Have you been struggling to generate good leads for your business?

We all know how important and essential it is for marketers and businesses to generate leads, as it is the lifeblood of any business out there that wants to increase their sales, increase their brand awareness, and increase a strong relationship with a customer or client. Generating leads is a priority if you don’t want to see your business fail, but getting just any leads is clearly not enough, your goal must be to generate good quality leads that would eventually convert into clients and sales.

If you have been struggling to generate good leads for your business, then that means you need to do a quick turn-around with the strategies that you’re currently working on and improve on them. Presently, businesses, marketing, and consumer trends are evolving at a fast pace which is why it is no surprise that leads generation tactics are improving as well to keep up with the present times.

With that being said, let’s backtrack a bit and understand the basics of lead generation:

What is Lead Generation?

A lead is a person that has shown and demonstrated interest in your brand or business in some way. Basically speaking, these are people that have possibly shared their contact details with you – either for a free guide or to attend a webinar and are considered to be potential buyer or client that is interested to do business with you.

Lead generation is a marketing process that identifies and attracts new prospects and converts them into leads. By utilizing certain lead generation strategies to turn those leads into sales.

The four components of B2C and B2B lead generation strategies are :

• Lead Capture – collecting information from a lead such as the lead’s name, contact details, and other relevant information like their organization, position, etc.

• Lead Magnets – these are incentives that attract prospects to become a lead.

• Lead Segmentation – is a process of segmenting leads based on their personal information such as habits, hobbies, and activities.

• Lead Qualification – is a process that incorporates a lead’s details that decides how likely they would do business with you.

We have listed below 10 effective lead generation strategies that you can use and utilize for your business.

But, before we dive into the strategies let me show you the conducted research by Ascend2 about lead generation and building a relationship for lead conversion. This may give you an insight into how to use well the strategies provided in this article.

Most Effective Digital Tactics for Lead Conversion:

MOST EFFECTIVE CHANNELS:

MOST EFFECTIVE TYPE OF CONTENT:

 

10 Most Effective Lead Generation Strategies 

1. Optimize your Social Media
2. Optimize your Website
3. Email Marketing
4. Write up blog posts
5. Level up your content marketing
6. Host Virtual Events
7. PPC/Paid Media
8. Live chat/Chatbots
9. Offer a freebie or giveaway
10. Retarget people who have engaged with your brand

There may be a lot of ways and tactics to choose from to generate leads, but not all of them may give you the right kind of good quality leads that your business needs. In this modern age, the lead generation strategies below have proven to be effective and useful based on research on the new trends and the needs and wants of your target consumers.

1. Optimize Your Social Media to Connect & Engage

It is time to make the most of your Social Media platforms and leverage their advantages in generating leads for your business. Social Media has made it possible to refine your lead generation process by implementing a targeted approach. This strategy gives businesses and brands an opportunity to directly engage with their potential customers or clients which is why about 63% of marketers consider social media networks such as LinkedIn are proven effective in generating leads.

Highlight your valuable lead magnet on your social media so that your followers can see your offer and can give them a clear idea and push to work with you.

Example: Cultivate your Wellness uses her Facebook page to attract and engage lead generation marketing. As you can see, her cover image promotes her lead magnet and drives her followers directly towards it.

TIP: Optimize your call-to-action button or banner by adding links to your lead magnet.
REMEMBER – Social media strategy can generate a lot of leads by making sure to have a well-thought strategy and planning.

2. Optimize Your Website

Make sure that your website is SEO optimized in a way that your visitors can easily see your lead magnet – this will guarantee to generate a lot of leads. Create and design your on-site funnels around your viewer’s interests and needs that can segment them and drive them towards your lead magnet.

Follow the tips below to optimize your website for lead generation :

• Focus it on a primary homepage call to action.
• Make use of lead gen pop-up
• Include a lead gen hello bar(this sits at the top or bottom of your website)
• Promote applicable lead magnets at the end of your blog posts and pages.
• Promote your lead magnet on your site’s sidebar.
• Create and collect a resource library filled with gated content.

