Online marketing can open new doors for generating leads if you invest in a disciplined strategy supported by adequate human resources and budget.

As a marketer, you should always be trying not only to gain new customers but also to reengage existing ones. In today’s ever-changing world, where technology allows a plethora of ways for us to communicate with each other, most marketers have shifted to digital marketing and social media to generate new leads.

Digital Marketing

For this discussion, let’s clarify the difference between digital marketing and social media. Most people would probably be quick to say that social media is simply one form of digital marketing. To be clear, digital marketing is a broad term, and it is used to describe a wide variety of marketing activities. However, for this discussion, let’s think about “digital marketing” as the various marketing and advertising platforms typically used for paid lead generation.

Using that definition, one example of digital marketing is search engine marketing (SEM), sometimes referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Most digital platforms have highly sophisticated software that allows marketers to target specific audiences with specific messages with the intent of generating “clicks” (or page views) that convert to a lead, creating what marketers typically refer to as a “conversion.”

Publishers that distribute content through magazines, newsletters, and online websites are another example of digital marketing platforms that marketers often use for lead generation. Most publishers focus on a specific target audience and create databases of users (sometimes even subscribers that pay for the content). Marketers can access these users through various forms of paid marketing. Website and newsletter banner ads and webinar sponsorships are common forms of advertising available from publishers.

Marketers using digital media for lead generation must understand their cost-per-lead (or CPL) and the conversion rate of their leads. For instance, if a marketer knows that new leads will require an investment of $25 per lead, and their conversion rate is 10%, they will need to budget $250 for every new customer. In other words, if a marketer invests $25 to acquire 10 new leads it will cost $250. At a 10% conversion rate, one out of every 10 leads will become a new customer, so the cost-per-acquisition (CPA) is $250. If the goal is to gain 100 new customers every month, the digital marketing budget will need to be $25,000 per month.

For most marketers who understand these metrics, the beautiful thing about digital marketing is it can be a highly predictable and consistent source of new leads. Of course, there’s always the risk a specific digital marketing program doesn’t work out as expected and you end up with a higher CPA.

Social Media

Now let’s consider social media. Marketers use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and now TikTok for everything from leotards to loans. Year after year, these platforms have proved to be a successful source of leads for generating new customers.

According to Broadband Search:

• Around the world, there are 5 billion internet users to date, which equates to almost 63% of the world’s population (37% of the world has still never used the internet).
• Every user spends about 147 minutes on social media every single day (that’s about 15% of our total time awake spent on social media).
• During the past 12 months, the number of active social media users increased by more than 400 million, an addition of 9.9%, with a total number now of 4.55 billion.
• More than two-thirds of the world’s population have access to mobile devices, contributing to 5.29 billion unique mobile users

There’s no question why marketers are tapping into social media as a lead generation tool. To make this form of marketing even more interesting, leads generated organically through social media frequently convert at a higher rate than paid marketing campaigns. Many people believe that social media creates a higher level of engagement because there can be two-way communication in which customers can interact directly with a brand (or business owner). It would seem that social media marketing should be an easy decision versus other forms of paid digital marketing, for no other reason than the cost to participate can be incredibly low (many people believe marketing through social media is “free”). As you’ll see later in this article, this is a misconception.

Although the cost of social media marketing as an organic lead source can be less expensive than traditional digital marketing, there is a real cost associated with doing social media marketing well. Sure, it doesn’t cost anything to put up a social media page, and almost anyone can bang out a post occasionally. But there’s more to it than that. It takes a real investment of marketing dollars, dedication to a smart strategy, and a commitment to solid execution over an extended period to do social media right.

Let’s start with the investment in social media software. Social media marketing tools—Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Keyhole, and others—require monthly or annual fees if you want to use them to manage your effort. You also need to consider the cost of the human resources needed to manage the software, produce quality content your customers find valuable and engage with, and pursue new leads. The idea that social media is an easy—and free—way to generate leads is naive.

However, if you are willing and able to put some money into your social media effort, it can become a reliable and effective lead source. Here are a few tips and tools for creating a successful marketing strategy that will build a social media following and generate quality leads.

Understand your audience. You should already know who your target audience is. As you make decisions about which social media platforms to use, it’s important to understand the audience on each platform.

According to pewresearch.org, the majority of Facebook users are between the ages of 30-49 versus Instagram, which ranges from ages 18-29. The takeaway here is each platform has different demographics. It is your job to know exactly which platforms will work best for your business and where you should put your greatest effort (and money).

Create a content calendar. Once you know which social media platforms will work best for your brand, calendar a monthly content strategy. At the beginning of each month, plan the content you want to post—business promotions, articles, or blogs that you or someone with subject matter expertise within your company can write.

It also makes sense to include fun office activities that showcase your company culture and environment. In addition to presenting your company as a fun, energetic, exciting place to work for potential job candidates, your customers will respond positively to seeing engaged, motivated, and passionate employees. Social media is also a great place to make announcements tied to upcoming holidays and to showcase special events.

As you build your social media calendar, remember a simple ratio many marketers use: 50/30/20. That means 50% of your posts should focus on building engagement. What content would your audience enjoy and engage with the most? Another 30% of your posts should focus on educating your audience. Content that showcases your expertise in a subject area sets you apart from your competition. Finally, 20% of your posts should promote your brand. You might think 20% seems low, but it’s important to understand that social media is not the place for you to push your services on people; rather, it’s a place to create engagement and build credibility.

Determine frequency of posts. Some marketers think that because they are posting every day, they are building a social media presence. In fact, building a positive brand presence on social media is not about how often you post; it’s about the quality of your posts. This is often measured by how much engagement your posts receive. So, the focus shouldn’t be on how many times a week you post, but rather on the quality of your content.

Create relevant content. Now that you’ve penciled in your social calendar for the month, it’s time to build out your content. Just as it’s important to know the audience of each social media platform, it’s important to create content that is relevant to your audience and to your brand. When your customers find you on social media, they are expecting to get answers and information from an industry expert. This is your opportunity to stand out from the competition and be a thought leader in your industry.

Building content is the most time-consuming part of your social media marketing strategy. It is an area where you should spend some money to gain more engagement and potentially generate high-quality leads.

Track your traffic. Tracking organic traffic from social media can be difficult, but one way to do this is to use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to place tags on each link you post. GTM is a free tag management system that allows you to manage and deploy marketing tags (snippets of code or tracking pixels) on your website (or mobile app) without having to modify the code.

Here’s a very simple example of how GTM works. Information from one data source (your website) is shared with another data source (Google Analytics) through Google Tag Manager. GTM becomes very handy when you have lots of tags to manage because all the codes/website tags are stored in one place.

It’s billed as a “simple” tool that any marketer can use without needing a web developer. No more need for IT or developers. Whoo-hoo!” Sounds easy, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Again, as you consider the human resources required to manage GTM effectively, it’s not really “free” either.

You need some technical knowledge to understand how to set up tags, triggers, and variables. If you’re dropping in Facebook pixels, you’ll need some understanding of how Facebook tracking pixels work.

If you want to set up event tracking in GTM, you’ll need some knowledge about what “events” are, how Google Analytics works, what data you can track with events, what the reports look like in Google Analytics, and how to name your categories, actions, and labels.

Although it is “easy” to manage multiple tags in GTM, there is a learning curve. But, once you’re over the hump, GTM is pretty slick about what you can track.

The possibilities for how many high-quality leads you can get from your social media effort are endless. The cost of doing social media marketing right is often worth the investment. But make no mistake: It does require an investment and a disciplined strategy supported by the proper human resources to execute a consistent plan over time.