Dovile_Montvydaite_TEAM8_Semester3_1_BA_report

BA Project / December 17, 2014 Dovile Montvydaite & Guntis Rusa
1 Digital Lead Generation Guide for Businesses in the Service Area
BA Project
Digital Lead Generation
Guide for Businesses in the
Service Area
17.12.2014
Dovile Montvydaite & Guntis Rusa
Team 8, E-Concept Development, Semester 3

Authors
Dovile Montvydaite
Head of Design AW Media
dm@stud.kea.dk
Guntis Rusa
Junior Webdesigner AW Media
gr@stud.kea.dk

BA Project / December 17, 2014 Dovile Montvydaite & Guntis Rusa
Contents
04 1.0 Introduction
05 2.0 Problem formulation
06 4.0 Delimitations
07 5.0 Defining digital lead generation
08 5.1. Benefits of digital lead-
generation for businesses in the
service area
09 5.2. Conclusion
09 6.0 Analysis of current practices of
digital lead-generation
10 6.1. Expert Interview
10 6.1.1. Questions about the Problem
10 6.1.2 Questions about the Search for
a Solution
11 6.1.3 Questions about Your Solution
11 6.1.4 Questions about results and
benefits
12 6.1.5 Conclusion
12 6.2 Case study analysis
13 6.2.1 Conclusion
13 6.3 Content marketing analysis:
15 6.3.1 Structuring content in an
effective way
17 6.3.2 Lead-generation pipeline
18 6.3.3 Conclusion
19 6.4 Design
19 6.4.1 Conversion Centered Design
21 6.4.2 Website form design
21 6.4.3 Conclusion
21 6.5 Promotion
22 6.5.1 Landing Pages
23 6.5.2 Search engine marketing
24 6.5.2.1 Search engine optimization
24 6.5.2.2 Pay-per-click search ads
25 6.5.2.3 Landing Pages for PPC
25 6.5.3 Social media for Digital Lead
Generation
26 6.5.3.1 Social media advertising
27 6.5.4 Email Marketing
29 6.5.5 Conclusion
29 6.6 Performance monitoring
30 6.6.1 Landing page optimization:
31 6.6.1.1 Contact form optimization
32 6.6.2 Search engine marketing
measurement
32 6.6.2.1 PPC Measurement
32 6.6.3 Email marketing measurement
33 6.6.4 Social media marketing
measurement
33 6.6.5 A/B split testing
33 6.6.6 Conclusion
34 7.0 Conclusion
36 8.0 Solution
37 8.1 Front page:
38 8.2 Information search / evaluation
of alternatives (Consideration)
42 8.3 General platform features
42 9.0 Future perspectives
43 References

BA Project / December 17, 2014 Dovile Montvydaite Guntis Rusa
1.0 Introduction
Now consumers can have access to a massive amount of online data to do their research
before making a purchase (Mckinsey.com, 2014) and by 2016, almost half of the retail trans-
actions will happen online. (Forrester.com, 2014)
With the increasing number of consumers seeking information online before making a pur-
chase, content marketing has become the new way of advertising with the importance of
using digital channels for companies to boost their sales.
As producing content was not marketer’s primary concern, content was usually created
when the company was in the need of it. And still 47 percent of marketers are mostly pro-
viding a material to fill out empty gaps for their business website, online advertising, social
media and email with no value to the consumer. (Minsker, 2014)
Due to a change in the way consumers buy and seek out for information, the transition in
outreaching and getting users has happened. This change created a possibility of getting
quality leads, which brings more value to the business by reducing non-potential consum-
ers.
Relevant information developed in a company or sourced from an external company is a
key to lead-generation and lead development. Content based on a unique knowledge, pro-
cesses and skills shows that company solves customer needs and problems and provides
solutions. Furthermore, this type of content also helps to discover other new issues and help
customers in their buying processes. (Gagnon, 2014)
With this shift, another transformation in the business world has occurred. Digital lead-gen-
eration marketing has become one of the variables replacing sales force. Digital lead-gener-
ation serves both as sales and as marketing force for the company. It’s is a very significant
shift in paradigm. (Scott, 2013, Chapter 1)
With this potential, with wider marketing possibilities and faster brand awareness market-
ing, “...a growing number of institutions have turned to the internet as a new avenue for
revenue”. (Sites Pumping Leads, 2014)
Digital lead generation opens up a wider, faster and potentially bigger possibilities for busi-
nesses. But even though marketers can provide strategic help in these areas, there will
always be a question. Question such as how to get the customer to move faster and more
efficiently from only considering the product to truly buying it. (Scott, 2013, Chapter 1)

2.0 Problem formulation
In order to understand raised topics in the introduction, this report should be able to an-
swer the following questions.
How to identify and understand current digital lead-generation and types of it?
What are the benefits for businesses of digital lead generation in service area?
These following questions are asked in order to give us an overview of business area we are
planning to work with and see the workflow and particular aspects for digital lead-genera-
tion in this field.
- What are the current practices of digital lead-generation used in the service area?
- What is the content strategy?
- What is the design approach?
- What is the promotion strategy?
- What is the performance monitoring strategy?
These questions are asked to categorize digital lead-generation in four areas - content, de-
sign, promotion and performance monitoring. It will help us to get in-depth analysis of these
four areas regarding digital lead-generation.
The overall goal of this study is to gain an insight into lead-generation business and the best
practices of working with it. This analysis will conclude in a digital product which will be
the digital lead-generation guide for enterprises in the service area.
3.0 Methodology
The purpose of this report is to analyze and understand the digital lead-generation in an
accessible and logical manner. By explaining the concept and the theory behind the digital
lead-generation, will allow us to produce a compelling solution.
Our method of analysis will consists of four different aspects, being content strategy, design
strategy, promotion strategy and performance monitoring strategy. That will allow us to
touch upon various aspects of digital lead-generation, enabling us to create a strategy for the
best practices and to grasp advantage for improvement. The research will be conducted to
understand the buying funnel for lead-generation and the most effective ways to structure
the content that would help to target consumers in every purchase funnel stage.
The book by David T. Scott from the year 2013 “The new rules of lead generation” is the
leading source of information for our digital lead-generation analysis. The author highly
relies on his own and other businesses practical knowledge and case study analysis. For the

content marketing analysis, we will rely on another author David M. Scott whose book “The
new rules of marketing PR” released in 2007. This book will allow us to understand the
best practices and strategies which are related to the content marketing. We are also going
to rely on other two resources from the highly recognized online practitioners in lead-gen-
eration. Unbounce.com is a website that focuses on giving marketers control over the mar-
keting campaigns and landing pages. This site provides extensive access to the marketing
resources, from videos, infographics to ultimate guides. Marketo.com is an online resource
which helps marketers to master the digital marketing. Marketo.com as Unbounce.com also
provides an extensive library of best practices and analyzes.
During our analysis, we are going to execute empirical research taking into consideration
business aspects. We are going to perform an interview with the field expert in order to find
out about lead-generation tactics in practice. Unfortunately, we were not able to execute
an analysis from the consumer point of view as we haven’t received permission from the
company to question customers. We were not able to analyze the actual effectiveness of the
strategy expert has talked about as we had this limitation.
We are going to execute a secondary analysis of case studies to understand the methods used
in digital lead-generation taking the practical example into consideration. Both of these re-
searches will be executed in a qualitative way, enabling us to gather more in deep insight.
Primary data gained from the empirical research will help us to understand strategy and al-
low us to gain insights for future improvements. Secondary data obtained from case study,
and relevant literature will help us to understand the existing practices.
This methodology will allow us to execute the effective and efficient solution for digital
lead-generation for business in the service area.
4.0 Delimitations
As user experience, usability, and general design principles are equally important in any
digital solution, we are considering it as a constant. Therefore, we are not going to do any in
deep analysis in that matter. Also, as this is more a general approach to a market and busi-
ness development, brand awareness marketing is not the focus of our research.
This report is based on analyzes on how to guide and help marketers to plan their mar-
keting campaigns more effectively and more efficiently. Therefore, the solution fill focus
on general elements and blocks that this digital platform should include not going into the
specific platform construction specifications, budget for making that platform happen and
resources needed.
To narrow down our analysis and to bring constructive focus to the strategy, we are only fo-
cusing on business in the service area with both B2B and B2C approaches. For these reasons,

