also, while the Fortnite bubble hasn’t burst yet, interest in the online shooter game was at its peak in October 2019. Thortful missed the boat on this one.

Conclusion

The word “authenticity” is horrendously overused in marketing, but it’s absolutely crucial to targeting Generation Z effectively.

Remember, Gen Zers expect you to weigh in on social justice issues, and they want you to promote diversity. But if you do it inauthentically, they’ll run.

If issues like these aren’t central to your branding, it’ll be obvious you don’t practice what you preach—and that will drive away these young, savvy, conscious consumers. For help creating your Gen Z marketing strategy, reach out to our top-rated agency.

What are you doing to reach Generation Z through your advertising?

How to Target Generation X Through Paid Ads

Finding new audiences to target is a constant challenge for marketers. If you’ve never tried marketing for Generation X, you could be missing out on a valuable group of consumers. Why should you customize ads for a Generation X target market? Your customers are individuals, but they also belong to a group based on what … Continue reading How to Target Generation X Through Paid Ads

How to Target Generation X Through Paid Ads

Finding new audiences to target is a constant challenge for marketers. If you’ve never tried marketing for Generation X, you could be missing out on a valuable group of consumers.

Why should you customize ads for a Generation X target market? Your customers are individuals, but they also belong to a group based on what year they were born. As unique as each might be, they move through some experiences and stages of life together.

What makes Generation X so valuable? We’ll take a look at who these consumers are, what experiences might influence how they respond to advertising, and a few best practices to make sure you hit the mark with your ads.

How Old is Generation X?

1965 to 1980 are typically known as the Generation X years.

The name “Genera t ion X” was adopted from a 1991 novel written by Douglas Coupland called Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Some say the name also gained popularity due to the generation’s refusal to be defined. The X refers to the variable “x,” allowing them to be named but perhaps not limited by one definition.

What is Unique About Generation X?

Generation X has often been ignored as marketers instead targeted the larger baby boomer and millennial generations. However, a look at their spending tells us that this is a worthwhile audience to target in our marketing.

While stereotypes can be harmful, we can look at their shared experiences to consider what motivates them, what they value, and what they might worry about in their current life stage.

The oldest of this generation grew up during the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Others remember the Berlin Wall coming down.

Generation X adopted computers and the internet, lived through Y2K, and lived through the AIDS epidemic. Gen X is the first generation to have exposure to the internet for most of their lifetime, though most didn’t have access in childhood.

People often characterize Generation X as self-reliant, adaptable, independent, and ethical, with “big picture” thinking. They are occasionally viewed as skeptical, but you could also call them critical thinkers. They’re currently considered to be financially stable but also deal hunters.

Why You Should Target Generation X Through Paid Ads

Why should you target Gen X in marketing? Spending power is one reason. They make up about 25 percent of the population but bring home about 31 percent of the income.

There are about 65 million Generation X, and they outspend millennials by 41 percent and baby boomers by 18 percent.

What brands does Generation X like right now? In their top 10 brands, you’ll find tech, retail, media and entertainment, automotive, and apparel companies. Other categories can include solutions for the worries they currently face, such as aging parents, preserving their health and wellness, protecting their families’ safety, or helping them plan for retirement.

SaaS platforms offer flexibility and affordable ways to make consumers’ lives easier and better, both of which appeal to Generation X.

Strategies for Targeting Generation X Through Paid Ads

It’s wise to remember that the oldest of this group may act more like baby boomers, while the youngest may act more like millennials. Generation X marketing strategies should include paid search ads, email marketing, social media, and occasionally even direct mail.

Your online presence matters. Gen X shoppers tend to be careful researchers of companies and products before making purchasing decisions.

Ensure your website is clear, up-to-date, accurate, and full of reassuring information and reviews. If they don’t like what they see online, they’re going to move on, probably to one of your competitors.

