Convert digital leads into unpaid salesmen to drive your business growth sky-high

Is lead generation with digital marketing dead? Promoting paid ads to generate leads on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google leaves you with a burned marketing budget and nothing meaningful to show for it.

Well, that’s what they say anyways.

Many are under the assumption that those days are over. And in some cases, are openly evangelizing against digital lead gen.

They say the only way to generate quality leads is through a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account and the latest strategies pitched by so called “experts” right here on Medium or YouTube.

I must admit: The prospect of paying for digital leads that don’t convert doesn’t sound appealing for me either. And if that was the case, I’d be in a different business.

But I’m not. And here’s why.

It’s a whole new world (on PPC) and people don’t like it

The popularity of digital lead gen ebbs and flows with the evolution of algorithm changes and, most importantly, changes to human behavior online.

Sure, the behavior of humans doesn’t change drastically over time. That’s why principles based in sales psychology are timeless. But why do advertisers flock to Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn for paid lead generation, only to come and go every year or more?

Simply put, the so-called creatives aren’t creative enough. And the strategies that they’ve built their businesses off of don’t last longer than the latest update to Facebook’s news feed algorithm or the way people digest their content online.

So, more often than not, they’ll go somewhere else. Rather than solve the new puzzle.

Where’d we come from, and where are we going?

In years past, before heavy consumer privacy laws were baked in to the online landscape, advertisers could retarget and hyper target almost anyone they could dream of.

There was even the idea that “Facebook was listening” to conversations that you’re having with your friends. Showing you ads for a product or service immediately after chatting with your spouse about it.

Now, things have changed.

The types of data that Facebook and Google can gather is limited. How they gather that data, how they use that data, etc. is all regulated at either the state, federal, or national level at some degree.

Even the introduction of new internal policies on discrimination have removed targeting options from these platforms.

Boy, if I was a Christian book author, I’d be a unhappy camper (they did away with religious affiliated interest groups in early 2022 on Facebook, specifically).

So where does that leave us?

Well, that leaves us with spinning more creative ways to target people, that’s what. If you’re looking to target that Christian book reader, now, you may have to target individuals that follow other Christian content. Or more family-focused interests — but even then, that won’t give you an exclusively Christian audience either.

So what’s a digital marketer to do? Well, what any marketer would have done 30, 50, or even 70 years ago. With better messaging.

Content is king has never been more relevant, but in a new way. One that resonates with today’s content-binging audience.

The new way to “content;” build a community of raving fans

Enter, 2023 and beyond. The age of TikTok videos, YouTube influencers, and Instagram Reels. And what has this all told us?

People love content. But not just any content.

Engaging content. Helpful content. And personable content.

My guess is that whoever you’re following online, whether that be business-related or personal, are providing you one of two, or both, types of content:

1. Developmental content: It helps you professionally or personally get better at something in your life. Whether that’s growing your business, growing deeper in your faith, or a plethora of side hobbies.
2. Entertainment content: Engaging or funny, binge-worthy entertainment. Something you share to help go viral. You show your friends and family because you’ve NEVER seen a funnier couple do jokes about being in relationships.

And my next guess is that these influencers or content creators have a magnetic personality. And if it’s a brand, not a specific person, that brand has a personality, as well.

Well folks, that’s the future.

So when you’re thinking about how to grow a community of raving fans online for your business, we’re looking at what’s already working everywhere else, and making it work for us here in digital.

I thought we were talking about lead gen?

Now that we’ve established what kind of content is going viral online and how other people are building communities of devoted followers, how does that translate to digital lead generation?

In years past, marketers would set up a retargeting infrastructure to serve ads to previous website visitors with an free offer in exchange for content information. Or target colder audiences with a similar offer, with different messaging.

But our retargeting infrastructure is shoddy, at best. With Safari and Microsoft Edge browsers blocking these 3rd party data trackers on your website, you’ll have a hard time targeting with an expensive conversion or lead generation campaign.

For cold audiences, the removal of many interest or intent options for targeting have made things even more challenging. Not impossible, but challenging.