we are not analyzing other market areas.
We are only focusing on digital lead-generation that means that we are not going to explain
offline strategies. Digital lead-generation is a considerably new subject, and there are not
enough literature on the subject. For this reason, the report will have to rely on some infor-
mation taken from online practitioners.
5.0 Defining digital lead generation
To begin with the analysis we need to answer a couple of questions: What exactly is a lead
and what is lead-generation marketing.
As David T. Scott defines it in his book “The new rules of lead generation”, “leads are peo-
ple who have identified themselves as candidates who can potentially be turned into sales.
Leads have a genuine interest in your product or service, and are considering you as a via-
ble option to meet their needs”. (Scott, 2013 Chapter1)
“A lead for me is somebody who has done their research,” said Nikos Karavitis, senior mar-
keting manager at Motorola Solutions (Hosford, 2013). As this shows that consumers are
making their research product by product before purchasing.
And accordingly, “lead-generation marketing is a tactic of getting people to show their inter-
est in buying, or learning more about, your product or service”. (Scott, 2013 p28).
Lead-generation allows to create qualified leads, which genuinely generates a lead that is
legitimate and actionable. Lead-generation marketing focuses more on mathematical meth-
ods that mean that it relays on constantly performing testing and analysis as a part of the
effort. “The overall goal of lead-generation efforts is to achieve the highest-quality, most
cost-effective leads for your company.” (Scott, 2013 p28).
But the study, “2013 Lead Generation: Optimum Techniques for Managing Lead Generation
Campaigns,” shows that lead attribution remains a hit and miss practice. 37% of survey re-
spondents said they don’t track leads to any specific marketing or sales touchpoint. 23% uses
only last-touch attribution to measure lead-generation, just looking at the direct data and
ignoring the other dominant factors leading towards the conversion. 21% of respondents
weighted the lead across all the touchpoints prior to the sale. As it appears, it is noticeably
small percentage of the whole marketers practices. (Hosford, 2013)
In general, as David T. Scott claims, there are seven successful lead-generation tactics, which
consists of search engine marketing, social media advertising, display advertising, email
marketing, direct mail marketing, cold calling and trade shows. (Scott, 2013, p28)
The same extensive study executed in 2013 “2013 Lead Generation: Optimum Techniques

for Managing Lead Generation Campaigns,” which throughout their research found out that
the most effective tactics in nurturing the leads were sales calls, email marketing, white
papers, thought-leadership content, webinars, videos, teleprospecting calls, social media,
direct mail, blog posts, infographics, podcasts and infomercial content. (Lead Generation:
Optimum Techniques for Managing Lead Generation Campaigns, 2013 p14)
Another research according to Oracle Eloqua’s report, “Defining the Modern Marketer:
From Real to Ideal” executed on March 20, 2014 (Defining the Modern Marketer: From Real
to Ideal, 2013) states that the modern marketers believe the most important digital market-
ing activities includes email marketing, blogging, content marketing, and social media.
As this report focuses on digital strategy, the previous comparison lets us conclude, that the
most effective digital lead-generation strategies fall into the categories of email marketing,
search engine marketing, social media advertising.
As Christopher Hosford in his article mentions (Hosford, 2011) that “managing leads are
mission-critical. Sales expect it, and the revenue performance metrics demand it. “Further-
more, lead-generation processes referring to the source are becoming more and more dy-
namic and personalized as technology allows to recognize buyer’s preferences. Which is an
important feature for increasing engagements and efficiency of any lead-generation strat-
egy.
5.1. Benefits of digital lead-generation for businesses in
the service area
A McKinsey survey about marketing executives from 2007 found that 83% of companies
worldwide are using lead-generation tactics. (Martin, 2007) Even though the percentage of
enterprises using lead-generation tactics are high, many companies fail to generate a pos-
itive return on marketing investment due to the wrong approach to lead-generation. The
reason these lead-generation tactics are failing to deliver results is because generated leads
are incomplete and unqualified. (Josephson, 2014)
Due to IT revolution, ROI (return on investment) and campaign budgets have become more
measurable. Where now marketing executives have to qualify how spending company’s
money can provide a return on marketing investment (ROMI). By testing digital lead-gener-
ation results, companies can measure how investment of budget and time helps to increase
the number of leads and sales. (Scott, 2013, 22%)
As the study from BtoB’s (Lead Generation: Optimum Techniques for Managing Lead Gen-
eration Campaigns, 2013) present, return on investment is number one evaluation of a
lead-generation success. (page 28) Where 38% of study respondents were pleased with their
lead-generation results and 55% rated the success as something in between bad and good,

which is above the results from year-ago study. (page 33) When asked to rate elements of
lead-generation market, “generating quality leads” ranked the highest and is, therefore, con-
sidered to be the primary indicator of lead-generation, defining profit potential. Elements
like “Conditioned leads to improve the average value per closed customer” and “generating
sales conversion rates “ were highly rated as well. (page 34) On average respondents of
study report a 31% return on investment in their lead-generation programs. (page 36)
5.2. Conclusion
To sum up, lead-generation tactics allow marketers to target quality leads with the highest
possibility of converting them to customers. To know the strategy effectiveness and to meas-
ure the results, it is important to track and analyze all the touchpoints of lead-generation
strategy. The most efficient methods of digital lead nurturing are as follows email market-
ing, search engine marketing and social media advertising.
Possibility of measuring return on marketing investment (ROMI) is rated the highest by
modern marketers. (Defining the Modern Marketer: From Real to Ideal, 2013, p.4 ) Only
by continually measuring and testing lead-generation results, companies can improve and
adjust their lead-generation tactics and increase their return on marketing investment. As
the benefits of doing that are generating quality leads, generating sales conversion rates,
nurturing sales leads and improving sales conversion rates.
6.0 Analysis of current practices of digital
lead-generation
To achieve the highest results in our analysis, we need to look at every element separately.
This is the reason this analysis is divided into four separate elements: content marketing
analysis, design analysis, promotion and performance marketing analysis.
Whenever looking into lead generation analysis and theory behind, marketers divide the
strategy into these four main categories as it helps to deliver more deep insights. Content,
design, promotion and performance are the most important aspects of lead-generation strat-
egy. So in general we can claim that these are the main four perspectives.
Expert interview will help us to understand practices used by the field professionals and
compare them with the theory. The case study analysis will help to gain knowledge about
the lead-generation tactics used by businesses.

6.1. Expert Interview
The expert interview was conducted as a technique of our primary research. It was done
due to experts specialized knowledge and experiences within the field of digital lead-gen-
eration. (Littig, 2013) As an expert of our interview, we chose the head of marketing Claus
Bermann, from international lead-generation and sales company AWM Networks. Claus
Bermann describes himself as an online marketing specialist in the fields of SEO, Content
Marketing, Link Building, Google AdWords Google Analytics.
The aim of this interview was to gain knowledge about how professionals are preparing, de-
ciding, making and executing digital lead-generation tactics. Interview was structured into
four parts, questions about the problem, questions about the search for a solution, questions
about the solution and finally questions about the results and benefits. These questions
were developed to discover what kind of actions professionals take to execute their digital
lead-generation tactics. Questions were open and concrete to the topic.
Interview followed characteristics of Semi-structured interviews where interviewer and
interviewee engaged in a formal conversation and used a guide in the form of subjects and
possible questions in particular order. (Semi-structured Interviews, 2008)
The interview was performed through the face-to-face technique, without using sheet of the
questionnaire. The questions were sent to an interviewee two days before a meeting. Meet-
ing took place in AWM-Networks office and lasted for 52 minutes. (Appendix, pp. 4)
6.1.1. Questions about the Problem
The interviewee’s company is solving the problem that is the amount of data users have
to face when researching for certain service. They have noticed the need for easily done
market research. For example, alternative energy website that helps consumers to compare
prices and suppliers, consist of all the necessary information about a certain topic.
6.1.2 Questions about the Search for a Solution
Interviewee company uses an internal system to set their goals for campaigns.The system
calculates how much does the lead cost their business to generate on average, including all
the platforms. That is compared to income from leads in average. The basic goal is to make
leads cheaper than they are sold.
In order to create content for the sites, interviewee company uses buying funnel. Where
material is designed to target consumers in every stage of it. Consumers are moving through
the stages of the buying funnel, from awareness of a problem towards the action. Consum-
ers show that they have a need for a product and content is created to solve that. Company
starts with creating content for the last stage of the buying funnel in order to target consum-

ers that are ready to take action.
Google AdWords platform is used as a technique to approach each stage of the buying fun-
nel. Where communication managers research upon specific keywords consumers use
when using search engine. It is done at the each phase of the buying funnel. Content is cre-
ated around these keywords and used on the content pages and blog posts.
The goal of that is to build a website that is a big resource for a particular problem. They try
to educate people and help them to make decisions.
6.1.3 Questions about Your Solution
When a consumer has made a conversion, customer service contacts the person after and
askS more questions about their particular needs. It is done to match them better with busi-
ness partners.
Customer service makes sure that converted consumers are not only interested in finding
information about the price, but they are ready to buy a product. As a result, that all con-
cludes in qualified leads. In average 20% of the leads are filtered out through the verifica-
tion process.
There is one person in charge of one website or product. Their task is to analyze what are
consumers searching for, mainly researching a great deal of content and what kind of ques-
tions buyers might ask about their problem. They collect the list of ideas and questions for
content and structure it in terms of buying funnel as explained in the section above. The
problem they face is using a large amount of excel sheets to organize their keywords, search
terms, and possible content. Which can be confusing when structuring the data.
6.1.4 Questions about results and benefits
In order to test if the lead generation tactics, company looks at conversion rates and then
tries to determine if it generates only traffic or leads as well. They use “try and error” meth-
od. For example, they discovered that 80% of organic traffic came from blog posts. Blog
posts did not contain a contact form, after adding the contact form on blog posts, and they
saw an increase in conversion rates.
To measure their success they look at conversion prices: how much does it cost for them
to generate a lead in one channel. An internal system takes all the generated leads and the
leads that are filtered out and compares them to marketing expenses. All this helps to calcu-
late the average price for lead and return on marketing investment.
To optimize their strategies they try to get free traffic, optimize websites, get cheap leads
and sell them more expensively.