Generation X is tech-savvy enough to use Google regularly and frugal enough to search for coupons and promotions. You can target them with promotional paid ads that use the language they’re likely to use for this type of search. Ensure your ad copy uses terms like “discount” or “promo code,” and be clear and authentic about your promotion.

Missteps to avoid? A strong sell isn’t needed or welcomed and could be off-putting, so avoid overpromising. Additionally, 66 percent still shop in brick-and-mortar stores.

Run Paid Ads on Social Channels They Use the Most

Generation X consumers like social platforms, with nearly 78 percent of them being active on social media. Which platforms do they prefer? Statista shows:

76 percent use Facebook
70 percent use YouTube
47 percent use Instagram
40 percent use LinkedIn
39 percent use Twitter

Don’t forget platforms like Pinterest and Etsy. Thirty-five percent of Pinterest users are between 30 and 49 years of age, and 27 percent are aged 50 to 64. The average Etsy seller is around 39 years old. The content on Pinterest leans heavily toward their interests, including DIY, cooking, and home projects.

Create campaigns on each platform that target this group directly, and remember to use a range of ad types to ensure you’re capitalizing on these channels. For example, knowing they are heavy Facebook users, you’ll want to use all kinds of Facebook ads including images, dynamic ads, videos, and carousel ads to catch their attention.

Just remember that if they’re following brands on social media, they’re doing it to find out about promotions and discounts. Build some promotions and special offers into your social posting calendar just for followers and fans.

Create Ads That Appeal Specifically to Generation X

Generation X are loyal to their favorite brands but wary of invasive advertising. They don’t enjoy aspects of digital marketing that seem intrusive to their personal lives and aren’t fans of text messaging or retargeting.

They are more open to email marketing, and including offers and promotional codes in emails can be a great way to attract these customers.

Be authentic, and demonstrate that quality and service are essential elements of what you offer. You’ll need to create ads that speak directly to them, with ad copy and messaging that speaks their language. Use images that reflect real people and the daily lives of Gen X.

They’re mobile-friendly, and 90 percent of them own smartphones. Ensure your website and e-commerce store are optimized for mobile to deliver a great experience and convert visitors to customers.

Incorporate Reviews in Your Paid Ads for Generation X

Brand loyalty means building trust, and this generation wants social proof. Show and tell them they can trust you to deliver on your promises.

Share case studies, display testimonials, enable platforms that invite reviews, and share your best reviews via your advertising.

Enlist strategies to garner more reviews, then use them in your advertising. Use the insights you gain from studies to create ads that feel even more relevant and meaningful to your audience.

How can you inspire your customers to leave more reviews?

Offer multiple ways for them to leave reviews.
Make sure the review process is quick and easy for your customer to use.
Share positive reviews from other customers.
Offer incentives.
Respond to all reviews.
Work to find solutions with frustrated customers.

Watch for signs that your customer is happy enough to leave a positive review before asking. Good times to ask might be after they’ve expressed satisfaction, when they reordered a product, when they refer you to a friend, or mention or tag you on social media sites.

What can you do with the feedback you gain from customer reviews? Add snippets to your paid ad to help coax searchers choose your ad to click and use reviews, ratings, and testimonials in your ad creative.

Adding social proof to your paid search listings can help you stand out and increase click-through rate (CTR). This can increase your Quality Score, eventually lowering your costs per click (CPC) and increasing your sales.

Get creative and use customer reviews in paid social media ads, being careful to protect your customers’ privacy. Add a quote or line of a testimonial to your email marketing. Add them to your homepage to help attract organic traffic as well.

Create Paid Ads That Appeal to Generation X Emotions

Generation X is currently at an age where nostalgia can be an effective element in advertising. They like reboots and throwbacks.

Is it that they’re more emotionally connected to the past or nostalgic than other generations? Not necessarily. Generation X has access (and the first significant access) to all their memories and old favorites. They also have access to platforms that allow them to share this content and connect with others based on it.

