A 7-step inbound marketing lead generation strategy [Infographic]

A buyer who finds you while searching for an answer is easier to sell to than one you interrupt. Inbound marketing is built on that: you publish what your customer already looks for, and they come to you.

This guide is for a business owner who wants leads from search, social media and the website, not only from paid ads.

In return for your most useful content, a visitor leaves a name, an email or a phone number and becomes a lead. The common mistake is to offer only one way in.

Visitors arrive at different stages: some are learning, some are comparing, some are ready to buy. The more stages you serve with an offer, the more chances you have to turn a visitor into a customer.

The Center for Sales Strategy follows seven steps with its clients, from planning to conversion. The steps below follow the same path, written for a business that sells by form, call or WhatsApp, and the diagram at the end puts them on one page.

The seven steps

1. Plan the goal. Decide what counts as a lead for you: a form, a booked call, a WhatsApp message. Then set how many you need and what each one is worth.
2. Describe the buyer. Write who they are, what they search for and what stops them from buying today.
3. List their questions. Collect the questions buyers ask at each stage: learning, comparing, deciding. Each question can become a page, a post or a video.
4. Create the content. Answer each question more clearly than the pages that rank for it today. Teach first, sell second.
5. Offer something for the contact details. A checklist, a template, a price guide or a free review. Make an offer for each stage, so every visitor has a way in.
6. Build the page and promote it. One landing page per offer, a short form, and tracking that records which channel sent each lead. Then share the content on search, social media and email.
7. Follow up and convert. Reply fast and send the next useful piece by email or WhatsApp. Pass the leads that are ready to buy to sales, with their history.

Where leads are lost

Many leads are lost after the form, not before it. A message that waits a day for a reply has often gone cold.

At Nobles Restaurant in Riyadh, my team connected WhatsApp ordering and reservations to a chatbot and a CRM. Response time dropped and repeat orders went up.

Checklist

• A lead is defined, with what it is worth to you.
• Each buyer stage has at least one offer.
• Every form records the channel the lead came from.
• New leads get a reply the same day.
• Leads ready to buy reach sales with their history.

The infographic

If your forms and messages bring leads that never buy, send me how many leads you get a month and how many become customers. I will tell you where I would look first.