Great marketing is capturing the right audience at the right time. Within digital marketing, much of this comes from lead generation forms. A lead generation form is a bunch of gleaming white boxes that individuals can fill their details into, sending those details to your company. What would compel someone to do this? Mostly because you offer a product or service they want.

The two most prominent platforms to create lead forms are your website or Facebook (or both!). While the result seems identical – a submitted form – they differ greatly in the audience you attract.

When should I use Facebook lead forms?

Facebook’s greatest quality is its ability to get your ad and company in front of large quantities of eyes. As far as the marketing funnel goes (see below image) when you create a Facebook lead form, expect to attract consumers in the upper funnel stage, primarily lower involvement generation. It’s lower involvement as customers aren’t moving through your website where they’d be able to get an in-depth idea of your brand’s identity, products and services – which is critical to creating meaningful engagement.

If you want to quickly capture large quantities of details, Facebook provides the opportunity. Competitions are an effective way of rapidly growing your database, with personalised discount codes being another. You can then re-engage through email campaigns. In short, you’ve been given the foot in the door to create a meaningful relationship.

What are the negatives of Facebook lead forms?

Let’s take the example of a car dealership. A common lead generation form used in this industry is for potential customers to fill out test drive forms. This is available to a wide selection of people, and the chances are that quite a few will submit their details for a test drive. You’ll follow up, and a portion of those leads will result in test drives, and then a far smaller number will result in car purchases.

Facebook’s detraction is a lack of high-quality, motivated leads. You’ll get some, but those who find their way to your website, learn about your brand, read case studies and then submit a lead form are far more likely to result in conversations.

When should I use web traffic forms?

That’s the perfect segway into our next topic (how did that happen?) – lead generation through web traffic. Put simply, these are the forms you scatter across various website pages, each with the same goal of capturing the details of prospective customers or clients.

What’s the defining benefit of web traffic forms? We’ve touched on it, but the biggest drawcard is that pushing traffic through your website allows you to curate your customer experience, which is key to creating not only conversions but meaningful connections and long-term client/business relationships.

Your leads are higher quality than those generated on Facebook because your web traffic has a better idea of how you can give them what they’re searching for (and that’s what it’s all about).

What are the negatives of web traffic lead forms?

As you can probably already surmise, web traffic lead generation is a far more nuanced and involved process than its counterpart. You’re not just throwing a giant net in the ocean, hoping to drag in a fish (along with a disintegrating boot, mountain of seaweed, and lost snorkel). No, a web traffic lead form is a cast from a professional standard fishing rod into a school of eager, hungry fish – the exact type you’ve come to get.

This bespoke approach takes time and resources – you have to invest in order to get results.

Conclusion

Facebook and web traffic lead generation can both be effective methods of marketing. What matters is knowing what you want and how to utilise each best. While Facebook lead forms will get you greater numbers, and web lead forms will get you higher quality, much of the time they can be deployed in tandem to maximise your results.

If your focus is always on making the consumer experience as hassle-free and beneficial as possible, you’ll find yourself getting conversions in no time. Have a look at our e-commerce blog for more insights into the world of digital marketing.

The dust of Australia’s biggest spending spree is starting to settle, and, as expected, it was an economic force. As has been the trend of recent years, this newest Black Friday surpassed its predecessors. Although the excitement’s over for most, this is our favourite part. Unify’s approach involves continual improvement through data-driven insights. Our specialists have been evaluating the various areas of our clients’ campaigns – the wins and losses, the strategies, the ROAS. Let’s delve into a few of these insights with Unify’s Performance Director, Oliver Notley.

Those who started their sales early were rewarded.

“A consistent factor of success, across most of our campaigns, was a company starting their sales early – by at least a week. We saw clients benefit from the universal lead up to Black Friday. Shoppers were eager and motivated, so companies that got up and running earlier capitalised on that eagerness.”

Strategic preparation was vital.

“Clients that proactively planned for Black Friday – seeing the merit in creating a strategic build-up to their sale and creating awareness – were heavily rewarded for their efforts. We implemented lead generation strategies for some clients at the beginning of November. We followed this up with countdown emails to subscribers, building anticipation and awareness before starting the sale early, giving consumers a chance to purchase before spending their allocated funds. Finally, we increased budgets for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This is a critical aspect – businesses who placed trust in us to spend more in their campaigns reaped the rewards.”

It’s still about the consumer experience.

“While Black Friday always comes and goes in a blink of an eye, a well-rounded customer experience is still essential to maximising your results – namely, taking your target audience on a journey. That’s why those clients who started campaigns early, building up to the sale, experienced the greatest return.”

Were there any particular industries that capitalised on Black Friday the most?

“Black Friday can reward all companies, but those who tend to do the best sell non-essential products, meaning that it’s not a critical need, it’s a want. An example can be drawn between two of our clients, one in the food industry and one in the technological sector. The client in the food industry didn’t see much of an uptake over the four days of the Black Friday weekend, but our technology client had a fanfare. That’s because people tend to view these sales as a chance to indulge, harbouring less guilt because of the discounts.”

You have to play ball, or you’ll pay the price.

“Finally, what I spoke about in our previous Black Friday blog was present again – Black Friday forces companies to put together attractive deals because the dip in sales you’ll experience otherwise is significant.”

How can an elite digital marketing strategy help your business?

Take the example of Unify’s client from the retail industry. In 2019 their Black Friday total sales – just the Friday alone – was $270,000. In 2020 Unify got the opportunity to partner with the company and put together a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, leading to a revenue of $630,000 for the same day a year later. Then, analysing the data we attained from 2020, we increased total sales for the day up to $1.3 million this year; Black Friday to Cyber Monday was $2.2 million.

November has a month on month increase in revenue of 195.99% and an increase year on year of 56.41% – these statistics demonstrate just how influential Black Friday is for a business.

The great and powerful thing about digital marketing is its reach – it’s everywhere. If you have an effective strategy and methodical implementation, you can increase awareness relatively quickly, and by reading the data, improve your audience targeting. Continually building on this is a major reason why you’ll see more money coming in.

What did Black Friday look like for a company selling an essential product?

Adaptability is critical to success. As mentioned, each industry and company is different, with some favoured more by sales events like Black Friday than others. We knew that for our food industry client, they wouldn’t be at the forefront of consumers’ minds over the four days of Black Friday to Cyber Monday, with their product seen more as a necessity than an indulgence. Wanting to still maximise a motivated audience, we launched their Australian and the United Kingdom Black Friday campaigns early – on November 18.

This strategy paid off, with Australia having a record day in revenue. The United Kingdom brought in their sixth biggest revenue day in their history. For November, the Australian market yielded a staggering 826% increase from November of 2020.

No time to rest…

Hopefully some of these insights you can implement for your own business for the next sales period! Facebook have declared Boxing Day through to January 7 as the fifth quarter. So what have you got planned for this sale event?

We love chatting strategies and ideas, so drop us a note if you want to boost your business with profitable growth.