Optinly
Quality is important over quantity and every business should pay complete attention to this element. On that note, let us see how to increase leads for your business effectively.
Driving thousands of leads into your website is easy. But it is of no use in the long run if none of them bring conversions. So, how do you get qualified leads to get better ROI?
This is where adjusting your Inbound Marketing tactics is crucial to get more sales.
And this is achievable. You just need to make a few simple changes to attract better leads for your business. Remember, these changes must resonate with your customer’s needs.
Why is this important?
If you get the potential customers from the very beginning, it’s very simple to complete the sales funnel. In turn, you will get more paying customers who bring profits.
Ready to learn how to increase potential leads for your business? Here are a few simple strategies to get quality leads successfully.
What is a lead?
A lead is a person who shows interest in your company’s product or service. It can be delivered in any way possible.
Generally, leads are heard from an organization or company after some communication (by submitting forms to avail an offer, coupon, or subscription). Then, customers will get a random call or email from the sales team who received their contact information.
Let’s assume that you showed an interest in an online survey to learn about car maintenance. After a few days, you’ll receive an email or call from the company which created the survey.
In this process, the company is less intrusive and doesn’t have any knowledge about you. Yet they find that you’re interested in their business and this is termed a lead.
From a business perspective, the information collected by the company will help them to communicate. They can even personalize leads based on their existing problems. Here you’re not wasting time with any leads who aren’t interested in your services.
Optinly is one such platform that offers great lead generation methods for businesses to take an edge over competitors.
What Is a Lead Generation Strategy?
A lead generation strategy includes tactics to attract potential users and converts them into leads. A lead is a prospective customer who engages with your brand by taking some action. For instance, if a user shared their contact details or otherwise implied to do business with you.
Top 4 components of both B2C and B2B lead generation strategies:
- Lead capture: You can collect information from a lead. This information will be relevant to them or their organizations. For example, lead’s name, contact details, position, number of employees.
- Lead magnets: This strategy includes the best incentive for customers. Using it, you can easily convert prospects into new leads.
- Lead qualification: In this process, you can determine the lead’s quality with the necessary information. In the end, you can determine their buying interest.
- Lead segmentation: You can segment leads based on their interest, activities, and habits. For example, job title, lead magnet, web pages they visited.
Keeping the components mentioned above in mind, we have listed the top 12 Lead Generation Methods below. You can also find real lead generation examples for each strategy. Let’s discuss this in detail.
Leverage Your Chatbot Conversations
Most businesses find it a time taking task to consider lead generation. But with some help, you can create and manage it.
Chatbots are one of the great lead generation tools. With this, you can easily build a rapport with your prospects as chatbots are 24/7 online. Just set up chatbots based on your brand personality. Therefore, chatbots work as automated extensions to your marketing and sales team.
Example: Check out this effective lead generation chatbot created by The Bot Lab.
The user can interact with the Bot Lab chatbot to get information about their functions. After this discussion, the user value (user information) is collected for further details.
Once The Bot Lab chatbot collects the customer’s information successfully. The chat will get switched to a Bot Lab support member automatically.
Create Unique Gated Content
Gated content is an online resource available for users only after filling out a form. Here the content is locked and accessible to only limited audiences. However, you can’t view this content like blog posts or landing pages.
Users need to complete a lead generation form to view this type of content. This lead generation strategy is useful for both users and businesses. As it offers free incentives for users while attracting potential leads interested in your brand.
The Gated content in Lead Generation Strategy includes the following assets:
- White papers
- E-books
- Guides
- Reports
- Courses
- Worksheets
- Online tools
Example: HubSpot, one of the best content marketing software offers gated content on their website. This includes multiple types of gated content assets for users to access once they submit a lead capture form.
Offer a Coupon or Discount
Convert your prospects into customers by offering lead magnet strategies like coupons or discounts. You can easily attract both long-term as well as short-term leads. This lead magnet strategy is helpful to attract someone interested in your brand.
You can even complete your sales funnel using these valuable tactics.
Example: Bed Bath & Beyond offers 20% discounts for first-time subscribers. This encourages website visitors to take up action immediately.
Host a Live Event
Lead generation strategies are effective both online and offline. Try to host an online or in-person event to attract your target audience’s attention. You can use these live events to capture the potential customers’ contact information. To enhance your lead capture process, explore the option to create a digital business card-a contemporary and streamlined approach for collecting and managing contact details with ease.The best way to connect with customers is possible by answering their questions. Some of the best event options you can consider are as follows:
- Webinar
- Workshop
- Seminar
- Meetup
- Conference
Example: Content Marketing Institute often conducts both online and pre-recorded webinars. With these webinars, they get high-quality leads from their target audience.
