Are you a person who thinks that fishing is boring? Or maybe you’re a fisherman who knows how exciting fishing can be? Either way, if you are someone who wants to know why lead capturing compares to fishing, just keep on reading.

Standing on a shore and waiting for a fish to bite can make you feel stupid, unless you have a strategy. If you come at the right time and prepared, if you know what kind of fish you want to catch, and if you have the necessary equipment, you are more likely to go home with a good catch. The same applies if you want to capture more sales leads.

In this article, we discuss how Smarketing can help you to come at the right time and prepared. Also, how important it is to know your target audience and how it can help to capture leads. Finally, we write about the necessary “equipment”, i.e. landing pages, web forms, mobile, and CRM, and share some useful tips and tricks.

Play Smart from the Very Beginning

You may have heard of Smarketing and think that it’s just another fancy buzzword. But we want to prove otherwise and show how exactly it can boost your sales. To begin with, Smarketing integrates sales and marketing processes to ensure a common approach. This can be done by frequent and direct communication between the two departments from the very start of your sales process.

Rule #1 – every marketing activity should be tied to a sales objective. As this article talks about lead capturing, let’s say your sales team has an objective to generate more leads. Here’s where Smarketing comes in. It is necessary to make sure that your sales team identifies what they look for in a lead and communicates this to the marketing team. This way marketers can create targeted campaigns and generate more qualified leads.

It’s worth noting that a CRM may come in handy in this process. With Teamgate, your marketing team is able to manage and track newsletter campaigns, thanks to the integration with MailChimp. Having additional information about leads can ensure that sales conversations become more helpful and consultative. Moreover, you can use Insights to analyze which of the sources are generating the most leads and what impact marketing campaigns have on deals. All in all, a common tool can facilitate the communication, which has to be frequent and direct. 

Know Your Prospects and Create Trust

To be one step closer to capturing more leads, you need to take care of your landing pages. Having a standalone page for each marketing campaign is important, but this page shouldn’t just be an in-your-face web form. There’s a lot to think about when designing an attractive landing page, so here are some tips & tricks to consider:

• Think about your audience. Your landing pages, as well as your marketing campaigns, should be targeted to either prospects, leads, or existing customers. You may want to think what kind of content is relevant to each of these groups.
• Give something back. Make it clear that in exchange to taking an action, e.g. filling out a form, you are going to repay. It can be digital content, a discount coupon, a longer trial, or something else, but whatever it is, it should be relevant to your target audience.
• Content is the key. First, your landing page should have an informative headline, ideally, one that matches the CTA message. Second, the intro paragraph must be short but persuasive; listing benefits as bullet points might be a good idea because it’s easy to read. Lastly, you can add visual content to complement the overall design as well as repeat the visuals of your marketing campaign.
• Add trust elements. Use elements which show involvement of other people, it can be a number of shares on social media, feedback from your customers, media mentions, etc.
• Create a sense of urgency. People tend to stay on a page and take actions if there is a deadline or limitations set.
• Look for inspiration and test. Spend some time to gather the best practices and try them yourself. And don’t forget that testing may lead you to the best result. For example, A/B testing can help to identify in what landing pages leads are more likely to convert. 

Get the Most by Asking for Just a Bit of Effort

Without doubt, web forms is a great way to capture leads. However, to gather enough data to be able to qualify leads, you need to create well-thought-out forms. Here are some useful insights which may help to get most out of the web forms.

First, just like with landing pages, there is a lot to think about when creating a web form. It should draw the attention and be engaging, e.g. animated or visualized. Maybe it doesn’t even have to look like a form? Think of using attractive design elements, like images, sliders, etc.

Second, remember that shorter forms are more likely to convert, however longer forms may provide you with more information and capture better quality leads. Think about your ultimate goal and add only the relevant fields which are enough to convert and qualify leads.

Lastly, make sure to provide a Privacy Policy statement because people are concerned about the safety of their data. Like with landing pages, provide elements of trust and don’t forget to emphasize the value proposition. 

Integrate to Automate Leads Capturing

In addition, to be able to conveniently reuse your data, integrate web forms with a CRM. You can make special forms with the popular WordPress platform and add simple template web forms to all of the landing pages directly from Teamgate. Alternatively, look for a unique tool in the advanced technology platform Zapier. Finally, if you are looking for something more specific, a powerful API allows to integrate more systems which you need to capture sales leads. 

Image Source: ImpactBND

Be Where Your Prospects Are

It’s no secret that the use of mobile devices has increased over the past few years and is still growing. If you want to capture more leads, you should definitely think of strategies which would ensure you won’t miss the mobile users. Here are some things to consider if you want to be more mobile-friendly:

• Establish your presence in mobile apps and consider having one yourself. Yahoo’s Flurry Analytics data shows that 90% of consumers’ time is spent in apps. And if you want to capture leads, you have to be where they are.
• Make your landing pages and web forms mobile-friendly. A lot of user start their search using mobile devices, make sure that once they stumble upon your content, they can convert immediately.
• Present clear CTA messages – this will help to prevent accident clicks and ensure better quality of your leads.

Finally, think about your sales team and allow them to capture leads wherever they are by using a CRM. Most of the CRMs, including Teamgate, have mobile apps which make it possible to enter new data at any time. 

Less Manual Work, More Focus on the Right Things

We have already discussed the importance of good quality landing pages and web forms, which help to capture more leads. If you take care of these, you’re half-way into automating your processes. Now you may just need a good CRM.

Automating your workflows allows to generate leads in a more convenient way. A CRM can help you save time – you won’t have to add new leads manually; instead, you will be able to import them from spreadsheets, various contact lists, or even your social media accounts. For example, Teamgate-LinkedIn Shuttle, a simple integration tool, allows to import a new lead from your LinkedIn profile in just a click. By the way, there are a number of proven ways to utilize LinkedIn to generate new and nurture your current sales leads.

Image: Lead Scoring in Teamgate CRM

Talking about nurturing leads, automated workflows can facilitate it too. A CRM allows to track communication history, plan activities and tasks, push notification, automate lead scoring, and more. Put everything together and you can be sure that you won’t miss an opportunity to contact leads when they are most interested.

It Doesn’t End When You Catch a Fish

To sum up, if you want to be the one coming home with a good catch, you need to have a strategy and follow it. Marketing campaigns that are aligned with your sales team can be compared to a good bait. The more often you go fishing, the better you understand where to find the fish and how to catch it. Likewise, you need to understand who your leads are and how to capture them; lead scoring is a great for getting to know your leads. Make sure your landing pages and web forms are the “tasty bait” that ensures better conversion rates. Also, don’t forget that the waters are wide and you need to be where your fish are. Establish your presence on mobile; even though it may still be “a small river”, it’s getting filled with more and more prospects.

Finally, remember that you’re not the only fisherman standing on a shore. Maybe you need to get a better fishing rod, or even a boat? Always look for the right tools and improve your sales processes. Start with a CRM which can help you save time by automating lead generation process. The time saved is going to be a valuable asset when nurturing your leads.