Consumer behavior has radically changed, from the erosion of brand loyalty to TikTok Live shopping, prompting sales teams to adapt their lead generation strategies. Producing high-quality, engaging content is essential for generating and nurturing leads, with video marketing standing out as a key player in capturing the attention of your target audience.
To optimize lead acquisition, analyze proven video strategies that successful companies use to drive engagement and conversions. In this guide, we’ll explain what those methods are and provide some helpful best practices for using them to find prospects.
Lead generation: Definition and importance in business
Lead generation means finding your target audience, engaging them, and convincing them to take the first step in your sales funnel. That first step might be signing up for a newsletter or creating an account, but no matter the action, the goal is the same — to spark engagement.
Here are the main types of leads you can generate:
- Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) engaged with your content after moving through a part of your marketing funnel, like a social media post or campaign webinar.
- Sales qualified leads (SQLs) have been in contact with your sales team, either through cold calls or by reaching out on social media and contact forms.
- Product qualified leads (PQLs) tried your product in a demo or free trial and have indicated that they’re interested in making a purchase.
- Service qualified leads (SQL is also used here) have been in contact with a customer support agent and are interested in upgrading their service or buying add-ons.
Qualifying leads according to these labels helps you design more targeted ways of identifying and nurturing sales leads, increasing the chance that these interested individuals convert.
Lead generation for business: How the process looks from start to finish
Your lead-gen strategies will undoubtedly include steps unique to your brand, but the scope remains the same. That’s why 89% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.
Here's a process framework and some suggestions on how to leverage videos to help generate qualified prospects:
- Attract potential users: Use SEO blog posts, social media content, and video advertising to attract your target audience and encourage them to check out your product. Videos add more production value to every customer acquisition campaign, enabling you to get more engagement from every impression.
- Capture lead information: Craft a call to action that invites prospects to share their contact information by signing up for a newsletter, making an account, or starting a free trial. Personal tutorial videos along the way can help you overcome reluctance by including a friendly face.
- Nurture relationships: Build on prospects’ engagement by asking them for feedback or having a sales rep contact them. Hosting videos that cover a wide range of use cases ensures you always have something ready to resonate with any demographic.
- Use data to convert more leads: Use the information you know about already converted leads to encourage new prospects to become paying customers.
Here’s what a sales funnel generally looks like:
- Top of the funnel (TOFU): Potential prospects have encountered a need and are looking for solutions to address it. Your primary goal at this stage is to get yourself in front of these customers so they have the opportunity to consider your product.
- Middle of the funnel (MOFU): Prospects have found several solutions they like and are comparing them to find the best option. Content marketing is key at this stage because it gives your prospects the information they need to make an informed decision.
- Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): Your prospects have narrowed the field down to two or three solutions they’re willing to buy, and they’re deciding which is best. Nurturing leads is crucial at this step; a personable interaction with your sales team or an approachable email campaign can make all the difference in winning them over.
3 most effective methods for engaging prospects
The key with demand generation is to streamline your sales funnel to make the process as frictionless as possible, attracting your audience without overwhelming them. Here are three lead generators that reliably bring in audiences and help you nurture prospects into converted customers.
1. Video marketing
Video marketing is a great way to engage prospects, particularly for marketers who want compelling, approachable content that attracts prospects. It’s helpful in every stage of your marketing strategy, from the top of the funnel down. An exciting video in a social media post can build momentum with potential leads, while a welcome video can help sales reps establish a good rapport.
Creating videos requires more resources than other methods, but it’s well worth the investment. With an interactive video platform, you can add clickable hotspots to guide viewers, create branching narratives for personalized experiences, and incorporate polls or quizzes to obtain and engage with prospective customers.
Did you know you could seamlessly integrate a call-to-action (CTA) or a registration form directly into the Vimeo player? This allows you to capture lead information without redirecting viewers, and you have the flexibility to add up to 20 custom fields when setting up your registration form to collect the precise data you need.
Learn more about adding forms to your videos →
2. Email drip campaigns
An email drip campaign is a steady stream of emails from your marketing team that nurtures leads by delivering news and offers about your product. They’re instrumental in B2B lead generation strategies since those prospects can take significantly longer to make decisions. Each email serves as a reminder that you’re ready and waiting to address the audience’s needs.
3. Webinars and virtual events
Virtual events like webinars help you spread the word about your brand, offering a shared experience that leans into your audience’s desire for community. When you put on a great event, you'll galvanize prospects to move straight toward a conversion. If you go this route, use a stable, fast webinar platform like Vimeo to ensure your virtual event runs smoothly.
Create a webinar now →
Best practices for enhancing your lead nurturing strategies
Whichever method you use to generate leads, here are some best practices you should keep in mind to make the most of them:
- Create compelling content and address pain points: Remember that inbound marketing starts with a convincing answer to a customer’s needs. Speak directly to why they need your product so they can put everything you’re saying in context.
- Go to your audience: Your lead capture will work better if you know where to find your target audience. For example, B2B marketers often use social media platforms like LinkedIn that focus on business-oriented audiences.
- Close the deal with a great call-to-action: Choose an engaging call to action to motivate website visitors and prospects to take the next step into your sales funnel — perhaps something like “Start for free” or “Request a demo.”
- Analyze available data: Use data to discover what’s working and what isn’t. Check your analytics regularly, but don’t be too hasty — give each experiment time to accumulate enough results so you know you’re making sound marketing decisions.
- Offer product trials and discounts: Let customers try your product before they buy so they can see for themselves how great it is. Give your sales team discount codes they can use to get a hesitant lead over the finish line.
- Ask for referrals: Incentivize your customers to refer your product to friends and family or share it on social media.
- Automate: Optimized automation tools help businesses deliver personalized content at scale. To this end, Vimeo integrates with top marketing automation tools, like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo, and HubSpot.
Boost your lead prospecting strategies with Vimeo
Honing your lead acquisition tactics requires time, dedication, and some trial and error, but here's the key takeaway: video marketing can be an effective tool in your prospecting arsenal.
Vimeo offers interactive features that allow you to incorporate clickable hotspots, develop branching narratives, and even add polls or quizzes directly into your videos for enhanced engagement.
Integrate lead capture forms or CTAs right within the ad-free video player, for an added layer of engagement. This means that viewers can sign up or take action without leaving your video, and you can tailor those forms to collect precisely the information you need. Utilize Vimeo as your all-in-one platform to simplify video production and collaboration, thereby enhancing your lead-gen efforts.
