News
How to Make the Most of Your Lead Generation Potential, Chapter One: Generating Leads on Your Website
March 5, 2013
As a publisher, lead generation (or lead gen) is more than likely an essential component of feeding your online and print revenue. Increasingly, lead gen is about providing more value and greater access to expertise, creative solutions and up-to-date information to your subscribers, members, prospective customers and repeat customers. It’s all part of the inbound content marketing and lead nurturing activities that define contemporary lead generation.
Marketingsherpa.com created this chart to show the mostly widely used lead generation tactics that include:
- eMail marketing
- SEO
- Social media
- Website optimization management and design
- Content marketing
- Paid search
- Tradeshows
- Webinars
- Mobile
That’s a lot to juggle.
An optimized, intuitively designed and mobile-responsive website should be at the center of any publisher’s lead gen strategy. But often, execution becomes the challenge. To make your strategy a reality, you’ll want the efficiencies of a content management platform that supports creating content once and delivering through multiple channels.
Ideally, you manage your content from one easy dashboard, deliver relevant content based on user behavior and preferences AND you drive your potential and existing customers to ONE rich resource for all the information that gives them a competitive edge: your website. You also want make it easy for them to share your content.
How?
At the foundation, you need internal resources that allow you to monitor your lead generation activities, along with user registration, tracking, reporting and analytics. As readers or customers indicate why they are visiting, only a powerful CRM or Circulation System allows you to take action, based on user behavior. You also want strong design to support SEO tactics, as well as automated sitemap and Google sitemap updates. But why stop there, why not use your website as the hub to deploy your lead generation tactics?
Here are examples of how two of our clients are using website features as the starting point for lead generation:
Modern Distribution Management (MDM)
Modern Distribution Management (MDM) is the only specialized BtoB information service for wholesale distribution executives. Produced by Gale Media, MDM.com offers a wide range of content that includes business intelligence, industry news, in-depth analysis, economic data and practical ideas from leading experts in distribution. Subscribers use these valuable resources, every day, to run their businesses and plan for the future.
MDM focused its initial lead generation activities on promoting sponsored webinars. With Events Listings built into its Enterprise Publishing System (EPS)*, various businesses can list and advertise webcasts on MDM.com; providing a strong central resource for industry skill building, while giving businesses a unique opportunity to connect with their target audience.
Following up on the success of this tactic, MDM expanded efforts to its eNewsletter.They’ve split eNews updates into daily and weekly summaries. Visitors can opt-in or out of each update based on their preferences. Options include a popular Tip of the Week email. Registering for the various eNews items is simple, with several ways to access the signup form, including a pop-up for the Update List. Meanwhile, to tie it all together, MDM staff target special subscription offers to MDM Update and Tip of the Week recipients, along with periodic announcements for the sponsored webinars.
Grand View Media Group (GVMG)
GVMG specializes in consumer and business-to-business magazines, as well as custom publishing. A subsidiary of EBSCO Industries based in Birmingham, Alabama, the company currently publishes nineteen titles and three directories covering the outdoors and business-to-business markets. By providing full publishing management services, including general management and oversight of accounting, editorial, sales, production and circulation, GVMG successfully provides award-winning support and increasing readership and revenue for its publishing partners.
On all of its relaunched websites, GVMG tracks and identifies lead potential in part, by offering free download of its whitepapers and other industry resources to readers. When an unregistered visitor clicks on the link to download, they are asked to register. If they are already logged in, they receive the paper without having to go through the registration step again.
Additionally, by leveraging an integrated Directories Tool, GVMG websites provide comprehensive buyer’s guide information, contextually related to site content. With an Enterprise Publishing System (EPS)* that eliminates content silos, GVMG editors present related directories with articles and search results. Extensive, open listings allow visitors to access information about companies that provide relevant and often critical supplies and services in the industry.
Readers browse and search the directories using keywords, a company or product name, or industry category. Customers can purchase, create and manage their listings in just a few simple steps—making it easy for GVMG to add a valued resource and indispensable point of contact between advertisers and potential customers.
These are just a few ways that our clients are using the ePublishing EPS to execute and enhance their lead generation efforts. In our next chapter, we describe how you can increase the value of leads for your advertisers and sponsors.
In the meantime, consider the lead gen tactics that best suit your needs and make sure your SaaS CMS is up to the task and backed by 24 x 7 support and best practices consultants.
*Enterprise Publishing System (EPS): ePublishing’s fully integrated, cloud-based Software as a Service that provides integrated content management, CRM and eCommerce solutions for publishers—backed by custom development, design and 24 x 7 support.