Generation X is interested in past events, entertainment, pop culture, and music. Seventy-five percent of Generation X spends their YouTube time watching nostalgic content, such as videos relating to past events or people. They also like to watch video content to learn DIY skills and to follow news and current events.

This McDonald’s commercial featuring Jason Alexander from Seinfeld has over 2.5 million views on YouTube. While there may be a few younger viewers catching these classics, you can bet that many Generation Xers remember watching it when it first aired on TV.

How can you use this in your advertising? Stir up nostalgia with throwback elements that remind them of their favorite TV commercials, programs, or movies from when they were younger.

Build and Advertise a Loyalty Program in Your Paid Ads for Generation X

Creating a loyalty program can be an excellent way to reach Generation X. Known for brand loyalty, Gen X is likely to appreciate and respond to companies who reward their loyalty.

They like to stick with brands they trust, so relationship building is important. Often overlooked by marketers, Generation X can be won over by feeling part of an exclusive group.

Building these connections over time will help ensure Generation X shoppers stay loyal and not wander to competitors. If you can show them you care with excellent service and programs that make them feel important, they’ll stick around.

What should loyalty programs include? Generation X likes special treatment, limited offers, and extra attention on special occasions. They’re likely to appreciate birthday promotions, recognition on special anniversaries, and special discounts and events.

Examples of Paid Ads for Generation X

The best Generation X marketing examples will use platforms that they use and target their interests and values. Typically, effective ads with this group will target Generation X marketing characteristics and use elements of nostalgia to help build connections quickly.

Watch for crossover ads that use nostalgia to catch the attention of Gen X, like the Domino’s and “Stranger Things” commercial. In this ad, one of the main characters from a popular TV show of the past few years recreates a memorable sequence from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a 1986 movie well-known to this generation.

Younger consumers will recognize the “Stranger Things” actor. Nearly every Gen Xer will catch the reference and the cameo from one of the original actors.

When a company decides to tap into “Transformers,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and “Robocop,” they’re targeting a specific audience.

These movies came out during formative years for Generation X and when used in ads, can create instant rapport between a Gen X consumer and the brand.

Conclusion

It’s true that each generational group behaves differently, has different motivations and views, and consumes media differently than the others.

Learn a little about how Generation X lives and what they love before writing your ad copy, then let your language and ad copy show that they are your focus. Often ignored, this “middle child” generation is likely to respond positively to being noticed and understood.

Learning more about these differences can help you target these groups with paid ads that are likely to resonate instead of blanket advertising that misses everyone.

Remember, you don’t have to master this yourself! Reach out for expert help with digital marketing so you can connect with valuable audiences in effective ways.

What could targeting Generation X with paid ads do for your business growth?

Iron Ox (YC W16) is hiring SWEs to build the next generation of farming

Article URL: https://jobs.lever.co/ironox

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26240630

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Who is Generation Alpha, and Why Are They Important to Marketers?

Every new generation brings new customs, behaviors, and cultural phenomena that shape the world as we know it.

Baby boomers brought significant economic influence.

Millennials taught us new ways of viewing our socio-political world.

Generation Z showed us what the intersection of technology and humanity looks like.

Now, we have Generation Alpha, a demographic of tech-savvy, racially diverse, and unapologetically influential children who will start entering adulthood at the end of the 2020s.

But, they’re children. They aren’t our buyers. Why should marketers care about them right now?

Studies have shown children under 12 can influence parental purchases of $130 to $670 billion a year. And, it won’t be long before they are the buyers.

It’s never too early to prepare. In fact, since the oldest kids in this generation are starting to hit middle school, we may even be cutting it close.

Let’s take a look at the climate shaping this upcoming generation and what we can expect from them in the future.

What Birth Years Are Considered Generation Alpha?

Generation Alpha covers those born between 2010 and 2024. Most of their parents are Millennials.

Every nine minutes, a new member of Generation Alpha is born in the United States. By 2025, this group will reach a worldwide population of more than two billion.

Generation Alpha Culture and the Future of Marketing

Although some Gen Alpha babies haven’t been born yet, there are a few things we can predict about them.