EXAMPLE:

Flywheel has done an amazing job in incorporating multiple lead tactics on its website which immediately drives viewers to attract them to get their free trial and try out their deals

3. Email Marketing

This lead gen strategy is still one of the best and most effective strategies in generating good leads for your business but in this modern age, it is important to create emails in a more creative way that can attract your viewers and convert your leads to potential sales.
To make your email marketing successful, it must entice your target leads to click, engage them and instruct them with steps that bring them much closer to converting.

How-To Do Email Marketing For Lead Generation

* Create emails for conversion

To create emails to convert your potential viewers to leads, your email content should be attention-grabbing and creative at the same time. Whether it is for direct email or cold emails, it is essential that your content be interesting, meaningful, and with value(discounts, downloads, educational materials, etc.) that will make it worthwhile for your target leads.

Here are two points to consider when creating emails for conversion :

CONTENT

• Create an interesting subject line.
• Compliment your content with images that support your message.
• Make your content concise and easy to understand.
• Don’t forget to include appropriate links for sharing on social media.

ADD CALL TO ACTION

• Always remember to include a call to action in your emails.
• Make your CTA with a value that would interest your target leads.
• It should stand out and make use of actionable words that entices your viewers to click on it.

* Implement the opt-in strategy

It is better to allow your potential consumers to decide if they wish to opt-in, instead of automatically adding them to your mailing list. This method enables you to get better leads since you will be sure that the potential customer chooses to receive emails and updates from your business, letting you know that they are interested in doing business with you.

• Get creative and provide your potential customer with different ways to opt-in by providing an opt-in email link, either in sidebars or website pop-ups and so on.
• Always include an unsubscribe option.
• State the benefits that they will receive when joining the mailing list, giving them a reason to opt in.

* Nurture your leads

At this stage, this is the best way to personally reach out to your target consumers, this is where you can nurture and cultivate your potential leads.

Nurture and cultivate leads by :

• Creating and sending customized emails to your target customers in various stages of the purchase process.
• Create and send content that boosts brand awareness to consumers at your top of the funnel.

* Provide ways for sharing

When content is good and worth sharing, your viewer’s initial reaction would be to share it with others- It is recommended to provide easy ways for them to share it.

• By providing a “Share to others” or “Forward to your friends/email list” link in the email.
• Apply social media share buttons in the email.

Email marketing can do wonders and creates a big advantage in generating good leads for your business especially if done the right way.

4. Write up blog posts

Writing blog articles is one of the effective content you can use to generate good leads for your business. Blogging or blog post articles are a good source of information and resource for viewers, it can attract their attention and pull them in to convert them into potential sales.

However, just writing and having a blog is not enough. To generate good leads based on your blog, it needs to have interesting content that your prospective consumers will learn from, love, and share with others. Writing up blog posts about your business awards wins and new hires and opportunities, maybe essential to post on your website but may not be able to generate many leads for your business.

REMEMBER – viewers or consumers like to learn and research on posts that would essentially solve their problems and also be able to share solutions with people they know.
Create blog content that would help your potential customers solve problems or give them new information, and not just merely writing up blogs showcasing your products and service. If you want to convert your readers to potential leads always think about them and less about you.

Here are some tips :

• Get creative with your content
• Offer exclusive content
• Remember to include CTA

5. Level UP your Content Marketing

Content is very important, it is one of the best sources to generate leads for your business. Research shows that content marketing generates 3x as many leads as traditional marketing. That is how important content marketing is in generating good leads and converting them into potential sales.

Here are important tips to level up your content

• Do extensive research on your target market ( based your keywords on your search)
• Choose types of content that is lead generating driven, such as –

Videos

Videos are an excellent form of generating good quality leads. A good example is embedding your lead gen forms into videos.

Gated Content

This is a “locked” type of content that users are being pulled to fill up a form in order to access online materials that of value for them. This is an effective way of giving your target audience free valuable information and assets while gaining high-quality leads that are interested in topics related to your brand.