6.1.5 Conclusion
To sum up, interviewee company is solving a problem of the amount of data users have to
face when researching for certain service. Company uses the internal system to set their
goals, and the basic goal is to generate leads cheaper than they are sold.
Segmentation in a traditional way of marketing is not necessary when a business operates
online. Search marketing in terms of conversion rates is the most efficient way to generate
leads.
In order to create content for the sites, interviewee company uses buying funnel and starts
with creating content for the last stage of it. Google AdWords are used as a technique to ap-
proach each stage of the buying funnel.
Customer service makes sure that converted consumers are not only interested in finding
information about the price, but they are ready to purchase a product.
In order to test the lead generation tactics, company looks at conversion rates and then tries
to determine if it generates only traffic or leads as well.
6.2 Case study analysis
In order to receive insights of businesses using lead generation tactics, it is necessary to
research upon real world practices and examples. Case study analysis will focus on the pro-
cess outline of companies lead generation efforts. (content: MarketingSherpa, 2014)
Urjanet is a corporation that provides big energy data for organizations. They created and
executed their content for a reason for informing their marketplace of the benefits and
availability of energy data. They decided to put their focus on content marketing as the
content is the foundation of businesses lead generation efforts. (Content Marketing for Lead
Generation, 2014)
Urjanet marketing team created a six-month content marketing strategy with a featured
content such as infographics, expert Q-and-As, videos, whitepapers, case studies, events,
and webinars. As a head of marketing communications Rupert Ellwood from British super-
market chain Waitrose states that marketers have to refine how they plan and execute their
content strategy, content has to be performed for each channel individually. Same piece of
content can’t be reused for different channels anymore. (Tesseras, 2014)
The first step of their lead-generation efforts was to examine Urjanet years revenue forecast
to determine how much leads they need to generate per quarter. The second step was to
brainstorm of what could be the questions potential customers may need to answer. The

third step was to build messaging framework and architecture, were Urjanet decided to
divide its messaging into two parts, first they executed a dialog about the business value
of reducing energy spending. Second as a communication of how can Urjanet help poten-
tial customers achieve that. Together with the messaging company defined personas. After
that Urjanet developed a pyramid to structure messaging architecture containing elements
(from the top to down) - company name, tagline, elevator story, platform story, key messages
and proof statements. (Creative Sample from Urjanet B2B Marketing Article, 2014)
The fourth step was to build a content calendar, where Urjanet developed a map of content
they wanted to develop over a six-month period and start publishing it. The fifth and the last
step was to analyze the results. Through this content marketing strategy, Urjanet boosted
their leads by 733 per cent.
As an example for creative assets Urjanet developed infographic which contained a possi-
bility to download a white paper. This infographic was marketed on Urjanets social media
channels by using an email campaigns and blogging strategy.
6.2.1 Conclusion
From this analysis, we can conclude that in order to generate leads, businesses can use
other marketing strategies, as in this case it was content marketing strategy. The planning
and executing consist of several steps. Firstly it starts with research and setting up goals for
the campaign. Secondly the approach is based on potential customer needs and problems.
When that is completed, business can start building framework and architecture for the
campaign. The campaign has its schedule in order to plan it for a longer period. The last
step is analyzing the results.
6.3 Content marketing analysis:
The aim of this analysis is to understand the digital content and content marketing. First the
traditional approach to marketing message is analyzed and afterward the definition of con-
tent marketing is adopted and argued. Foremost the opportunities for business are enclosed
while using content marketing as a part of the lead generation strategy.
Advertising has traditionally relied on a classical approach to getting prospects to stop what
they are doing and pay attention to a message companies are trying to deliver. Moreover,
the word in advertising was a product-focused one-way spin. But with the average person
now seeing hundreds and hundreds of commercial messages per day, people just don’t pay
attention. They turn advertising messages off in their minds if they notice them at all. (Scott
and Scott, 2011, p.7) All this could be interpreted as marketing of wasted resources. The
rules of marketing have changed and to reach the consumer, marketers have to do things
differently. Creating content that is appealing and attractive to the consumer is one way to

go.
There has been a research done by BtoB intelligence center, which gives valuable results and
proves our earlier claim about the change in delivering the content. (Lead Generation: Op-
timum Techniques for Managing Lead Generation Campaigns, 2013, p.15) Research shows
that the majority of marketers see educational material that focuses on the problem-solving
to be more useful (60%). But what is also interesting is that tried-and-true techniques in
describing features and benefits of the product has a large impact and is still the second
biggest technique practice in lead-generation.
Image nr.1: Types of content and messages used in lead generation activities:
J. Rowley formulates a definition of content marketing as being responsible for “identifying,
anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably in the context of digital con-
tent”.(Rowley, 2014) A lot of other authors use content marketing as a common practice, so
the literature on content marketing is limited. Due to the lack of relevant theoretical defi-
nition of content marketing, alternative formulations provided by practitioners will be con-
sidered. The Content Marketing Institute defines that (Content Marketing Institute, 2014)
“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant
and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience - with the objective
of driving profitable customer action”.
Couple of important aspects is revealed by this definition. Creating content that is qualita-
tive relates to the task-oriented information search online. As users are exposed to a con-
siderable control over the information, they filter out everything that does not satisfy their
needs.
And the second important aspect is the power of attracting and retaining conversations
We provide content that educates
buyers on the problems we solve 60%
55%
Source: ©2013 BtoB’s Lead Generation:
Optimum Techniques for Managing
Lead-Gen Campaigns.
Fielded June/July, N=282
34%
We use stories, case studies and anecdotes to
engage prospects at every stage of their
problem solving process
46%

between the brand and the consumer. J. Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute,
(Pulizzi, 2013) highlights the importance of delivering content consistently and repeatedly
to maintain this communication. These statements prove that digital content has to be an
integral part of the brands’ marketing communication strategy.
But as Joe Pulizzi says marketers are still calling content marketing a campaign, which indi-
cates that there is a stop date. Content marketing should have a long-term purpose, and if it’s
done right, customer will love and appreciate it. (Content Marketing Institute, 2014)
These definitions let us assume that content is the foundation of lead-generation. Content
marketing as well as lead-generation shares the joined purpose of attracting and retain-
ing customers. Customer retention and likewise attraction could be achieved by creating a
relevant, problem solving and valuable content. In that sense content is the fuel for every
campaign.
Every single campaign has a purpose to engage prospective consumers and convert them to
the customers. Educational material, which inspires and suggests solutions to the problems,
creates trust. And when clients trust company’s advice and opinion, they are more likely to
become loyal.
David T. Scott claims (Scott and Scott, 2011, p.30) that “what visitors want is the content that
first describes the issues and problems they face and then provides details on how to solve
those problems “.
The most important strategy for educational content should not be forgotten. Even though
it’s a content that delivers intelligence, it should still contain a call to action that helps a
marketing message to persuade people to act. (Content Marketing for Lead Generation,
2014, p.4)
Looking at other lead generation tactics in relation to the content, it is necessary to mention
strategy that relies on giving users information to questions that they did not think to ask. As
consumers usually have a general idea of what they want, but not a particular title. (Scott
and Scott, 2011, p.19)
6.3.1 Structuring content in an effective way
The aim of this paragraph is to understand the buying funnel and specific actions and the
most efficient strategy for every phase to retain customers.
An important aspect of building content which obtains customers is to know which buying cycle
your prospects are in. The AIDA curve is a well-known principle of conceptual marketing which
helps to organize campaigns with the mindset of the buyer. Without the knowledge of where in the
buying cycle the potential customer are in, marketers might send them the wrong message at the
wrong time. All this might end up wasting lead-generation budget on an unsuccessful campaign.

According to an expert interview (6.1 Expert Interview, pp.10), businesses usually start with
the last stage. Building content that acquires action is the most beneficial for businesses as
it brings the biggest revenue for the companies. Consumers at this buying funnels are ready
to take the action. And as businesses are seeking the highest possible revenue, they start
building content from the down up. (6.1 Expert Interview, pp.10)
AIDA curve is an essential part of lead-generation strategy as it acknowledges all key stages:
attention, interest, desire and action.
Attention phase:
In this stage customers just became aware of the product or service company is selling. In
this stage, the client is interested in the why it exists, what is the purpose, how can it help
to solve their problems and what makes it interesting. So in this stage content which pro-
vides general information and information which educates, is valued by the consumer. In
this phase, customers are not ready to buy. So content should be build having that in mind.
Webinars, case studies, basic product information should be used in this phase according to
David T. Scott. (Scott, 2013, 14%)
Interest phase:
Once the consumer becomes aware of the product and service, he is ready to move on and
might become interested. At this stage he raises questions such as why I should choose this
brand instead of another, how this product is better compared to other similar ones. So to
grab a consumer in this phase information which inspires the readers interest in the prod-
uct is valued. Here is where benefits plays their role. Educating users and providing them
with the benefits that solve their problems helps to make a decision. Tactics in this phase
might be download white papers or product sheet. (Scott, 2013, 15%)
Decision phase:
In this phase, consumers have decided that they like the product/service enough to purchase
it. At this stage they are asking why this brand is better than others, is this the best deal, who
else is using this product, can I relate to these users. It is important to focus on the quality
and uniqueness of the product / service. In this phase product comparison tactics and user
testimonials make a lot of senses. Also in this stage focusing on where they can purchase the
product and if it is easy to buy brings value to the consumer. Here it is worth offering free
30-day trial. (Scott, 2013, 16%)
Action phase:
In the Action phase, consumers make a decision to buy a product or a service. In this stage,
customers are asking why they should buy it right now. So the reason to buy and time fac-
tors are important in this phase. Special offers timed coupons and discounts works here.
(Scott, 2013, 16%)
One of the hardest aspects of lead-generation marketing is to determine in which phase your
customers are in. To be able to determine the stage, the logical comparison of business and
field relations could be relied on. If it’s a technology field or a field of complicated product,