For starters, Generation Alpha will be the most technologically advanced generation to date, growing up with mobile devices, AI, social media, advanced healthcare, and robotics as parts of their everyday lives.

They will be digitally literate and adept multi-taskers as a result.

Gen Alpha also stands to be the most materially endowed generation of all time. This means they could end up being able to spend more on nonessentials than previous generations.

They also stand to be the most globally informed group so far, and they will have the longest life spans.

Generation Alpha Technology Trends

As Generation Alpha evolves, so will their familiar technology.

We’ve already seen the effects of exponential technological growth on current generations, and these effects will continue to grow.

It’s expected that AI and robotics will be completely integrated into modern life by 2025. We can also expect machine learning, natural language processing, and smart devices to change, improve, and further connect us in the coming years.

Gen Alpha may find themselves interacting with robots just as frequently as with humans.

For marketers, this means speaking to an astute audience that may know the ideal product better than we do.

Similarly, we can expect Gen Alpha to reject traditional forms of marketing, much like their Millennial parents did not long ago. An increasing interest in personalization, humanized messaging, and social shopping should be assumed.

Generation Alpha Education Trends

Generation Alpha stands to be the most educated generation to date.

Access to education is at an all-time high, with most countries reporting twelve or more years of schooling for every individual citizen.

According to UNESCO, each additional year of education increases a person’s earnings by roughly 10%.

With improving digital resources and the increasing availability of technology, Gen Alpha will have better access to long-term education than any previous generation.

That said, the way they view education will likely be different. There may be less emphasis on formal degrees and, instead, a focus on skills.

The Eduniversal Evaluation Agency (EEA) put it this way:

In an age where every other tech CEO and startup founder dropped out of college and now rakes in millions, it’s hard to argue that moving forward, a degree will remain an absolute prerequisite for success.

In addition to these trends, we’ll see the continuation of highly personalized instructional content.

A generation used to instant access to information is unlikely to succeed in three-hour-long lectures. Instead, we can expect an increase in online learning, especially tutorials, which will further the technological proficiency of Gen Alpha.

Generation Alpha Social Media Trends

Young people are increasingly drawn to social media. With the introduction of social media e-commerce, social media has become one of the most essential tools for marketers in the modern age.

One survey found 49% of 16- to 24-year-olds look to social media for purchase inspiration. This is higher than older generations—their parents may only do this 20% of the time, for instance.

As more Gen Alpha kids grow up immersed in social media, we can predict social media usage will become an increasingly inextricable part of their lives.

Gen Alpha already uses social media differently than their parents. They’re less likely to be on Facebook or Twitter, favoring Instagram and TikTok. Brands that stay on top of the newest technology stand to see greater success with this burgeoning generation.

Generation Alpha Data Sharing Trends

Gen Alpha may be warier of providing or allowing access to their data to social media giants, search engines, ad agencies, and so on. We’re already seeing this trend today, with more and more countries instituting data privacy laws such as the GDPR.

By the time Generation Alpha reaches maturity, they’ll probably have a deep understanding of their data and how it’s used. This could lead to higher levels of criticism and questioning when consenting to data usage—they might read that fine print.

Companies looking to leverage consumer data should consider what they give back in return. Often, an equal exchange is enough to encourage consumer consent.

Brands doing this incorrectly risk losing their rising audience.

Generation Alpha Healthcare Advancements

Much like their millennial parents, Gen Alpha will likely spend more time finding medical information online. Self-service and convenience will continue to be driving factors for Gen Alpha’s healthcare.

In addition, younger generations are increasingly aware of mental health and are more likely to seek help for challenges with theirs when needed. They’ll likely expect their workplaces to offer mental health coverage and resources.

On the brand side, this means staying compassionate and aware of mental health can greatly improve overall brand integrity.

The Bell Let’s Talk movement is a strong example of a brand doing this right.

