One of the most frequent questions I get asked as a digital marketer is "how can I generate leads with digital marketing." Not a more general question could be asked to someone in marketing or a similar line of expertise.

There are many elements of information needed to be able to answer this question. The answer most people expect to hear is “sure, just invest some money using Facebook Ads to launch campaigns on Instagram and you’re good.”

THIS IS WRONG, JUST PLAIN WRONG! 

Being unorganized, uninformed, and moving spastically just to react will lead to failure. You need to be informed about your competition as well as your internal strengths to help identify the differences. There has to be a lead funnel in place with matching tactics to use for each stage and audience. The right infrastructure needs to exist to support incoming leads (e.g. CRM). You need a landing page with proper messaging in your copy and imagery. Creative elements for your web page, digital ads, and social posts.

Do you know how much each lead is worth to you? If you do, great! You’ll be able to calculate an ROI for each stage of the lead. If you don’t know the amount a lead is worth to your organization, figure this out ASAP.

Being aware and in-line with industry trends is a huge indicator with your audience. Be aware of what the trends are in your industry, how your competition is addressing them and if there are any predictions you can come up with to stay ahead. You should already have most of this information in SWOTT analysis (you have one, right?).

This blog series will be spread out in multiple parts to provide as much clarity as possible. With this part of the blog series, we'll start with knowing your competition.

When I’m asked a question on generating leads, my first set of questions include some light information gathering like "What is your business? What product or service do you provide? Who are your competitors?"

These are the simple questions any business owner or even product head needs to answer without thinking, and most do. But when I probe deeper with additional questions focused on competitors, most are unable to answer the important questions like:

• how am I different?

• do my competitors offer anything additional?

• what makes my product or service better?

• do I implement my product or service any differently?

• where are they advertising?

• what are their strengths?

• what are their weaknesses?

The list above is basic marketing 101. This information should be in your sales playbooks, in your marketing tactical guide, and in your memory. Not only does this help you look solid during any spontaneous conversations or when presenting, but it also helps you determine how you need to structure campaigns to communicate to your audience.

If you don't know your competitive landscape, you don't know your business, you don't know the audience you are attempting to reach, you can't create digital marketing ads or campaigns, you don't know how to generate leads. You're not organized and you're not ready.

Once you have this information researched and ready, it’s time to outline each competitor alongside the features of the similar product or service they offer. Next, highlight:

• where you are better

• where you are not better

• what they offer and you don’t

• what you offer and they don’t

• how to create an advantage to address the parts you’re not better

• how to communicate the areas you are better

This is just the basic information needed to get started with some basic messaging for your campaigns. We can get more advanced with increased data gathering to really pin-point your targets with what they need.

Once you have used the above outline to create your messaging to communicate why your organization is better versus the competition, it will be time to take a look at the lead funnel. In the next blog, we’ll take a look at the lead funnel and how to adjust it to be relative to your business and audience.