there is a high chance that a lot of the customers are in the attention and interest phases.
In this case it is necessary to educate the market. And vice versa, if the product or service
is commonly used, the majority of the users are in the decision and action phases. (Scott,
2013, 16%) With different offers targeting different AIDA stages, it is necessary to test and
measure which of the offers brings the highest results.
6.3.2 Lead-generation pipeline
Another interesting content marketing technique to capturing buyers is not through the
lead-generation funnel, but as Christopher S Penn, Vice President of Marketing Technology
at SHIFT Communications claims, idea of lead-generation funnel is outdated. As a funnel
itself starts to capturing a wider range of users and then narrows them down during the
process. So he claims that the funnel should be changed to a pipeline. By following the fun-
nel results doesn’t end up in 100%, and lead-generation means nurturing users through the
process to convert them when they are ready to be converted. (Audienti, 2014)
Marketing Automation Report sponsored by OMA states that 64% of individuals claimed
that lead nurturing is the most important function of their marketing. So having that in
mind that it is a crucial part of the business, marketers should always strive for a 100%
efficiency. Lead-generation funnels focus more on short-term thinking how to convert cus-
tomers where lead pipeline establishes nurturing as a long term promotion. According to
the source, lead-generation pipeline consists of these vital parts:
Image nr.2: Lead Generation Pipeline
Prospects:
This stage is about acquiring new prospects and in this stage you want to grab their atten-
tion. If the campaign is successful, business will have a steady stream of prospects or a clog
in the pipeline. The clog could be caused by a mismatch between the offer and target group
interests. Here social listening tools might help, which helps to understand what people are
Prospects/
Initial awareness
Consideration
Conversion
Loyalty
Advocacy
Source: © By Audienti, October 29, 2014,
Re-imagining the Funnel: Lead Generation Pipelines

saying and thinking.
Consideration:
Consideration is the most crucial part of the pipeline, when customers arrive at the cam-
paign site. Common reason for low conversion rate can be poor SEO, an outdated site design
or very complicated conversion process. Thing to consider at this stage could be building
internal links, removing duplicate content, adding meta tags and decreasing site loading
time, update the design. (Quick Sprout, 2014) Also for testing functionalities and design, it is
worth to consider testing campaign sites with focus groups.
Conversion:
There are many reasons why customers convert and many more why they do not. The rea-
sons for non-conversion could fall into competitors being ahead of you. So in this stage it is
advised to research competition offers, research and meet client expectations.
Loyalty:
After the conversion brands are moving towards brand loyalty. Here you need to take ac-
tions that will allow customers to make following purchases. “Brands that have the highest
customer loyalty are Amazon, Google, Facebook and Zappos focus on personalizing the cus-
tomer experience to keep customers coming back. So maintaining customer experience is
very important. This could be achieved by automated welcoming emails from the brand “.
(Quick Sprout, 2014)
Brand advocacy:
This stage focuses on customers loving the brand and sharing their experiences. This is
a stage gaining the emotional connection with the customers. Customers are attracted to
brands that have a positive social buzz. Here offering small initiative in exchange for shar-
ing the brand with their friends could help to create an advocacy.
6.3.3 Conclusion
To sum up, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and the
prospects in mind. Content marketing done in the right way allows to deliver information
that solves user problems and suggests solutions. Content marketing goes closely together
with lead-generation tactics and shares a common purpose to attract and retain customers.
This strategy opens wide range possibilities for connecting with consumers and changing
their approach to marketing overall. How would the marketing change if consumers would
consider it as a source of knowledge instead of an interruption and noise? But the call to
action should not be forgotten with this type of content as it helps to persuade people to act.
Lead-generation pipeline focuses on nurturing leads from start to beginning. This new ap-
proach to lead generation allows to analyze and consider new techniques, but in practice
as long as the strategy focuses on gaining and maintaining relationships with prospects and
current customers, it does not matter how it is called. As customer experience is becoming

one of the most important factors of marketing, focusing on the personalizing experience
gives a lot of value to the brand.
It is important to determine and adjust every marketing strategy according to the customer
buying funnel, and the stage users are currently in. Every single phase requires different
tactics and different targeting messages to retain consumers. In general, it is a challenge to
determine the consumer stage. Having in mind the complexity of the service or a product,
trying to guess logically will help marketers to have a starting point. But in the end every
single offer and every single strategy should be tested and measured to determine which
content tactics work the best in a given situation.
6.4 Design
Website is the most efficient medium to generate leads, and leads are only as qualitative as
the site that provides them. (Jacob, 2014) Websites usability/layout is one of the main factors
influencing if user will bounce (leave the website) or make a conversion.
Undeveloped website design causes consumers to downgrade their perception of a compa-
ny. Where elements such as incomplete product design, overwhelming and complex content,
pushing marketing tactics are examples of poor website usability design. (tech tools, 2014)
The first few seconds on a new website or campaign page are the most critical seconds. Us-
ers just by looking or skimming through the page should be able to recognize what the page
is all about. This theory is called the Big Bang Theory of Web design. (Krug, 2014, p.89) The
study executed in order to determine the impact of the first impression (Lindgaard, 2006)
has shown that “... the initial impression gained in the first 50 milliseconds tended to be
very similar to the impressions people had after when they had more time to spend on the
page”. The same research revealed that with the high positive visual appeal users tended to
overlook usability problems. This research proves that the impact of the feeling stimulated
by the first impression should not be ignored and taken into consideration as one of the
important appealing factors. Let’s analyze design elements in relation to lead nurturing to
understand how this impression could be achieved and used in the most efficient way.
6.4.1 Conversion Centered Design
Conversion for marketers means convincing a visitor to completing a single driven business
objective. Conversion Centered Design is a discipline that helps to achieve that. This Conver-
sion Centered Design is a theory created by field professionals. Conversion centered design
has one purpose - to get users to achieve a specific goal. This type of design can be defined as
the combination of design principles and psychological elements to guide prospects towards
a single focused objective. (The Ultimate Guide To Conversion Centered Design, 2014)

According to Unbounce, Hutspor and kissmetrics blogs (The Ultimate Guide To Conversion
Centered Design, 2014) , there are seven design and psychology principles of conversion
centered design:
- Encapsulation,
- contrast color,
- directional cues,
- white space,
- urgency and scarcity,
- try before you buy,
- social proof.
Encapsulation is a technique directing users to the point of interest. This could be achieved
by using strong dynamic shapes.
Contrast color which focuses on making call to action stand out from its surroundings. To
create an emotional reaction, colors can be used. For example using the same color for the
headline and for the CTA button would create a unified and continuous experience for the user.
“Directional cues are visual indicators that point to the focal area and help to guide them.
Arrows, pathways and the directional impact of line of sight. Other powerful tactics to direc-
tional cues are eyes. Eyes can be used to point to the direction” (Gardner, 2014)
An essential part of the design are images. Images create a strong connection between the
content and the user. (Kringelbach, 2014)
White space is used to emphasize the important parts of the landing pages and stand out
from the surroundings - one focus point for the eyes.
Urgency and scarcity are common psychological motivators to create an urgency - limited
time and scarcity - limited supply. Scarcity increases a fear of missing out on the desired
opportunity. People are more afraid of losing something then gaining something else. (Wein-
schenk, 2014)
Try before you buy is a widely used technique which allows users to test the product or
service before paying. This shows a confidence by providing a good quality product and not
being afraid of losing customers in that way. These tactics also help to filter users for the
ones who are interested. For example, Amazon uses this tactics for “look inside the book”
before purchasing. This increases interest, trust and boosts conversions. (Gardner, 2014)
Social proof creates a crowd reaction and can enhance the “me too” factor. This social proof
can be provided by showing likes and shares of social media, webinar registrations.Testimo-
nials can also help to create trust. (Gardner, 2014)

These seven principles in general contribute to creating a more condensed and thought
through campaign tactics. Conversion centered design could be considered as a checklist
or a guide helping to optimize the strategy to make it more effective and efficient as it both
contains principles of design and user behavior centered psychology.
6.4.2 Website form design
Website forms are one of the ways generating leads. A report from KoMarketing Associ-
ates states that 82% respondents of their study indicated that excessive form requirements
deters them from filling out the form. Consumers prefer to release their full name, email
address, company, job title in a form submission. Where phone number (60%) and address
information (53%) are information consumers prefer not to release. (Huf, 2014) This re-
search lets us assume that consumers prefer short and condensed forms. And in terms of
conversion rates, short forms outperform long ones.
6.4.3 Conclusion
In general, there are few considerations business has to take when creating a website or de-
sign material for digital lead generation. First of all, on the homepage latest content should
be highlighted and if it is possible used with the combination of noticeable and attractive
visuals. The content should consist of prominent and clear calls-to-action, easy to read fonts,
compelling imagery, and scannable content in general. First impression is an important fac-
tor to consider as it has a lot of influence on user experience, so marketers should put a lot
of focus on delivering a good user experience and satisfaction. And as contact forms are one
the major tools for receiving conversions, an approach that is thought through should be
applied. Only asking for information that is crucial for the businesses and making contact
forms as short as possible is advisable.
6.5 Promotion
As explained in chapter 5 the most effective digital lead-generation strategies are search
engine marketing, social media advertising and email marketing. Companies marketing
mix should include both inbounds and paid lead generation techniques. Where inbound
techniques can’t always drive consumer to buy, paid techniques can introduce companies,
augment their messages and expose their leads to content. (The Definitive Guide to Lead
Generation, 2014, p.94) This chapter will explain both inbound and paid techniques through
the search engine marketing, social media advertising and email marketing and will intro-
duce the methods of the promotion taking into consideration landing pages as a place to
make conversions.

