Posted by Melanie Taljaard ● Thu, Feb 07, 2013 @ 13:02 PM

Lead Generation Lessons for Online Marketing

Canadians spend a considerable and growing amount of time online.  With the wide spread adaption of Smart Phones, many Canadians’ time online starts before they even get out of bed girl on computer in bedand our love for the Internet continues throughout the day, at home and at work and often during the commute between the two. 

It might be the long winters, or the national pastime of keeping tabs on Justin Bieber.  Whatever the reason, Canadians are spending more time online than any other country, including highly wired societies such as China, South Korea and the United States.

Canadians, on average sit in front of their computers for a whopping 45.3 hours a month, taking in content from some 98 websites. The majority of that time is spent on social networking sites such as Facebook. Read more about Canadians use of the Internet here.  

But Canadians aren’t just playing, or looking at friends’ photos online, they are also buying online and doing pre-buying research. Online shopping for the 2012 Holiday Season was expected to represent a 2% increase in sales.

While not all items lend themselves to being sold online, the spectrum of products we are willing to buy online is growing.  Savvy marketers don’t miss any opportunities to serve up a buy now or add to my cart option or the chance to capture my email for future marketing. 

A growing number of visitors to a website may be bragging rights for some marketers, but savvy marketers know that a visit is not enough.  Today’s well optimized websites are designed to capture a lead.

Capturing a lead allows the business to reach out to the once browsing visitor with a series of well thought out and timed offers.  Too many sites let visits come and go without presenting the opportunity to start a dialogue.  It’s kind of like letting hundreds of highly valued customers come and go in a retail store and the sales representative never saying hello, asking if they can help or telling them about the big promotion next week. 

It seems absurd to think a retailer would pass up the opportunity to engage a customer in store, yet many sites don’t take the chance to capture leads and create a plan to engage with prospects and customers.

A website that has evolved from having visitors to capturing and engaging leads  is equipped to build powerful relationships with potential customers and customers alike.  Customer data is powerful, and if you have a website you have the potential to learn a great deal of customer insights and marketing opportunities through proper lead generation. 

The attached ebook has dozens of useful insights collected by Hubspot from more than 4,000 businesses.

Download Now!

Topics: social media marketing, online marketing, lead generation, blogging

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