Healthcare Advancement for Generation Alpha

Generation Alpha Media Literacy Trends

Gen Alpha will have the best media literacy of any generation. They’ll be able to separate fact from fiction and more likely to identify conspiracy theories or fake news circulating on the internet.

For marketers, this means speaking to a well-informed audience that isn’t likely to be persuaded by traditional marketing tactics.

It also means engaging Gen Alpha in the arenas they prefer. Podcasting, video content, and gamification will become increasingly important when delivering information.

Additionally, personalization in marketing will continue to grow in popularity. For Gen Alpha, it won’t be enough to simply push a sale. Marketers will need to connect with this generation in an ongoing way.

Generation Alpha Diversity Trends

The US is becoming more diverse, and younger generations are increasingly aware and accepting of challenges based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Gen Alpha’s patience for inequality will almost surely continue to decrease as they grow up.

Children of this generation are unlikely to work for a company that doesn’t reflect their values. In the same way, they won’t buy from brands that go against what they believe in.

Brands championing diversity and social issues while embracing widespread change will flourish. Brands that don’t evolve will be left behind.

Generation Alpha Economic Trends

Generation Alpha first came into being during an economically tumultuous time as the world recovered from the Great Recession.

They’ve gone through some pretty interesting ups and downs since then, and significant political and social issues will continue to affect their economic standing.

We can be reasonably sure that they’ll be largely invested in the experience economy, including live entertainment, amusement parks, spectator sports, and tours.

This economy has largely been fueled by social media and technology, as people share the fun they’re having and others want to have adventures as well.

Additionally, Gen Alpha is predicted to be the longest-living generation of humans so far. Because of this, they’ll likely stay in the workforce longer, meaning more money over their working years.

As marketers, we need to plan for all of this. Our consumers face a bit of a question mark in terms of the economy. But, we know what they want—experiences—and that they’ll be educated and in the workforce for a long time. Catering to a changing climate and meeting their needs and desires throughout their lifetimes is essential.

Conclusion

Generation Alpha represents a fascinating, technologically advanced evolution of the human species.

People in this generation are digital natives growing up with smartphones, social media, and AI. They’re entering a genuinely advanced world where automation and innovation rule.

Additionally, their purchasing influence is already present, and they’re influencing their parents buying decisions even now.

Marketers who pay attention to this generation now will be better prepared to out-market big competitors in the coming years.

We can expect to see a well-educated, digitally fluent, socially-conscious generation. We need to keep up.

What predictions do you have for Gen Alpha?

The post Who is Generation Alpha, and Why Are They Important to Marketers? appeared first on Neil Patel.

Duke's Kara Lawson represents new generation of coaches

Critics will get hung up on Kara Lawson’s lack of head-coaching experience. But this next generation of leaders has been busy playing pro ball and exploring all the doors it opens.

The post Duke's Kara Lawson represents new generation of coaches appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

7 Beautiful Examples of Lead Generation Website Homepage

In inbound marketing, the philosophy is letting potential customers come to you. Instead of vice versa. But when they land, how can you make them stay? Now, that’s the million-dollar question. To guide visitors from the top of the funnel to the middle of it, you need to create an awesome lead generating homepage. What …

Great Generation Z Marketing and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

Looking for Generation Z marketing tips? We’ve got those and more this week for our ten brilliant business tips of the week. Find out how to reach the generation after the millennials.

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Grab Some Great Generation Z Marketing Tips and More

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Take your Generation Z marketing to the next level – and more!

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So, settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Better Bonuses? Yes, Please!

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about building an effective bonus plan. Because who doesn’t love bonuses? Great Game says bonuses need to have a connection to the goals of the business. And the time for being secretive and mysterious about them is over.

Here’s our fave tip.

Rally Everyone Around a Common Goal

So, how many times have you worked for (or heard of) a company where the only bonuses went out to people who made sales? Or who could prove their contributions cost less than what they brought in?

Good golly, that’s unfair. But why?