6.5.1 Landing Pages
Landing pages are the main aspect of lead generation as every tactic used by marketer’s
leads to one or another kind of landing page where customers take the final action to con-
vert. According to MarketingSherpa’s research, landing pages are effective for 94% of B2C
and B2B companies. (Meher, 2014, p.21)
Landing page is a standalone page that uses compatible design to usher visitors toward busi-
ness objective, for example collecting personal data or educating visitors about the product/
service, before passing them to next phase of buying funnel. (The Ultimate Guide To Conver-
sion Centered Design, 2014, p.8)
The five core elements of any landing page according to Unbounce eBook “The Ultimate
Guide to PPC Landing Pages” (The Ultimate Guide to PPC Landing Pages, 2014) are:
- Company’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) : the main headline and supporting the headline
- The hero shot: image or video showing context of use
- The benefits of company’s offering: a bulleted list summary of benefits
- Social proof: testimonials or reviews
- A single conversion goal
Important factor to consider is to segment landing page according to a distribution channel.
Which means for example if there was a price per click (PPC - this campaign will be ex-
plained further) campaign with a certain headline, the headline on the landing page should
be the same as for the ad. As every strategy needs testing and optimization, testing chan-
nels against each other to determine which one is the most effective would help to make
the campaign more effective. This segmentation creates an experience that is unified and
interrelated.

Image nr.3: Marketing Campaign Channels
Even though campaign page is a page dedicated to converting visitors to customer, the land-
ing page should contain the same look and feel like the main website.
6.5.2 Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the most cost effective lead-generation strategies
Source: ©2014, The Ultimate Guide To
Conversion Centered Design, Unbounce,
page 6.
Social media Email PPC Organic Display
measurements clarity and to identify strong/weak source.
Funnel segmentation has allowed you to
isolate a weak inbound source. Either
remove/reduce spending on this channel
or A/B test to improve it.
32%
Conversion rate
21%
Conversion rate
25%
Conversion rate
9%
Conversion rate
14%
Conversion rate

as if it is done right can end up generating a lot of traffic and leads. Search engines offer
in-depth data about the performance of SEM ads. It is also one of the most scalable lead-gen-
eration tactics. In general, when someone enters a keyword, search engine offers a list of
organic search results. But search engine marketing ads related to that search term will also
appear in the list above or on the side. Search engine marketing helps to target consumers
within the target group who are ready to make a purchase. If they clicked an ad, they are
actively searching for a product or service to solve their problems or to answer questions.
In contrary search engine marketing and search engine optimization methods should not
be confused. (Scott, 2013, 40%)
6.5.2.1 Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of using keywords in strategic places on the
webpage in order to get the site on a higher position in the organic search results on search
engine. SEO could be used as a lead-generation tactics, but it requires a lot of time and effort
to create organic results. As search engines are more and more focusing on personalizing
user experience, organic search might be partially out of the marketer’s control. The goal of
SEO is to convince the search engine bots that the web page is the most relevant. It is hard to
quantify SEO as a lead-generation tool because it is difficult to measure the results in a short
period. For these reasons, SEO strategies will not be considered further. (Scott, 2013, 40%)
6.5.2.2 Pay-per-click search ads
Search engine marketing is relying on pay-per-click advertising. When it comes to measur-
ing the ROMI, pay-per-click(PPC) is the most liable channel. With PPC advertising, compa-
nies’ ad is placed on the top (or side) of search engine results as a sponsored ad. Company
pays for each received click and can adjust their PPC ads to appear when specific search
terms are entered. (The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation, 2014, p.94)
PPC Keywords
The keywords for PPC campaigns needs to be close to the one’s company uses for content
marketing as content marketing strategy is interrelated with the search engine marketing.
Price per click will be lower if content is related with the ad campaign. (The Definitive
Guide to Lead Generation, 2014, p.96)
The number of search keywords used for PPC campaign can only be limited by companies
budget, it all relies on how high company is willing to bid on each keyword. General key-
words command higher PPC rates than specific ones, because more ads are competing for
those searches. Specific search terms command lower PPC rates, because a considerably
lower amount of companies are bidding for particular keyword combinations. The more
specific keywords and phrases are, and the lower PPC rates will be for them. The longer
phrases are, the more specifics they are, those phrases are called long-tail keywords.
(Scott, 2013, Choosing Your Keywords, 41% )

6.5.2.3 Landing Pages for PPC
To execute successful PPC campaign using landing pages, company should be aware of two
points: message match and attention ration. (The Ultimate Guide to PPC Landing Pages,
2014, p.7)
Message match is how company’s landing page headline matches the call to action that was
clicked to arrive on the landing page. The text on the CTA button matters as it reflects what
will happen, when the button is clicked. (The Ultimate Guide to PPC Landing Pages, 2014,
p.7)
“Attention ratio is the ratio of links on the page, to the number of campaign conversion goals
(call-to-action), which is always one. Landing page has an attention ratio of one call to action
and one link”. (The Ultimate Guide to PPC Landing Pages, 2014, p.8)
What makes PPC a powerful marketing medium is that company gets to learn a collection
of information about their customers in real time. More specifically, companies can learn
about: the user’s intent from the user’s search phrases; what device they’re using; behavior
at different times of the day and week; where in the world their users are searching from.
(The Ultimate Guide to PPC Landing Pages, 2014, p.12)
By using that collected data company, can optimize their landing pages for successful cam-
paigns. Where landing pages are build for each stage of buying funnel. The best practice
for PPC campaign is using a technique called “google landing page best practices” . Where
landing page has to be relevant, useful and original; need to have high transparency and
trustworthiness; should be fast, clear and easy to use. (The Ultimate Guide to PPC Landing
Pages, 2014, p.27)
All that leads to improvement of AdWords Quality Score. Google defines Quality score as “A
measurement of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing page are to a person seeing
your ad. Higher Quality Scores can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.” (The Ulti-
mate Guide to PPC Landing Pages, 2014, p.24)
6.5.3 Social media for Digital Lead Generation
Many companies are embracing social media as a tool to reach out to consumers. Companies
use social media to generate noise and activity around them and their products and servic-
es. The most common tools used for marketing are blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Social media advertising is a component of social media that is designed for lead generation.
Companies post banner ads on social media sites in order to generate leads. These ads target
potential customers with specific demographics. Companies pay for these ads on a PPC ba-
sis. This section will explain both unpaid and paid (social media advertising) tactics. (Scott,
2013, 48%)

A survey from Forrester found that only 20% of consumers believe what a brand says about
itself, where 70% of consumers trust the recommendations of their friends and family. When
consumers learn about the brand through social media, it gives companies the opportunity
to turn “likes” into leads. (Social Media for Lead Generation, 2014, p.3)
“Consumers are motivated to share by reputation enhancement, access to something exclu-
sive, opportunities for co-creation/authorship, competitions or altruism.” (Social Media for
Lead Generation, 2014, p.4) Companies can use tactics like:
- Refer-a-friend: By creating a compelling offer for both the referrers and referees.
- Sweepstakes: Companies can create a contest and get the participants to share.
- Polls and voting: Gives a possibility for consumers to share their opinions and gains valuable
information about leads likes and dislikes, giving a starting point for the next campaigns.
- Flash deals: By creating a sense of urgency with a strong call-to-action and time limit it can
cause consumers to act quickly.
In order to be effective, companies need an engaging balance of promotional content and
thought leadership. When using social media as a lead generation tool, it is advised to use
80/20 rule. Where 80% of the content should be informational and educational, and 20%
should be self-promotional. (Social Media for Lead Generation, 2014, p.4)
6.5.3.1 Social media advertising
Every social media site has its parameters and policies for posting ads. Before designing a
campaign, companies need to research each social media site where they plan to post an ad
campaign and understand the parameters and policies for each location. Social media sites
enable companies to define and reach out to their target markets and customers with more
precision and accuracy. (Scott, 2013, Planning Your Social Advertising Approach, 47% )
Social media sites provide its users access to communities of people with similar interests,
backgrounds, and goals. With the information gained from these communities and users,
companies can easily identify consumers most likely to buy their products or services and
then post PPC ads that will appear exclusively on the social media pages of consumers with-
in their target market. (Scott, 2013, Planning Your Social Advertising Approach, 47% )
Facebook and LinkedIn were able to develop an advertising model based on search engine
marketing and a payment method (PPC). There are three essential steps in planning a suc-
cessful lead generation campaign on Facebook, LinkedIn or any other online based social
media site. First of all companies should research and define their target audience. Secondly
create the ad. Thirdly set up a campaign on the social media site. (Scott, 2013, Advertising on
Facebook and LinkedIn, 47%)
To set up the campaign companies should follow three parameters. Firstly the bid, compa-
nies PPC rate for how much they are willing to pay each time consumer clicks on the ad.

