Generating leads is about identifying your potential customers and feeding them to your sales funnel.
Now, when I say “sales funnel” I don’t simply mean the process of selling something to someone, because it might be that your reason to be online is to promote a not-for-profit cause.
Regardless, generating leads in both cases requires similar tools and methods.
A lead is like a hunch: you either know or assume that somewhere out there there are people who are or might be interested in your products, services, or cause.
So, this article is written to give you an overview of lead generation methods in modern digital space.
Your Website
Carefully thought out design
How often have you visited a website that is all over the place?
It is a proven fact that by having a simple, clear, and concise site design you are way more likely to generate more leads.
So, take a good look over what you have and be sure to remove any unnecessary clutter from your site, and only include exactly what you need. A full SEO audit will help you determine this.
Sales pages
Your website is your digital storefront or the face to the world about the cause of your organization.
If it’s not displaying your products and services in a way that minimizes the journey from becoming aware to deciding to buy from you, it’s not doing its job properly.
Clear product and service offerings help. SEO helps to make your pages fulfill their purpose.
Landing pages
Landing pages are specific pages that you publish for the purpose of making special offers, targeting specific customer groups and gathering more information through them for your CRM.
They should be hidden from the site normal navigation and only be pointed to from social media posts and advertisements that guide the right kind of traffic to them.
Want to learn how to set up one? Kissmetrics has a great guide for beginners.
Blog
Blogging can play a huge role in your overall business growth, because it is a great way to clarify your thoughts and even “productize” your know-how: if you can put your thoughts in words, chances are that a lead might understand what you are offering, and even buy.
You should start a blog if
- You have the capacity to produce content regularly. Weekly, bi-weekly, once a month, does not matter, but it has to be regular.
- You can write about the fundamental topics in your industry and build a library of articles that you continually improve. Even better, you can re-define the fundamental topics in your industry for others to consider.
- You know how to deconstruct your expertise into 500-2000 word articles. Today, people look for information, instructions, how-to type of articles and testimonials about products and services. If you simply flaunt about how great and innovative you are, it’s not helping anyone. But, if you help people understand your industry and how your products and services help them, you have a chance to attract ideal customers.
In this post, Steve Napier, a veteran SEO consultant explains how creating more content for your blog will lead to an increase in sales. But how do you actually generate more leads using your blog?
There are a few different ways that you can do this.
Keywords
Having spent valuable time writing your content will mean nothing if you don’t actually include any of the keywords that people are actively searching for.
Google offers a wide range of tools to help you ensure you are using the right keywords.
Be sure to check out Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner to make sure you pack your content with relevant keywords. If you rank on Google for these keywords, people who search them will land on your articles. If done correctly and consistently, this will help you drive a lot of traffic that you can later convert into leads.
Read more about keyword research in the Seomphony keyword research article.
Call to action
We cannot stress enough how important it is to include a call to action on every piece of content you create.
Without them, people will just simply read your content and move on.
A call to action can be a button to buy, a link that’s inviting to learn more or a form to fill in to provide more information, and all of these will are ways for potential customers to dig deeper into what you have to offer.
Useful resources
12 Ways You Can Turn Your Blog Into a Lead Generation Machine
How to Scale Your Lead Generation Through Blogging – Quick Sprout
6 Simple Tips to Turn Your Blog Into a Lead Generation Monster
How We Scale Lead Generation Through Blogging | Drift Blog
Social Media
Social media is a powerful marketing tool and if used correctly, it can generate many leads for you.
If you are struggling to generate results, you may want to consider these instructions:
Facebook lead generation
Facebook has released lead generation as an advertising objective, helping to greatly improve any campaigns that you may could run. This feature enables the gathering of information from people who are or may be interested in your organization, products or serviecs, and all of this can be done via the Facebook mobile app as well as at a desktop.
Information gathered this way can help you know where to target your efforts to get those all-important leads. Here’s a step by step guide by SocialMediaExaminer on how to create a Facebook lead generation campaign: How to Use Facebook Lead Ads.
Buyable pins
Some social media platforms now allow users to make use of a feature called buyable pins.
The pins allow users to purchase your products directly through the social media app.
If a user likes what they see, they simply click on the “buy it” button and they are prompted to enter their personal as well as payment details just as they would with any other online purchase. Talk about a short sales funnel!
Facebook shop
Facebook is leading the way in increasing lead generation by offering a shop feature. This tool allows you to offer your products directly for sale via the Facebook app, which means users will not get directed away from Facebook should they show interest in your product, which can be highly frustrating.
Should this fit in with your needs then a shop is super easy to set up and really will give your customers a streamlined and fast process for buying your products.