Because there are plenty of disciplines which are fully important to business operations. But they are cost rather than profit centers. After all, where can human resources show a profit? What about loss prevention?

And the clerical staff or the front-line factory workers? Fuggeddabout it. They will never see a bonus under these circumstances. By definition, they can’t.

So, where’s the incentive for them?

Communications Are Key

Now, this is true under most circumstances, anyway. But if a person who did really well for the company can’t get a little public recognition, then who can? Or should?

And in particular, if your employees need to meet some sort of quota or goal, let them know how they’re doing. How close are they? And how much further do they have to go? Is it possible for them to meet their goal, or not? Knowing they’re close might help some workers work just that much harder to meet their goal. And if you keep them informed early and often, some might not get discouraged if they are a little behind.

So, don’t just leave the feedback to the last minute.

#9. Grab Your Advantage and Become a Market Leader

The next awesome tip is about lower risk innovation which can help you become a market leader. Entrepreneurs’ Organization notes you should get started with ‘jobs to do’. That is, understand what your product actually does for your customers.

This gets into a bigger theme we’ve noticed for a while.

Let Your Customers Take the Reins

The biggest thing we have learned while writing these marketing posts is to listen to your customers.

Listen to your customers.

Let’s repeat that.

Listen to your customers. They know what they want. And it may not be what you think they should want.

It’s time for a true story. And it’s a new one. As in, this just happened this morning.

Please Don’t Treat Me Like Everyone Else

So, I am not in Generation Z. Heck, there are plenty of places which say I’m not even Gen X, although I tend to act and consume like that cohort. For the record, I’m ‘officially’ a late boomer. Birth date in 1962, yo’.

But I digress. I am on Twitter, and I tend to follow fellow writers. This morning, a profile I recently filed sent me a generic DM with their links and all. At least they had the foresight to call me by name. But it was my full name on Twitter.

Anyone who thinks their program scraped my name from the appropriate Twitter field, give yourself a cookie.

That was the sole attempt at personalization.

So, I sent them a return PM. And I told them in no uncertain terms that their DM was tone-deaf, generic, and clearly mass-produced. I also told them that if they didn’t have the time to get more personal with their intended audience, then they either need an assistant or they’re trying to be all things to all people.

And, let’s face it. I am most likely not in their target audience. The writing community reads, yes. But our Holy Grail is to find readers.

The person who DM’d me was savvy and gracious enough to thank me for my thoughts. And so, in return, I apologized for being harsh.

Smart Move on the Part of the Marketer

The kicker is that the writer, in this case, absolutely salvaged the situation. Will this person change their ways? Maybe. I have no idea. But they were wise enough to acknowledge my opinion and, dare I say, treat me like an individual.

By listening to your audience, your customers and your prospects, you are treating them like people and not a monolith. And that’s not just good for marketing to the post-millennial generation.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Start Generation Z marketing today, and more!

#8. Up with Productivity; Down with Stress!

Our following life-changing tip concerns lowering your stress levels. Score lays it all out for us. And be sure to check tip #7, which is also about combatting stress.

But first, let’s tackle productivity. After all, it can be extremely stressful when you don’t seem to be able to get everything done on time. And beyond that, if you’re constantly getting everything done after hours, that will take a lot out of you physically. Not to mention, it could interfere with parenting or even threaten your marriage.

There were some great tips here, but we’ll just focus on one.

Om Shanti – Meditate Your Way to Less Stress

You don’t need to climb a mountain and meet a yogi. Rather, you can just download a meditation app onto your phone or computer. The main point of meditation is to train your mind to essentially go to a ‘happy place’, even if everything else around you is going to hell in a handbasket.

This doesn’t mean you ignore your problems. It’s more that you are able to approach them more dispassionately. That can make it easier to solve them.

Consider this. It’s a lot like listening to your friend’s problems with their love life, and you have the solution on the spot. But when it comes to your own issues, you’re stumped. Well, sure, because you’re too close to those problems.