And even if your business hasn’t been heavily impacted with all these algorithm changes, you might be sitting pretty on how you target.

But even then, how’s the quality been? These people that take your free offer might be nocturnal; at least they act like it. They don’t pick up the phone or open your emails?

You get $5k, $10k, or even $20k+ in ad spend later and still don’t see a result.

And better yet, a quarter of them are using a “hide my email” feature that conveniently comes stock on Apple devices, or with DuckDuckGo’s recent “duck” email and throwing in a bunk phone number.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why I’m still in the business.

Here’s the 3 Step Process.

Step 1. Transform yourself, or your business, into a “pseudo-influencer”

Now, let’s talk about community. Now, more than ever, is a time that you’re going to have to earn your audience. And unfortunately, pay for it too.

And frankly, that’s why so many don’t want to do it. It takes work to build a community of followers and raving fans. But if your livelihood depended on it, I think that’s motivator enough.

And better yet, you didn’t have to buy some “consultant’s” $1,000 LinkedIn Lead Gen course.

It all starts with content — good, helpful, and engaging content.

Whether that’s on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, start researching into your ideal clients biggest pain points and produce good quality video content.

If you’re a financial advisor helping retirees prepare for retirement, that means short, bingeable videos that answer their questions. “Can I retire with $1M?” “When should I claim Social Security?”

I think you get the point. Build a library of long-form and short-form content, you’re the expert in your industry, I’ll leave the topics and research to you.

Step 2. Promote your bingeable content via paid digital ads and/or work to gain organic traction on the Social Platform of your choice.

Use your content and brand personality to build a following.

You can use organic strategies to try and bolster your reach without paying, but you’ll likely want to use at least a mix of organic and paid strategies to jumpstart your campaign.

You’ll first want to promote your content to colder audiences.

Target, to the best of your ability, the ideal customer of your choice. Or use dynamic/smart ads to allow the ad platforms machine learning algorithm do the work (many platforms are switching to this model anyways).

Then, set up your retargeting campaigns.

Many platforms, like Facebook, will allow you to build custom audiences in various forms:

• Website visitors
• People that’ve watched your Facebook videos
• People that follow you on Facebook
• People that engage with your Facebook posts (like, comment, share)

Note the use of on-Facebook targeting features. Keeping the user on the Facebook app keeps the data clean and prevents pixel trackers from thwarting your strategy.

Cool, hey?

While your website retargeting data might not be as clean as years past, it’s not as necessary to be as good anymore. You’re not retargeting to sell a product, service, or generate leads right now, you’re building your following.

Use retargeting strategies to spread your content far and wide, and optimize for the audience to view your content.

Step 3. Run your lead generation campaigns to both cold audiences, and experiment with warmer retargeting audiences.

Where you may be able to get away without running much brand exposure campaigns in years past, today’s different.

You might be looking at a 50–50 or 40–60 split on your ad budget between brand awareness and lead generation for some time. And if you’re doing content right, your following will grow.

When setting up your lead generation campaign, target the same cold audience details/interests as you did with your brand awareness campaign.

In doing so, your lead generation offer will indirectly meet the eyes of people who are binging your content without setting up a deliberate retargeting campaign.

And better yet, they’ve already built trust with you and will be more likely to engage with your upsell, phone call, or email.

The future is content and messaging

Digital marketers who accept the fact that hyper-targeting and retargeting has changed, and develop a more evergreen, brand-oriented strategy, will win out.

Those that refuse to adapt will face a hard truth eventually.

But the simple truth is this: Facebook, Google, and other online ad platforms are shifting to a machine-learning-first targeting model. Putting in the essentials (age, gender, etc.) and let the machine do the rest.

If your content is quality and speaks to your audience, you’ll build a devoted community of followers will bring higher quality leads to your funnel.

As long as you’re targeting the same general audience between your brand awareness and lead gen campaigns, you’ll indirectly retarget with without dedicating a retargeting campaign with it’s own budget.

And these people, that have followed you for some time, respect you, and built rapport with you, will be a way better fit than a cold, Facebook lead any day of the week.