Are you having a hard time coming up with lead generation ideas? We know as marketers you spend a very big chunk of your time and resources planning campaigns and creating content. All while keeping the end goal in mind of generating new leads that hopefully will eventually turn into paying customers.
We know that a steady stream of leads is an essential part of making sure your business stays in business. However, sometimes it’s tough to know which lead generation tactics are going to boost your sales and which are going to flop. Coming up with effective ways to attract and convert qualified leads is easier said than done.
That’s why we thought to give you a little bit of inspiration to help you get going. In this article, we will share 9 clever lead generation ideas to you can implement immediately to boost your conversions.
Here are 9 lead generation ideas that have a proven track record:
#1 Optimising Your Landing Page for Lead Generation
We already spoke earlier one “How To Make Great Landing Pages (With Crazy High Conversions)” and even asked “7 Industry Experts On How To Build A Crazy High Converting Landing Page For Your Startup”, that how important a good landing page is. Let’s look at a couple of more things you can do on your landing page:
a. Create a product video.
According to a study by CrazyEgg, product explainer videos can generate lead to phenomenal results. When done right, videos keep us engaged and can inspire us to take action. Product videos don’t need to be difficult or take on for hours, with tools like Animoto for example they’re super easy to make.
b. Don’t mention spam!
An (older) study by Contentverve showed that including the phrase “100% privacy – we will never spam you!” reduced the conversions by a bit more than 18%. Of course, this is data you need to verify for your own business, but it is an interesting experiment to run.
Image source: Contentverve – How Your Privacy Policy Affects Sign-Ups – Surprising Data From 4 Different A/B Tests
c. Add “Safe” Language to Boost Trust
To continue a bit with making people feel at ease by not mentioning spam, the biggest concern that most people have when subscribing to a product or service is “will I be charged? and will they share my data?”.
If you add safe language to your site, you can boost trust! For example, if you have a free white paper, then make sure to communicate that it’s free because it adds confidence. Think of maybe adding phrases like “Yes, let’s start the free course” or “Join Now (It’s free)” on your CTA buttons.
#2 Content Marketing for Lead Generation
There is a lot more you can do with all the content you are producing to turn it into lead converting machines themselves. For example:
a. Make excellent posts downloadable in exchange for an email
Look into the statistics of your blog, what are the articles which are driving the biggest amount of traffic? It might be worthwhile to convert those blog post into white papers and setting up a landing page for them. Setting up a landing page takes to much time? Just offer for people to download the post in PDF format in exchange for their email address.
b. Create a Promo Video
Not everyone learns by reading. Some are more visual and audible learners. By creating a promo video, you can quickly educate your visitors on your product or service. Not only that, by using a tool like Wistia you can add a call-to-action in the middle of the video to capture email addresses.
Adding a call-to-action to your videos with Wistia
- When using video for the first time, don’t forget these small tips:
- Keep the video short, but not too short. Wistia got some nice research on this one as well, try to keep your video under 2 minutes.
- Consider splitting up content into different in depth videos if the videos are too long. You can even make an entire video course around it
Know your strengths and weaknesses. If you aren’t great at both creating videos or public speaking, then you should hire someone. Focus on the stuff you are good at. You can only make a first impression once!
c. Blog consistently
Blogging can be done in three different ways, the first one being of course on your own website. Blog consistently and try to publish new posts on the same days. This way your audience gets to know your schedule and know when to return for fresh content. Traffic to your blog, however, is not the only thing, you need to convert those readers. Your readers are interested in the thing you write about, but they are most likely not on your email list yet. Try adding relevant call-to-actions to your blog posts!
Another great example of blogging is guest blogging. If you know your audience good enough and you know the types of sites they visits, then the best way to reach them is by getting exposure on those sites. One of the easiest ways to achieve that is by offering those sites to write a guest blog post (which they mostly will accept because they are looking for ever new content themselves). Never forget that your main goal is to add value to the site you are contributing to. If you forget to add and create value for the website where you are guest blogging, it makes it harder to get backlinks and the extra exposure to your site.
Next to guest blogging yourself on different sites, try inviting one of your audience influencers to write a guest blog on your site. Just like you guest blogging on another site, you can give them a backlink and a platform to increase their audience. If you really want a famous person on your site, you might even consider paying her or him for writing a guest post. The goal is that you get a quality article and most likely the influencer will share it with their audience.
#3 Using Social Media for Lead Generation
a. Write on LinkedIn
Over the last couple of years, LinkedIn’s publishing platform has become more and more relevant. Since the beginning of 2015, everyone can publish their content on LinkedIn and it’s becoming easier than ever for companies to target brand advocates, potential customers, and industry influencers all in once place.
LinkedIn Best Social Network for Lead Generation, image by Hubspot
LinkedIn can drive 80% of B2B social media leads according to a research done by Kissmetrics, companies such as Hubspot use LinkedIn to republish their blog posts, maximising the number of people reading and sharing their teams’ ideas.
Remember that getting your post read on LinkedIn is just one part of the battle. You must also have a strong offer and a paired landing page to follow through and capture leads.
b. Use Twitter cards
Using Twitter for lead generation starts with one thing… a targeted audience of followers. While it may seem like attracting thousands of followers is the primary goal of Twitter, that isn’t the case. When it comes to generating leads or creating business momentum, a Twitter profile with thousands of untargeted or random followers is not very valuable.
Twitter makes it really easy to capture leads right in the activity stream using Lead Generation Cards. It’s the Twitter equivalent to the signup box that you see on most blogs. To get the most out of your Twitter Lead Generation Cards, make sure you create an offer that your potential customers can’t resist (like a free eBook, exclusive membership or a giveaway). Here’s a great article by the WeidertGroup with “10 Tips To Creating Successful Twitter Lead Generation Cards”.
c. Answer questions on Quora
Quora allows you to create a profile with links back to your site or landing page, so answering questions in a useful way get you direct exposure to leads who are asking about the problems your company is solving. A couple of tips when using Quora:
- always answer to the question being asked
- write with the intention of being helpful, write as thorough as possible to bring the most value to the readers
- don’t write with just the intention of dropping your link, you don’t want to be considered a spammer
- write on topics where you don’t even drop a link back to your site, when people find whatever you answered is helpful they will visit your profile and still find a way to get back to you. If they see
- only short answers with a link on your profile they may again report you as a spammer, so be careful on that one
- put a link to your site in your Quora profile, if people like what you have written and you had something interesting or helpful to say, they’ll naturally be interested enough in you to visit your profile (and find out if you have written more answers around the same subject). By placing a link in your profile it makes it easy again for them to go back to your site.
Take the lead
A sales funnel filled with leads is a great way to validate that your marketing efforts are delivering value to your prospects. When lead generation is done successfully, everyone benefits.
As marketers and startup founders, the pressure is always on us to deliver qualified leads into the sales department or through the sales funnel. We all understand the importance of lead generation – it’s coming up with fresh and effective ideas that can sometimes be tricky. Hopefully the above items gave you some fresh ideas to keep that sales funnel growing.
Have a lead generation tactic in your arsenal that we didn’t include? Share it in the comments!