Useful resources:
How To Generate Leads Through Social Media | Sprout Social
8 Simple Ways to Generate Leads With Social Media – Hootsuite Blog
7 Ways to Generate Leads on Social Media – Marketo Blog
16 Resources to Generate Leads With Social Media
How to Generate 58 Targeted Leads a Week from Social Media
Marketing Automation
If your organization is already using some form of marketing automation process and this is not currently successful in generating leads for you, then read on as it certainly should be.
Drip campaign
Once you have successfully defined and separated out your various audience markets, you can effectively target them using an email drip campaign.
This method of marketing automation sees potential customers being emailed in a scheduled timeframe and allows you to spread information giving over a set time period hopefully ending in a crescendo of sales. If you opt for this method be sure to track responses to each individual email message to measure effectiveness.
A/B testing
A/B testing is a simple process of testing one campaign against another to see which has more success.
Whether it be using slightly different wording in your call to action, or use completely different content altogether, A/B testing allows you to see successes or failures of certain campaigns in real-time.
When A/B testing, you direct a portion of your potential customers to your secondary testing page to see how they fare against the current campaign. Going with the better performing campaign should, in turn, increase your lead generation.
Useful resources:
4 Ways to Generate Leads Using Marketing Automation (Infographic)
8 Ways to Use Marketing Automation to Generate Leads
How to Use Marketing Automation for Lead Gen
10 Reasons for Using Marketing Automation to Generate Leads
Cold Calling/Emailing
Cold calling and emailing are quite possibly the most dreaded methods for generating leads but done properly, they can be extremely effective methods for generating those all-important leads.
With this method, you are able to contact potential customers directly and really put your best efforts into convincing them to make a sale. But before you jump in head first consider these points:
Write a script
If you are new to the whole cold-calling game, chances are that as soon as the customer answers the phone you will freeze and completely fall over your words. It will make things a whole lot easier, and you will come across way more professional if you spend some time composing a script to follow during your phone calls. Be sure to include key messages and be clear and concise on what you have to offer.
Practice
Practice makes perfect, with a perfectly polished script you will be way more likely to generate those leads. Spend some time going over your script either alone or with a friend or colleague to ensure you are comfortable and at ease ready for the calling process ahead.
Research
Speaking to a potential new customer over the phone, or indeed by email, can lead to spontaneous small talk about their company or a barrage of questions. In researching your prospective new customers prior to contact, you can be sure to have all of their company information and current activity at hand should they throw you a curveball. Being prepared in this way will bring a greater element of trust and therefore improve lead generation possibilities.
Useful resources:
How to generate leads for b2b sales with cold emails | RightHello
5 cold email templates that will generate warm leads for your sales
How to generate leads by cold emailing
8 Tips For Cold Calling And Emailing To Generate Leads And Sales
You can also outsource cold calling. To a virtual assistant company, for example
Nutshell’s “Ultimate guide to cold calling”
Analytics
If you spend a little time getting to grips with the system, tools like Google Analytics can be a key player in your lead generation plan.
Analytics tools are able to offer you a huge amount of data which in turn you can use to really target your efforts and analyze where your true sales potential lies. Key data to monitor in any tool that you choose should be your conversion rates.
Landing page conversion
Always keep a close eye on your landing page stats. These figures will allow you to see which of your landing pages are performing successfully and which are not. Having this important information at your fingertips allows you to make decisions on which landing pages to carry on running and which to scrap.
Source conversion
Most lead generation campaigns will see you using various sources to obtain new customers. Whether you have campaigns on Facebook, Instagram or various blogs, using source conversion you are able to monitor which method is pulling in most interest. Knowing this will allow you to focus efforts on these areas with the hope to increase leads.
Useful resources:
How to Use Google Analytics to Generate Leads | Chron.com
5 Ways data analytics can help generate more leads
Using Google Analytics to Generate Leads and A Tool to Help
3 Best Ways to Generate Leads with Google Analytics
Generate Leads in 2018 by Using Google Analytics – Impinge Solutions
Offline lead generation
The good old offline lead generation is not dead.
One reason is that direct mail inbox is the least crowded inbox today.
But more importantly: in a digital world, standing out with something that people can actually touch can make all the difference.
Neville Medhora has tons of stuff in kopywritingkourse.com.
Followupboss also has a great lead generation list that includes some old school techniques.
Conclusion
So, whether you are new to the game, or are struggling with a certain aspect of lead generation, we hope you found these tips useful. It is safe to say, that whatever your situation, having a multi-channel lead generation plan is going to give you the best chances of succeeding in those all-important sales goals.
Want more?
Read Automizy’s article of 39+ actionable B2B lead generation ideas & examples, or, book a 30 minute consulting call with us to learn more.