Create a Valuable Newsletter
Creating a newsletter is also beneficial to make users connected with your brand. You can create relevant content as a must-read newsletter that attracts users to open and read it.
Using this strategy, you can promote products and services for users. You can also encourage users to complete the purchase funnel. The different types of content often used in newsletters include:
- New blog posts
- Updates about your products/services
- Special offers
- Upcoming events
- Recommendations
Example: Marie Forleo, a popular business coach and influencer, has generated leads through her “MF Insider” email list. She agrees that many prospects have joined because of this newsletter’s value.
Provide a Free Trial or Product
Freebies are always great to capture leads from the prospects who are interested in your products. People tend to look for the products as a free trial or freemium at first.
This way, customers can check out the product’s features and functionalities free of cost. Once you’re able to get leads then it is easy to convert them into loyal customers.
Example: Trello, a project management software comes in both free and paid versions. The company offers limited features in free tools to convert the users for paid plans. However, the excellent features of paid plans drive more revenue for them.
Retarget Users Who Showed Interest In Your Brand
If you find prospects interested in your brand but didn’t convert in their first interaction, use retargeting strategies to reconnect with such audiences to take them to the next step.
Use Google display or social ads to retarget your users and make them with your website or social pages. Retargeting is the only best way to bring back your customers and guide them towards the purchase funnel.
Example: Here’s an example of Shopify on Facebook, they have used retargeting ads in websites. This looks just like usual ads, but they are targeting only specific audiences.
Optimize Your Site for Promoting Lead Magnet
To generate more leads, ensure to optimize your website first. This will help your visitors to find the lead magnets at ease. Design your website and segment your audience to drive more sales. Keep in mind that your lead magnet should resonate with the customer’s interest.
Here’s a list of lead magnet ideas to promote on your website:
- Highlight your lead magnet as the primary homepage CTA.
- Promote lead magnets at the end of every blog post and web page.
- Make use of lead generation pop ups.
- Create your library filled with gated content.
- Add a lead generation hello bar at the top or bottom of your website.
- Promote lead magnets in the sidebar of your site.
Example: Podio, a project management tool, is using lead magnets strategically. They don’t waste time engaging with website visitors. Instead, it drives users to take up action by offering a free trial in their primary section of the homepage.
Offer Referral Rewards
Create a referral rewards system to drive leads in exchange for some incentives. Encouraging your customers to bring referrals is a great way to build your business.
In turn, you earn customers’ trust and value that spreads great word of mouth. Make use of this powerful strategy to achieve in your lead funnel.
Example: Shady Rays, a sunglasses company retargets their customers with referral benefits. If a new lead purchases sunglasses from the emails provided by existing users. Then, Shady Rays offered $15 for the existing customers who referred new leads.
Do a Paid Promotion for Your Business
Use paid social advertising as one of your lead generation strategies. Facebook and Instagram provide powerful targeting features that help to display ads to specific audiences.
You can target the people who are interested in your products or services. Wondering how it works? These social media platforms have segmentation features that help you to connect with specific users.
Example: Conversocial, is one of the best customer care tools for social media. This platform uses paid Instagram ads to promote their gated content for target prospects.
Optimize Your Social Profiles
Creating a valuable lead magnet is important but make sure your social media followers know about it. If you’re offering any discounts, post it as a highlight across your social networks.
You can easily promote the lead magnets with images on profile pages. Make sure to create call-to-action buttons with discounts links to drive users to your homepage.
Example: Michael Hyatt is a famous leadership coach and an author. He uses his Facebook page for lead generation. He promotes the lead magnet through his cover image and directs users to offers.
Target User Specific Keywords
You can attract target prospects to your lead magnets using specific keywords. This will help you to drive them toward your lead magnets and take action.
To find how your ideal prospects are searching the products, do keyword research. Find the keyword phrases and appear at the top of the purchase funnel.
You can target those keywords in the following ways:
- Create informative content optimized for the target audiences.
- Publish blogs around the target keywords.
- Target the keywords in pay-per-click marketing.
- Guest blog on multiple sites that voices out your business.
- Follow best SEO practices to boost your visibility in search, and generate more leads.
Example: SmartAsset, a fintech company uses specific keywords in their top-of-funnel term. This strategy helped them to create valuable content around the topic, and get top rank for the term.
To sum up
Improving your lead generation strategies is an ongoing task. You have to constantly work on tweaking and improving ideas. Consistency helps you stay ahead of your competitors.
Keep experimenting with different lead channels and once you find the most converting funnel, prime your lead generation strategies with it.
Understanding that a small change in lead generation strategies can outperform your existing setup will help you to get more conversions, and drive more potential leads.