Secondly the budget, the maximum amount companies wish to pay on a daily basis. Thirdly
the schedule, how long the ad should run. (Scott, 2013, STEP 3: SET UP YOUR CAMPAIGN ON
THE SOCIAL MEDIA SITE, 48%)
Twitter uses advertising model that is different from previously mentioned. Twitter for busi-
ness program offers promoted products, which include promoted Twitter accounts, tweets,
and trends. In general it works similar to search engine marketing, where company bids
a PPC rate to have their ad placed where Twitter users will see them, depending on which
type of promoted products company uses. (Scott, 2013, Twitter for Business and Promoted
Products, 53%)
6.5.4 Email Marketing
Email marketing is defined as an active form of marketing that involves reaching out to
potential customers. This type of marketing can enable consumers to make a transaction or
create awareness about the product. Among the nine tactics described in the survey about
the email marketing opportunities and challenges (Survey: Analyzing Email Marketing Op-
portunities and Challenges, 2014) newsletters were the most-used tactics, with an 88% re-
sponse.
Other interesting factors revealed in the survey are pain points for email marketing cam-
paigns. According to 54% of respondents is the list growth, then personalization (42%), list
maintenance (41%), mobile optimization (33%) and analytics (33%). The surprising results
is that only about a third say emails are fully mobile-optimized as the engagement rates on
mobile devices have exceeded personal computer usage. (Double Impact: Engage Online
Service Seekers, 2014)
Email marketing gives more control over the campaign as design, and message, timing,
consumer email lists and overall experience is fully customizable.
Research showed that 55.2% of all companies surveyed, listed that email marketing is the
best tool, in the sense of generating the best quality and quantity leads. All this is valid if
the campaign is thought through and executed in the correct way. (Dickie and Trailer, 2011)
Every email marketing campaign should contain following elements as:
- Defining target audience
- Select email mailing list
- Design creative assets
- Test email campaign
- Measure the results
Defining target audience is an essential part of the campaign in as much detail as possible to
make sure that email campaign is active and not considered as spam for the user. After this,

it is necessary to select email mailing lists. This would be achieved either by providing the
possibility for the user to sign up for the newsletter or by a permission-based list from the
third parties. Creating and designing creative assets consists of two parts: developing the
email itself and creating a landing page, which was described above. To achieve the channel
connectivity between email and landing page, it is necessary to mirror emails call-to-action
with landing page’s headline to prevent people from leaving.
Another important factor to remember is to avoid using word “free” as it is considered to
be a spam trigger, and ISP spam filters might block emails. (Kb.mailchimp.com, 2014) “ Also
avoiding to use all caps letters is advisable as it will almost be flagged as spam.” (Scott, 2013,
69%) Other good practices are defined in the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Wikipedia, 2014).
Email marketing campaigns as author David T. Scott claims only work best with larger mail-
ing lists. As the larger the testing audience is, the better response will be, and more data will
be gathered. (Scott, 2013, 70%)
Testing campaign multiple times will allow to determine which message received the high-
est response from the users with different sets of demographics and timing. A basic email
marketing campaign workflow consists of these elements:
Image nr.4: Email marketing campaign workflow
Some customers after receiving the email will not be ready for the hard sell. They might be
only purely interested in the content. But these clients can lead to word of mouth. And this
tactics is socially proven to be an excellent method leading towards recommendations and
awareness. This can create more potential subscribers and customers in the future. Here
the strategy would be to try to convert subscribers to customers. There is a couple of tactics
Source: ©2014, The Smart Guide to Email
Marketing, page 7
Master List
Repeat
Create Content
Set Up List
1
Create Landing Page2
3
Gather Leads4Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Add To List +
Groups
5

to do so:
- Adding a call-to-action in the footer of the email
- Adding a trial or demo link
- Follow up after some action has been taken.
6.5.5 Conclusion
Search engine marketing being one of the most scalable and tangible marketing strategies
became a primary strategic lead-generation tool, allowing marketers to create targeted cam-
paigns throughout search engines. The main reason for search engine marketing gaining
so much power is that it helps to target consumers who are in the need for a solution or
product as by entering keywords they are looking for an answer. This allows marketers to
acquire customers at the stage where they are ready to buy.
Search engine marketing is relying on pay-per-click advertising. When it comes to measur-
ing the ROMI, pay-per-click(PPC) is the most liable channel. Besides that, what makes PPC a
powerful marketing medium is that a company gains an information about their customers
in real time.
As ever single campaign needs to direct users some place where they will have the pos-
sibility to convert, landing pages and a strategy how to make them have gained a lot of
significances. Landing pages that contain connected headline repeated from the ad, selling
prepositions, trust factors and traceable contact form can make a potentially big difference
in converting leads.
Companies by studying the consumers who respond to their social media ads, can gain val-
uable insight into the demographics, wants, and needs, and buying behaviors of the target
customers. This research can be used in planning and executing further lead-generation
campaigns.
To make the most out of the email marketing, there has to be thought through strategy. This
strategy should include the defined target audience, creation and selection of the mailing
list, creation of an email with the interconnected landing page in order not to loose and
confuse customers. And as for every campaign, testing and measuring the results is the es-
sential part of email marketing strategy.
6.6 Performance monitoring
In addition to creating marketing strategies and campaigns, performance monitoring is one
of the parts that can elaborate on the effectiveness. It involves monitoring and measuring
key metrics in order to understand how the strategy is performing and overall marketing
efforts, to ensure campaign goals can be met, and to support decisions. Lead generation

performance monitoring allows to analyze the value of marketing efforts. By looking at the
cost of acquiring or nurturing a lead and testing how long it takes to convert leads into ac-
tual sales helps to improve performance. Being able to identify strengths and weaknesses
will help to significantly maximize ROI. (Marketo.com, 2013) Once the campaign is released
and marketers have gathered the data from the lead-generation campaign, it is necessary to
measure the results in order to find out how well the tactic worked, and how well the mar-
keting message and other components worked in bringing in leads.
6.6.1 Landing page optimization:
Landing page optimization is one of the parts of performance monitoring and testing tech-
niques. It is using qualitative and quantitative information in order to create a hypothesis
for a new version of the page and to test, which should result in higher conversion rate.
Landing page optimization process consists of defining goals, followed by building the first
page, driving traffic to that page, gathering feedback, creating a hypothesis to test A/B split
(A/B split testing will be explained further) testing the hypothesis. After the hypothesis is
tested marketers should go back to the landing page, optimize it and gather the results once
again. The last part has no exact number of iterations of how many times to create a hypoth-
esis and to A/B split test them.
Image nr.5 : A/B Split Testing
Source: ©2014, The Landing Page
Optimization Process, Unbounce,
page 11
A
B
1
Get feedback4
Create hyphotesis5
landing page
2A/B split test
your hyphotesis
6
to your page
3

6.6.1.1 Contact form optimization
Anything can be improved even the so commonly used contact forms. There has been a
research executed in testing the contact form layout comparing traditional forms with the
narrative form layout. A/B testing showed that the narrative form that lets users fill the gaps
in the story increased the conversion rate by 35%.
Image nr.6: Narrative Contact Form
This noted research showed that even the most commonly used elements can be tested and
improved. While this narrative contact form might not work for every scenario or business
field, it shows different options to consider while testing. (Lukew.com, 2014)
Another option to consider with using contact forms is replacing drop down menus with
visible options or autocomplete fields. Drop down menus are the most commonly used op-
tion for choosing in between multiple possibilities. As a drop down menus hides the possible
options, by replacing them with other options that are visible, can help to increase customer
satisfaction and effectiveness. (Nngroup.com, 2014)
Contact this dealer
First name:
Send
Last Name:
Street address:
ZIP code:
Email:
Comments:
Phone:
I’m interested
Lehmer’s Buick Pontiac GMC
800-577-7300To:
From:
Your message:
Hello, my name is
and I’m writing you today to lear more about the
2009 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 LT listed for
$20.995. I live at
in the area and I would like to hear
back from you soon and learn more about this
vehicle. Please call me back on
at your earliest converience.
Send this message
my email address
last name
ZIP
phone number
my street address (optional)

