Lead generation is the business of turning attention into a conversation with somebody who might buy. The hard part is not producing enquiries. It is producing enquiries worth answering.
All of it assumes a service business rather than a shop, since an enquiry and a basket behave nothing alike.
What a lead generation funnel actually contains
Four stages, and a fault in any one of them shows up as a problem in the others.
- Traffic, from search, social, referral or reputation.
- A page making one clear offer and asking for one action.
- Some way to respond, whether a short form or a phone call.
- Follow up fast enough to catch somebody still interested.
Most businesses spend on the first stage and neglect the last, which is why so many accounts produce plenty of enquiries and few customers.
Work backwards when something is wrong. Fixing the follow up is free, fixing the page is cheap, and buying more traffic is the most expensive answer to a problem that usually sits further down.
Why cheap leads are usually expensive
Lowering the barrier increases volume and lowers quality, almost without exception.
A free guide produces more enquiries than a quote request, and most of those people are not buying anything. A competition produces more still, and almost none of them. Consequently a campaign can halve its cost per lead while doubling its cost per customer, and every report above the final number will look like an improvement.
So decide what a lead is for. If it exists to fill a diary, ask for something only a buyer would give.
In lead generation the offer decides who responds
People respond to what they are asked for, which makes the offer the strongest quality control you have.
A survey, a site visit, a quote, a sample, a consultation and a downloadable guide attract entirely different people. Ask for the smallest commitment that still filters out browsers. Meanwhile an offer with no commitment at all attracts everybody, which is the same as attracting nobody in particular.
Landing pages in lead generation
The page has one job: continue the promise that brought somebody there, then make acting obvious.
Say what the thing is, who it is for, what happens after they enquire, and how long it takes. Answer the two or three objections everybody raises. Then ask for the enquiry, once, in a form short enough that nobody abandons it halfway.
Long forms lower volume and raise quality, which is useful when you want fewer and better. Use that deliberately rather than by accident.
Speed of response beats almost everything else
An enquiry answered while somebody is still at their desk is a different enquiry from one answered the next morning.
They contacted three businesses, not one. Whoever replies first frequently wins simply by being present. This is the cheapest improvement available in lead generation, and it needs no advertising change at all.
Qualifying without insulting people
Not every enquiry is worth the same effort, and pretending otherwise wastes the time you should spend on the good ones.
Ask one or two qualifying questions in the form, such as timescale, location or scale of the job. Keep them factual rather than judgemental. Then route the strong ones to a person and the weak ones to a helpful email, rather than treating all of them identically.
Measuring lead generation honestly
Cost per lead is the number everybody reports and the one that misleads most.
Add two more: the proportion of leads that were genuine, and the proportion that became customers. Those turn a volume metric into a quality one. Without them, whoever runs the campaigns is optimising blind, because the platform cannot tell a serious enquiry from a wasted one.
Where lead generation traffic should come from
Different sources produce different people, and mixing them into one average hides that completely.
Search tends to produce people who already want the thing. Social tends to produce people who did not know they wanted it. Referral tends to produce the best quality and the least volume. Report each separately, because a blended cost per lead can be perfectly acceptable while one source is producing nothing but noise.
Choosing between them is a channel decision rather than a lead generation one. Sorting it out means seeing what separates one paid channel from another.
Following up more than once
Most businesses try once and stop, which quietly wastes a large share of what they paid for.
A short sequence over a couple of weeks, by whichever channel they used to contact you, recovers people who were simply busy. Keep it useful rather than pestering, and stop when they say so.
Three or four attempts is usually the right number. Beyond that the returns fall away sharply and the goodwill falls faster, which costs you the referral as well as the job.
What to fix first
Answer enquiries faster, ask a qualifying question, and report the proportion that turn into customers.
Those three cost nothing and improve lead generation more reliably than any change to targeting. Once they are in place, the advertising decisions become obvious, because you can finally see which campaigns produce customers rather than which produce forms.
Then review the offer itself. Changing what you ask people for shifts who responds more than any targeting setting will, and it is the one lever most businesses never touch.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a lead generation campaign good?
Enquiries that turn into customers, not the number of forms. A campaign can halve its cost per lead while doubling its cost per customer, and every report above the final number will look like an improvement.
Why are cheap leads often expensive?
Because lowering the barrier raises volume and lowers quality. A free guide attracts far more people than a quote request, and most of them are not buying. Ask for something only a buyer would give.
How long should my form be?
Long enough to filter and short enough to finish. Longer forms lower volume and raise quality, which is useful when you want fewer and better enquiries. Use that trade deliberately rather than discovering it by accident.
How quickly should I respond?
While they are still at their desk. They contacted three businesses, not one, and whoever replies first frequently wins by being present. It is the cheapest improvement available and it needs no advertising change.
How do I qualify without putting people off?
Ask one or two factual questions in the form, such as timescale, location or scale. Then route strong enquiries to a person and weaker ones to a helpful email, instead of giving every enquiry identical effort.
What should I measure besides cost per lead?
The proportion of leads that were genuine and the proportion that became customers. Those two turn a volume metric into a quality one. Without them, whoever runs the campaigns is optimising blind.
Do different channels produce different quality?
Consistently. Search produces people who already want the thing, social produces people who did not know they did, and referral produces the best quality with the least volume. Report each separately rather than blending them.
Is one follow up enough?
No, and stopping after one wastes a large share of what you paid for. A short sequence over a couple of weeks recovers people who were simply busy. Keep it useful, and stop as soon as they ask you to.