According to BRANDfog's 2013 CEO, Social Media and Leadership Survey, "80.6% of respondents believe that social media is an important communication channel for CEOs to engage with customers and investors, and 83.9% believe that CEO social media engagement is an effective tool to increase brand loyalty. What's more, CEO social media engagement was viewed as a gateway to facilitate deeper connections with customers, employees and shareholders." This confirms that customers are buying from companies that educate them and sync their sales processes to the customer's buying processes. It's no longer up for debate, inbound marketing is necessary for business to compete effectively today.

Inbound marketing success doesn't come easy. It takes time for search engines to index your website and to develop a broad social media reach. It willl take 6-12 months before you start generating leads and organic website traffic that will produce high-quality leads. So what can you do if you want your inbound marketing program to start generating leads right away? Here are 3 ways you can speed up your inbound lead generation.

Use Search Engine Advertising

AdWords is Google's online advertising platform. AdWords places your ads above or to the right of organic search results for search engine queries based on a set of keywords that describe what your business does (e.g. - window repair, window repair services, etc.) AdWords chooses which ads to display based on an auction process that ranks ads based on Quality Score, AdWords ranking algorithm.

Organic search are the non-paid results that Google's algorithm displays for queries relating to the keyword phrase. In a recent blog post on Search Engine Watch, Danny Goodman wrote that, "Search engine users overwhelmingly click on organic results on Google and Bing by a margin of 94 percent to 6 percent. That’s according to new research from GroupM UK and Nielsen, published today by eConsultancy, based on a sample of 1.4 billion searches conducted by 28 million UK citizens in June 2011."

Leads resulting from organic search traffic will typically be the most likely to convert to customers.  However, getting on the first page of Google for your targeted keyword phrases takes time. Use AdWords to get eyeballs on your landing pages quickly. Most companies pay for AdWords ad on a pay-per-click basis - you're only charged if someone clicks through your ad to your landing page. You're charged according to a maximum bid price you choose. You set a daily budget to cap your advertising costs. Although it varies by keyword phrase, I estimate that the cost-per-click for your targeted phrases will range between $3 and $15.

Google AdWords is complicated and competitive. I highly recommend that you hire an AdWords certified consultant to help you if you don't have experience with AdWords. Here are some tips for using AdWords:

1. Make sure the "back-end" of your campaign is strategically aligned and set up before you run your ad. Make sure you have a landing page optimized for lead conversion and an email lead nurturing workflow that supports your campaign prior to placing your advertisement. Check all of the links and e-mails to make sure your leads will have the experience that you intend.
2. Understand the factors that influence when and how your ad is displayed. Google's Quality Score algorithm determines the placement of your ad. Although the algorithm is not public, most experts agree that the quality of your landing pages, the relevance of the ad to the targetd keyword phrase, your historical click-through rate and your historical account information (how much you've spent) play important roles. The click-through rate is probably the most important factor in the algorithm.

Use Social Media Advertising

LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all offer paid advertising options. This is a great way to generate leads and expand your social media reach. Social media advertising is generally cheaper than search engine advertising. I recommend experimenting and using the provided analytics to optimize your ROI.

Another advantage of social media advertising is the ability to segment your ads to reach your target audience. Here is a summary of how you can "narrow-cast" your advertising on the major social media channels:

Facebook:

• Location (down to zip code)
• Age
• Gender
• Interests (this let's you really target precisely)

LinkedIn

• Location
• Company (name or type of company)
• Job title/function/seniority
• School
• Skills
• LinkedIn Group
• Gender
• Age

Twitter

• You can promote tweets based on location

I've done most of my social media advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn. I like these networks for inbound lead generation because you can reach a large, targeted audience quickly and cost-effectively. Facebook costs-per-click range from $.30 to $.90 and LinkedIn costs-per-click range between $1.50 and $2.50.

If you're goal is inbound lead generation, you need to set up your ad to direct visitors to a landing page for lead conversion. I recommend promoting posts that link back to a blog post or a landing page. If it's a blog post, include a call-to-action within the blog that goes to a landing page. Another benefit of social media advertising is that many people will also "like" or "follow" your social media channel, expanding your social media reach.

Blog....A Lot!

Blogging is the best way to drive traffic to your website. SMB marketing automation software provider HubSpot finds that companies that blog 15 or more times per month get 5 times more traffic than those that don't blog. 

Consider how Google views blogging. When you publish a blog article, you create a new page on your site. Google might "crawl" your site today and see that you have 20 website pages about window repair. Google comes back 2 weeks later to find that you've written 5 blog posts about window repair (and created 5 new website pages.) The new pages signal to Google that you're offering frequently updated information about window repair. When Google sees that you're blog posts are being shared on social meda and other sites are linking to them, it sends a further signal that you're providing good information for people searching for window repair. This will drive high-quality organic traffic to your website.

Remember, you're blogging for lead generation. Make sure to include calls-to-action in your blog posts that link to landing pages. Landing pages offer visitors a premium content offer like an eBook or a webinar in exchange for contact information, usually an e-mail address. This is how you generate leads for your business by blogging.

Your blogging frequency will determine how much and how fast you will get traffic. If you really want to drive a lot of traffic to your site quickly, I recommend blogging 5 times a week. You can outsource content creation to an inbound marketing agency.

Summary

You need inbound marketing to compete effectively in today's business world. It takes time to generate organic traffic and build a broad social media reach. You can expect that it will generally take 6-12 months before you start realizing the full potential of your inbound marketing efforts. You can speed up inbound lead generation by search engine advertising, social media advertising or an intense blogging effort. Now is the time to get started - don't let the competition pull away from you!