Going against conventions is challenging, but if there is a good hypothesis to support A/B
testing idea, it is worth testing and trying different options. It’s not the visitors job to find out
all that they need to make in order to purchase, it a task for marketers to make the process
easier and more effective. (posts, 2013)
6.6.2 Search engine marketing measurement
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a very flexible tactics as it could be paused at any given
time or combined with other keywords. Search engines provide a vast amount of data, and
if a campaign are running, for example, for a week, search engines give a lot of information
about the performance. This information can help to determine how well each SEM ad is
working comparing to overall ad campaign. It can also determine how efficient and cost-ef-
fective each ad is in terms of lead-generation.
6.6.2.1 PPC Measurement
It is possible to change quickly or adjust the PPC campaigns, so it is important to see continu-
ally how the ads are performing. Companies should measure the following metrics for their
PPC campaigns: (The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation, 2014,p.100)
- Impressions: An impression measures the number of times an ad is displayed when consumer
types in a search term company uses.
- Clicks: The number of times a user clicks on the ad.
- Conversions: The number of times a lead takes the action that the company set as a goal.
Spend: The amount of money spent on the campaign.
By combining these measurements it is possible to use other metrics such as:
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Clicks/Impressions. The percentage of impressions that customer
clicks.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Spend/Clicks. The amount of money spend per click.
- Conversion Rate: Conversions/Clicks. The percentage of clicks that turn into conversions.
(The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation, 2014,p.100)
6.6.3 Email marketing measurement
The key to measuring campaign success is to understand CPA (cost per action) of email mar-
keting campaign. The best way to determine the CPA is to identify it before the campaign
begins and measure it during. It is necessary to be aware of the average open rates to be
able to understand how the campaign is performing. Another measurement value is CTR
(click through rate) and conversion rates for email marketing - how many people take the
desired action once they get to the landing page. (Scott, 2013, 72%) As smartinsights.com

states (Smart Insights, 2014) for BtoC campaigns, open rates average is 23.66% while click
through rate is in average 3.57 %. In contrary BtoB campaigns, open rates average is 22.31%
and click rate average at 2.11%. A 15% conversion rate is a good rate as author points out,
(Scott, 2013, 72%) which means that 15 out of every 100 people who visited the landing
page after receiving email converted to a lead or sale. Anything lower than this percentage
is worth going back and optimizing the campaign. For BtoB campaigns, “a conversion rate
can be as high as 25% if product and offer are properly targeted and if the landing page is
thought through”. (Scott, 2013, 72%)
6.6.4 Social media marketing measurement
Social media sites make it easy to test various elements of ad campaigns. Social media site
has a set of data collection tools that give feedback and analysis the response to the ad. On
Facebook and LinkedIn it is possible to post three or four different versions of an ad and test
which version or offer gets the best response. (Scott, 2013, Testing Your Social Advertising
Campaign, 50%)
Twitter uses a similar concept to PPC, but it is designed for how Twitter users interact with
tweets. For promoted accounts, companies pay a cost per-follow (CPF), whenever a Twitter
user clicks on the “Follow” link and subscribes to Promoted account, and the company has
to pay. For promoted tweets, companies pay a cost-per-engagement (CPE) rate, whenever a
Twitter user click on promoted tweet, retweets it, replies to it, or makes it as a favorite, com-
pany has to pay. (Scott, 2013, SETTING UP YOUR AD CAMPAIGN ON TWITTER, 55%)
6.6.5 A/B split testing
A/B split testing is a method to compare one variation of a campaign against one or more var-
iations that contain one significant different element. This test is done within a set amount
of time or visits and comparing the results to how the change affected the results. Users will
only be able to see one or another interpretation of the page and measuring the conversions
will allow to determine the page version which are performing the best.
A/B split testing could be used to test any campaign not depending if it’s an email, landing
page, PPC campaign or content marketing. To make a testing valid Unbounce source (The
Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing, 2014) suggests that it needs to be run by 100-200 unique vis-
itors to the page or 1000 total visitors and run the test for a week to cover daily behaviours.
6.6.6 Conclusion
To summarize campaign performance monitoring helps to determine how effective is the
campaign. Marketers can make hypothesis, test and improve performance of any tactics
including PPC campaigns, social media ads, landing page structure by analyzing data. As

analyzed, every platform providing the tools for advertising also provides data analysis and
the possibility to execute changes. Marketers should be aware of the average conversion
rates comparing to the industry and make optimization accordingly. Testing and optimiza-
tion is the key to success as there will always be a way how to increase and to optimize the
effectiveness. A/B split testing is one of the widely used strategies for optimizing which helps
to test different hypotheses taking one element at a time.
7.0 Conclusion
This final chapter presents an overview of the conducted research, outlining the significant
findings and answering the posed research question.
Identify digital lead generation and benefits for businesses:
Leads are people who have a genuine interest in your product or service and are consider-
ing one or another business as a viable option to meet their needs.
Lead-generation accordingly is a set of tactics that allows marketers to target leads with the
highest possibility of converting them to customers. The most efficient methods of digital
lead nurturing are as follows email marketing, search engine marketing and social media
advertising. But in order to know the strategy effectiveness it is important to track and
measure the results. As the benefits of doing that are generating quality leads, creating sales
conversion rates, nurturing sales leads and improving sales conversion rates. Measuring
the return on marketing investment (ROMI) is rated the highest by modern marketers. Only
by continually measuring and testing lead-generation results, companies can improve and
adjust their tactics and increase their return on marketing investment.As the benefits of do-
ing that are generating quality leads, creating sales conversion rates, nurturing sales leads
and improving sales conversion rates.
Current practices of digital lead-generation:
To understand current practices of lead generation, the analysis of content marketing, de-
sign, promotion and performance was executed. This separate element analysis helped us
to understand the tactics and best practices in each area. Analysis of expert interview and
case study contributed to gain more profound knowledge about the lead-generation tactics
used by businesses.
Content marketing strategy:
Content marketing strategy allows to deliver information that solves problems and suggests
solutions for the reader. Content marketing goes closely together with lead generation tac-
tics to attract and retain customers with the combination to using a call to action that helps
to persuade people to act. To nurture leads by content marketing, it is important to deter-
mine and adjust every marketing strategy according to the consumer buying funnel. This
requires adjusting tactics and content message to acquire customers in every phase of buy-

ing funnel. This leads to a finding of a new content marketing approach called lead-gener-
ation pipeline. This approach focuses on nurturing leads from the start to beginning with
the marketers concentrate on nurturing users throughout the process by striving for 100%.
“This approach by envisioning the finish line at 100% pushes marketers to create the best
content, curate the best leads and ensure that every single customer will continue to convert
throughout the pipeline” (Quick Sprout, 2014). Lead-generation pipeline establishes a long
term promotion strategy as in contrary lead-generation funnel focuses more on narrowing
down the customers and focuses on short-term thinking.
Design strategy:
Websites usability/layout is one of the main factors influencing if user will bounce (leave
the website) or make a conversion. Undeveloped website design causes consumers to down-
grade their perception of a company. Where elements such as incomplete product design,
overwhelming and complex content, pushing marketing tactics are examples of poor web-
site layout design. A theory called conversion centered design helps to create a more con-
densed and thought through layout that is focused on helping to generate leads as it both
contains principles of design and user behavior centered psychology. The content should
consist of prominent and clear calls-to-action, easy to read fonts, compelling imagery, and
scannable content in general. And as contact forms are one the major tools for receiving
conversions, a thought through approach should be applied here. Only gathering informa-
tion that is crucial for the businesses and making contact forms as short as possible.
Promotion strategy:
One of the main strategic, the most scalable and tangible lead-generation tool is considered
to be a search engine marketing. Search engine marketing helps to target consumers who
are in the need for a solution or product as by entering keywords they are looking for an an-
swer. This allows marketers to acquire customers at the stage where they are ready to buy.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a powerful marketing medium which allows to gather information
about the customers in real time and helps measure the return on marketing investment
(ROMI). Landing pages is a place where marketers makes the conversions to happen, so they
should contain interrelated headlines from the ad campaigns, selling prepositions, trust fac-
tors, and contact form. Social media advertising is a way of gaining valuable insights into
customer needs and buying behaviors. Email marketing helps to target consumers with
more control over the content as it allows marketers to set the targeting lists, content, mes-
sage, structure and design of the email.
Performance monitoring:
Performance monitoring is one of the parts that involves monitoring and measuring key
metrics. This is done in order to determine how the campaign is performing and in order
to understand overall marketing efforts, to ensure the campaign goals can be met and to
support decisions. By analyzing data, marketers can make hypothesis, test and improve per-
formance of any tactics including PPC campaigns, social media ads, landing page structure.
Testing and optimization is the key to success as there will always be another method how

