In some quarters GDPR is seen as a road-block to effective marketing. With much tighter restrictions on marketing communications, some marketers could be forgiven in thinking the ability to generate leads has been severely impacted. 

Yet amid the tougher rules and regulations on the use of personal data for marketing and advertising, comes a wealth of benefits.

For one, consumers are likely to have a better online experience, and this will of course benefit all organisations that actively partake in online marketing. Secondly, your marketing will become more meaningful and relevant. And thirdly, companies will have the ability explore new channels and reach new customers.

It’s likely that social media will be a key component of your online strategy and is one that presents a plethora of opportunities.

It was once perceived purely as an engagement community, but now social media is a viable route to market.  Businesses of all shapes and sizes are using social media to create a brand for themselves, making them almost instantly recognisable. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn, social media is a gold mine for lead generation.

But let’s not kid ourselves: social media is a crowded marketplace and getting your brand to stand out from the crowd is a tough job.

To combat this, more and more companies are taking to social media advertising to help them make the most of their social presence.

Here we identify some key points to consider when using social media advertising and how you can use these tactics to generate new business enquiries and improve your return on investment.

Audience Targeting

For lead generation, social media targeting is critical. Not only will your messages resonate with your target audience, but it will also increase your reach and spread your message far and wide.

Three of the key social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, all have options to target individuals and users based on specific criteria.  From a B2B perspective, LinkedIn allows you to target individuals based on company size, job title, industry and location. Whereas Facebook allows you to target on generic interests and location, whilst Twitter enables you to promote messages to users who have tweeted certain messages or followed certain accounts.

By targeting the right people, in the right location at the right time, then it’s more than likely that your messages will be more impactful and will strike a note with your audience.

Remarketing

Remarketing is the process of targeting people on your social media channels who've already visited your website or are already in your contact database. By adding some code to your website or by targeting a list of email addresses/company names, social media remarketing makes your brand hard to ignore and is an effective way of generating new leads. What’s more, remarketing generally lowers the cost per acquisition but helps increase conversions.

Lead Generation Forms

Lead generation forms are also a way of generating new leads on social media – especially through LinkedIn. Instead of having to place a call to action on your advert, lead generation forms bring up an auto-populated form on LinkedIn whenever a user clicks on your content and the form is filled out with details from their profile. By doing this, you get the data you need, and the users get the content they're looking for.

Whether you're new to the world of social media or have plenty of experience under your belt, it can be difficult to make sure your social media advertising is generating a return on investment. Our social media experts can help you make sure you’re on the right track when it comes to your social media advertising.

Get in touch with our team today to find out how we can help you.