Stepping back could be the key to seeing solutions all the more clearly – and faster. What better way to increase productivity than to lessen the amount of time you spend fixing stuff?

#7. Banish Your Financial Stress in 2020

For our next sensational tip, we looked at financial stress in your business, and how to minimize if not outright omit it. Small Biz Club says that over half of all entrepreneurs say debt is a problem.

But you may be asking, don’t you advocate carrying debt here at Credit Suite?

Not exactly.

In reality, we advocate building and leveraging credit. But we also feel you should never bite off more credit you can ‘chew’. Being incapable of paying your business debts is hardly the definition of success.

While this article is mainly about personal finances, we suggest checking it out anyway. Many issues with personal financial stressors are similar to business finance stressors.

In particular, if there’s more than one owner of your company, be open and honest with each other about money. Your business’s survival will depend on your open communications in this area, so don’t clam up about business cash.

#6. Soothe Those Ruffled Feathers

This tip is so helpful, and it works! Inc tells us all about dealing with difficult customers.

Talk about your stressors!

We highly recommend reading the entire article, as it offers a good framework for this inevitable issue. Hence, let’s talk about one tip which really stands you in good stead with difficult customers. Heck, it should help you in your relationships.

Seriously.

Own Up, Apologize, Address, and Resolve

These are actually two separate tips, but we feel they’re related closely enough to talk about them together.

For any issue in life, you can cover it up and deny it. Or you can own up to it. So, if you did it – whatever it is – say you did. Of course, we all have egos. And we don’t necessarily enjoy or want to confess to our mistakes. But they are going to come out, sooner or later.

Admit to them and you’ll be able to control at least a small part of the narrative.

And then apologize.

“I took the last cookie. I’m sorry.”

Then address the issue. It’s not just an admission of guilt that’s necessary. You should also be working to prevent a recurrence.

“I took the last cookie. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure we keep cookies permanently on our shopping list, so we don’t run low again.”

Finally, resolve the issue, as soon as you can.

“I took the last cookie. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure we keep cookies permanently on our shopping list, so we don’t run low again. This afternoon, I’ll go to the store and get more.”

There, now, that wasn’t so bad, now.

#5. Learn All About Generation Z Marketing

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Go beyond the millennial generation and get into Generation Z marketing!

Manta says this generation is going to become 40% of all consumers by year 2020.

Wait a second – that’s this year.

Now, you may be saying to yourself – Generation Snowflake is still a bunch of kids. They aren’t interested in my widgets. Not so fast. Per Wikipedia, the post-millennial generation was born between the mid- to late-90s to, well, they’re not sure when. 2010 seems to come up a lot as the endpoint. But so do 2012 and 2014.

And no, we don’t know what the post-Generation Z cohort is going to be called, either.

That means the eldest among them are turning 25 this year. So, these are people who can drive, vote, drink, join the armed forces, and marry. They’re already done with their bachelor’s degrees (if they have them). They may even be past a master’s degree by now. And they may be parents by now – more than once.

For Generation Z Marketing, Find Out What They’re All About

Generation Z was born into the internet – and it was already a place where a lot of non-technical people were hanging out. Their celebrity heroes are folks like Pewdie Pie, Kylie Jenner, and Millie Bobby Brown.

How Do You Get Started with Generation Z Marketing?

Start with shareworthy content. That’s easier said than done, though.

Catchy information with a high level of expertise is a great place to start.

Another tip we really liked was to share your content in bits. For one thing, this cohort has an average attention span of – gulp – 8 seconds. Perfect for Twitter, eh?

So, instead of sharing the entire article (like this one), a better tactic for Generation Z marketing is to just refer to tip #5 in one tweet. And then tip #10 in another tweet. Then, feature tip #3 in an Instagram post. You get the idea.

Oh, and share user-generated content. And if you can convert your content to video, do so.

Is this perfect for Generation Z marketing? Maybe not. But it’s a dang fine start.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Start Generation Z marketing today, and more!