to increase and to optimize the effectiveness. A/B split testing is one of the widely used strat-
egies for optimizing which helps to test different hypotheses taking one element at a time.
Expert interview:
As the interview showed, there is a need for organizing the overwhelming amount of data
available online for users that make it time consuming to research and find solutions to the
problems the users are solving. Search marketing in terms of conversion rates is the most
efficient way to generate leads. Employees face a day to day hassle to organize their key-
words, search terms, and possible content topics with excel sheets. Company create content
according to buying funnel starting to produce content from the bottom up as customers
who are in the last stage of buying funnel are ready to purchase. In order to make sure of it,
customer service contacts every single lead and clarifies their quality and intentions.
Case study analysis:
As this analysis show in order to generate leads the planning, and executing consists of
several steps. Firstly it starts with research and setting up goals for the campaign. Secondly
the strategy is based on potential customer needs and problems. When that is completed,
business can start building framework and architecture for the campaign. The campaign
has its schedule in order to plan it for a longer period. The last step is analyzing the results.
8.0 Solution
For many marketers lead-generation represents an image of leads and prospects flowing in,
converting and becoming customers. The genius problem with that image is that a relatively
small percent of them converts and even smaller percentage of them continues to become
long-term clients. (6.3.2 Lead-generation pipeline) Our analysis was focused on gathering
insights on lead-generation tactics and practices used currently by marketers. As our re-
search shows, we have concluded that the significant amount of marketers is still either
not using the lead-generation as a primary marketing strategy or using it poorly without
consistent and detailed planning. (5.0 Defining digital lead generation) Another important
insight as a benefit of the lead-generation is a possibility to calculate an accurate return on
marketing investment. (5.1 Benefits of digital lead-generation for businesses in the service
area) This as a consequence to the poor lead-generation strategy planning could result in
imprecise and misleading return on marketing investment calculation and misleading mar-
keting campaign evaluation.
To be able to improve long-term relationships and to aim for the 100% share of the market,
to help marketers to plan lead-generation strategy and to improve the effectiveness of their
marketing campaigns we have came up with the concept. We believe contributes solving
and improving all these problems we have discovered during our research.
To achieve these goals, our solution is focused on the digital platform which is a guide for
marketers that helps to plan every single stage of effective lead-generation. Our concept is

called “ digital lead-generation piping”. This digital platform will be focused on five stages
in the reference to the lead-generation pipeline theory analysis (6.3.2 Lead-generation pipe-
line ) which focuses on nurturing leads from the start to the end. This will help marketers to
have an overview and the thought through guide for constructing a strategy. Lead-genera-
tion piping platform will consist of:
- Problem recognition (Initial awareness)
- Information search / evaluation of alternatives (Consideration)
- Purchase decisions (Conversions)
- Loyalty (Make customers come back)
- Brand advocacy (Customers promote brand)
8.1 Front page:
Front page of our platform going to be a perfect example and representation of the landing
page (explained in section 6.5.1 Landing Pages ). As this is going to be a new product in the
market, we need to focus on selling and introducing our concept as a tool to archive busi-
ness success in terms of lead-generation.
First we are going to concentrate on introducing the concept of the guided strategy based on
the pipeline. Prospects will be presented with short unique selling propositions and the tar-
geted message to our business oriented target group such as “Plan, structure and strive for
the most cost effective lead-generation campaign”. After this massage, there will be a short
intro to the overall idea and an interactive visual representation of the pipeline with the
stages displayed. Every single step will be clickable and will expand with the content that
describes the benefits and possibilities available for every stage. Afterward, there will be a
video presenting a platform with the combination to the call-to-action button suggesting to
try the platform for 30 days for free. Text leading to the action “Experience the benefits for
30 days for free”, call-to-action being “Start now free 30-day trial”.

Image nr.7: Front page mockup
8.2 Information search / evaluation of alternatives (Con-
sideration)
Explanation of the key focus points of lead-generation pipeline concept could be found in
the analysis section 6.3.2 Lead-generation pipeline. We are going to take one of the five stag-
es and explain the structure and benefits of that stage. Having in mind that the general prin-
ciple of other steps will be consistent and similar to the one explained more deep. Worth to
mention that this platform will be only focusing on B2B and B2C service area, as other areas
might require different and custom approach focused platform. To see the platform in full
scale visit (http://invis.io/XF1VIN3VW)

Image nr.8: Information search / evaluation of alternatives (Consideration) page mockup
The overall idea of the platform is to structure information in the logical and easy to find
and control manner. Once logged in customers will be presented with the clickable sidebar
which will be a representation of the same pipeline concept introduced on the front page. In
the beginning, there will be a short introduction which will as on the front page will explain
what this pipeline section is all about and what are the benefits of this particular stage.
In the main content area, the focus will be brought to fillable blocks such as:
- Keywords
- Topics
- Message structure

- Advertising channels
- Landing pages
- Budget
- Optimization
Every single block once clicked will bring the user to a more deep level, where they can fill
in and construct necessary information. As, for example, taking the first block keywords.
This will help marketers to get rid of the over complicated excel sheets with keyword anal-
ysis (6.1.3 Questions about Your Solution). Structured and thought through keyword section
will contribute to focusing on the right keywords during the information search (or any
other) pipeline stage. After filling out the keywords block, the connectivity with the next
phase of planning will appear, which is the topics. As the subjects are constructed around
the highest in demand keywords this visual representation will help to focus on the correct
subject construction. Advanced engine behind the platform will use google to suggest long
tale topics which could be beneficial for marketers as well as offering the possibility to con-
struct themes from scratch using just the keyword in focus.
This will lead to the next planning stage which is structuring the message that marketer
wants to deliver through out the picked topic. Message architecture will be suggested to
structure according to the case study example (6.2 Case study analysis). This section will be
more of a guide, reminding the crucial checkpoints of the content architecture. This way of
structuring the message will help marketers to remember to include all essential elements
to make the content useful, educational and problem solving for the readers (6.3 Content
marketing analysis).
After the messaging block is finished, the next logical step is to look at the advertising chan-
nels. In this block, marketers will have a chance to read about the different possible adver-
tising channels if they have a need for that. But what’s important, they will be able to select
different channels and create a strategy for every single channel on demand. This will allow
marketers to plan the essential elements and help to define the direction of the campaign. So
for example among others there will be a possibility to choose from search engine market-
ing, email marketing, social marketing (refer to 6.5 Promotion section ), describe strategic
moves, goals and to determine expected results. This will allow to compare the expectancy
with the actual numbers and in the further process to create a strategy for optimization.
All of this will lead marketers to the next block which is landing pages. In this block, mar-
keters will have the possibility to select the channel strategy that they have created earlier
and to combine it with the type of the landing page. This could be for example having an
email marketing campaign for the product. Landing pages are different depending either
it is a product, service, event promotion or a platform. After matching these two important
elements together, a suggestion for the landing page structure will be presented. With the
distinct features that this particular campaign should have. Also, this section will be de-
signed according to the conversion centered design concept (refer to 6.4.1 Conversion Cen-
tered Design section) which focuses on lead-generation and conversion optimization when
creating a design for landing pages.

Image nr.9: Landing pages page mockup
As this representation will be based on showing just wireframes underneath, marketers will
be able to see some graphical examples of how that landing page could look visually. This
will help marketers to be inspired and use these resources for their purposes.
This leads us to the next block, which is defining the budget for the whole campaign. Engine
behind the platform depending on the earlier block entries will generate a budgeting list
for campaign elements with the possibility to add extra elements or to remove unnecessary.
After the campaign is set up and running, the last but not least block of interest will be
optimization. This block will allow marketers to research upon the running campaign and
give according suggestions how to optimize the campaign. Here the A/B split testing feature

comes in (refer to 6.6.5 A/B split testing section). This block will give marketers a possibility
to test different possibilities and to create an alternative landing pages and to adjust the
structure.
8.3 General platform features
To indicate the overall progress of the campaign planning, there will be a bar showing the
percentage value of the overall progress. This progress will be calculated taking the infor-
mation block which were filled and left empty. Another useful feature will be a possibility
easily to browse between different campaigns presented as a search function at the top of
the sidebar. Also, there will be an opportunity to duplicate the campaigns with all the filled
blocks to make it easy and time efficient to start planning new campaigns.
As this platform is more focused on presenting a structured and thought through campaign
planning, there will not be inside placed possibility to calculate return on marketing invest-
ment (ROMI). During our analysis, we have wound out that there is an extensive choice for
marketers already in existence. But as we believe that the possibility to see the ROMI in the
same place where the campaign was planned is beneficial, this platform will allow to inte-
grate different API’s from these various platforms. So it will be just a matter of selecting a
button presented in the sidebar and from the given list, choosing a platform that marketers
might be already using. If marketers are using a custom system, developers will be able to
integrate it with our platform through the created API documentation.
This platform will also provide an extensive library and resources for four different catego-
ries such as content, design, promotion, performance. This will be a library of various case
studies, examples, tips and advices taken from the real businesses cases.
Another important feature of every single step of pipeline process will be a checklist divided into
categories. Categories such as keyword checklist, topic checklist, message/content architecture
checklist, advertising channel checklist, landing page checklist, budgeting checklist and optimi-
zation checklist. This will allow to click on the elements that marketers have thought through
and remind them of the things they might have forgotten. These lists will allow to reduce the
error and mistake ratio for the campaigns and save resources of the marketing campaign.
9.0 Future perspectives
As this platform is only on the concept level for the future development, there are a lot of
possibilities and opportunities. The digital platform guiding marketers has a tremendous
potential as this is a tool that is not in existence anywhere else, and we can claim that by our
research done at this point. This platform will require a team of developers to create and de-
liver the sophisticated engine in the platform. This will require an extensive calculation of

Dovile_Montvydaite_TEAM8_Semester3_1_BA_report

Dovile_Montvydaite_TEAM8_Semester3_1_BA_report

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (20)

En vedette

En vedette (14)

Similaire à Dovile_Montvydaite_TEAM8_Semester3_1_BA_report

Similaire à Dovile_Montvydaite_TEAM8_Semester3_1_BA_report (20)

Plus de Dovile Montvydaite

Plus de Dovile Montvydaite (6)

Dovile_Montvydaite_TEAM8_Semester3_1_BA_report