Examples :

• Ebooks
• Worksheets
• Courses
• Guides
• Whitepapers
• Online tools

 Plan out well and choose your content distribution channels

Make sure to research which platform you will be using to generate the right kind of leads your business needs. There is a lot to choose from, it is better to do extensive research and do a trial testing on which channels would work for you.

Incorporate a human value in your content

Showing and incorporating a human touch in your content attracts more leads, there are two ways to incorporate human touch on your content effectively.
– Showcase success stories of your customers such as feedback and reviews.
– Invite a guest expert for an educational and informative talk.

Create an interesting and irresistible Lead Magnet

6. Host Virtual Events

Hosting a virtual event is a powerful and effective way to attract and serve your target consumer while catching their contact details via event registration.

TIP!Using live events as an opportunity with your consumers in real-time and discuss, and answers some of their questions and queries. This is a great time to actively guide them to your sales funnel.

Examples of Virtual events:

• Webinar
• Workshop
• Seminar
• Meetup
• Conference

7. PPC / Paid Media

PPC

If you are in need of quick and easy results, then you should also consider PPC or “ Pay-Per-Click “. It is very effective if you already know who your target consumers are but it is also very expensive depending on the industry.
You must also remember that Adblocks are being used nowadays, there will be a possibility that your banners or clickable ads might not be even seen by your viewers.

Paid Media

If you are aiming to look at other options for lead generation, you can also explore paid media in social media platforms that offer this. Most of these paid media offer a targeting option on their paid social ads, which are extremely powerful. You can target both macro and micro levels allowing you to connect directly to your specific target audience.

8. Live Chat / Chatbot

Use a live chat or chatbot on your website, it’s an easy and accessible way for your viewers to prompt an inquiry about your business’ products or services. This can be used as a form of lead generation strategy by requiring your target users to provide their contact details to submit an inquiry or question or by incorporating some kind of lead magnets like a sample or demo.

TIP: Make sure that your live chat or chatbot is very responsive- your customers would want a fast and quick response to their question or inquiry. Making them wait will lose your chance of hooking their interest in your services or products.

Live chat and chatbot allows you to provide your target consumer with instant information and details regarding your business in real-time while collecting valuable data for your lead nurturing campaigns.

EXAMPLE

MobileMonkey.com has a fun and interesting chat box with a fast response to their customer’s inquiries.

9. Provide a freebie or giveaway

This is one strategy that guarantees a sure way of attracting qualified and interested prospects who aren’t ready to buy. By offering a freemium product, free trial, or giveaways can capture the interest of your leads and can convert them into paying customers when they are satisfied with your service or product and would be interested in availing more.

Giveaways such as coupons or discounts can be used as lead magnets that can convert your leads that are interested in your products or services. This attracts both long-term and short-term leads.

Forms of freebies or giveaways you can use:

• Free Trials

Monday.com an all in one work OS for companies and businesses starts you off with a free trial to get you started, they’re enticing the user to register and try out their product with no worries by specifically noting a “No credit card needed” policy.

• Discounts & Coupons

Lazada’s website offers buyers a free shipping coupon with a minimum amount spent. Attracting viewers of a freemium giveaway or discount whenever they would purchase.

10. Retarget your potential leads

Most of your prospect leads may not convert on your first engagement with them but it doesn’t mean all is lost. The opportunity to convert them is still alive by using retargeting to reconnect with your prospect leads that failed to move forward with your business. There are times that customers may need to see your brand more times before they take the next step to convert.
Retargeting is a strategic way to continue following up and updating your customers down the bottom funnel. Retargeting allows you to show ads to viewers who showed interest in your brand’s website or social pages.

This is considered a valuable channel in bringing the right quality of leads for your business.

Example:

This is a good example of retargeting from Shopify on Facebook. They may look like just a normal ad, but this ad only targets audiences who have already shown interest end engaged with the brand in some way.

Plan your Lead Generation Strategy!

You can use and incorporate these 10 lead generation strategies as an inspiration to help you plan out your lead gen campaign and attract and convert your potential leads.

Remember, to generate good quality leads, you need to offer quality content, make use of the strategies given here to create a good plan on how you will attract, educate, entertain and inform your potential leads and eventually convert them into sales for your business.