#4. Up Your Business Growth with Terrific Online Listings

Check out this spectacular tip, all about leveraging your online listings to help your business grows. Succeed as Your Own Boss notes that how you list products and services online can make a difference when it comes to sales.

And, we might add, when it comes to search.

As is often the case, we highly recommend reading this article in its entirety. But one tip really stood out to us.

Tell Your Product’s (or Service’s) Backstory

What does that mean?

In fiction, it’s the history of your character, before the book or series started. In fiction writing and presentation on TV and film, the backstory is generally better told in pieces. Otherwise, it rightfully feels like an information dump.

But in your online sales listings, you kind of have to. So, our suggestion is to do this, but also to edit the heck out of it. Consider your Generation Z customers and, really, all of us. After all, everyone is busy, and we are all bombarded with information all day long.

Hence, you probably shouldn’t be writing about how your widgets are locally sourced, unless you can spread that story out across several pages. Maybe the first bit of the production process can be a part of the online listing for one product, and then the second step can end up on the online listing for another.

Experiment!

#3. You Can Lead a Prospect to Your Business…

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you with lead generation. United Capital Source tells us that generating low-quality leads is a surefire way to basically just waste money and time. And, probably, the goodwill and energy of your sales staff.

Hence the article is devoted to various forms of lead generation. We recommend reading it in its entirety as one or the other of their strategies may work for you. Hence, we’re only going to zero in on one of their tactics.

Swap Leads with a Partner

This makes so much sense, and we are kind of surprised we haven’t seen anything like this before!

That is, get to know noncompeting businesses which serve the same demographic niche(s) you do. Their leads could work as your leads, and vice versa.

So, let’s say you have a nail salon, but you don’t do hair. There’s nothing wrong – and a lot right – with talking with nearby hair salon owners and seeing if you can do a lead trade. It will probably be beneficial to both of you.

And you’re not left out if you offer services! If you have a long-haul trucking company, there may be freight companies with a similar lead profile. After all, if a business knows it needs shipping of some form, it may start with air or rail. But then they would quickly realize that there also has to be good, reliable, and fast ground transportation to complement those methods.

So, look for the jam to your peanut butter. And you might just create a partnership in other areas, like sponsoring a local Little League team or running a conference together or – whatever!

#2. Go and Get More Done

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on multitasking while on the go. Addicted to Success reveals all about stretching the hour, almost like some people stretch a dollar.

Now, multitasking gets a bad rap at times, because it’s sometimes a not so efficient way to get things done. So, we’d like to concentrate on one tip which just might help save the planet.

Rethink Your Commute

Unfortunately, not every area allows for this. But for those that do, why not use public transportation to get to the office? Yes, the bus is probably not as fast as your car – and you’re beholden to their schedule.

But if you can make it work, having someone else do the driving means your time can be spent on something else. And, it just may be less stressful. Commuting time will never come back to you, so you may as well make the most of it.

Plus, we think there are a few things you can do which the article didn’t go into.

First, could you carpool? Maybe just one day per week to start. Save gas and spend time with someone, maybe someone on your team. You can meet, after a fashion. Or just spend time together quietly sitting or even having some fun. Getting to know your colleagues better is probably not a bad thing.

And another idea is, if it’s safe and feasible, how about bicycling to work? We all know that more aerobic exercise is good for us. You may even live longer. Bring a change of clothes – don’t wear your good clothes to bike. No good bike paths or bus routes by you? Then talk to your local government.

Because you may not be the only person who wants to change their commute.

#1. Hire the Right People, the First Time – and Keep Them

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on developing and keeping top talent. HBR says keeping top talent is an ongoing process. You don’t just offer (for example) a company gym. You give your best people a chance to better develop themselves.

This kind of individual treatment is what we’ve been advocating for customers and prospects, too.

Treat people like they were the only person in the world. What a concept.

So, which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Start Generation Z marketing today, and more!

The post Great Generation Z Marketing and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.