Whether you’re in a B2B or B2C business model, generating leads is crucial for your business. Lost leads mean lost revenue and opportunities to grow, and it takes a little effort to devise a strategy to make them become your customers.
How do you generate leads? It’s actually pretty simple, using these five foolproof tactics. But first, let’s get down to the basics: what are leads, what the lead generation process looks like, and why it’s important to your business?
What is lead generation?
Your business has many interested potential clients who, at some point, have interacted with your brand. Maybe you communicated on social media, or they subscribed to your newsletter or filled out a survey to get a discount on their purchase (but they never actually purchased).
A lead is anyone who, in any shape or form, expresses interest in your products or services but does not take a specific action, like a purchase.
We can say that a lead is a transitional form that we’ve all gone through on the way to becoming customers of any brand. First, we were visitors, then we became leads, then customers.
So, the task of your business’ marketing team is to attract visitors and convert them into leads. That process is called lead generation.
In order to generate leads, you need to find a strategy to present benefits your business can offer. This approach goes a long way: instead of turning away interested parties with intrusive and aggressive advertisements, warm them into learning more about your business with tactically presented information. Eventually, they’ll come back and make a purchase.
How does lead generation function? Here’s an example.
When new visitors come to your site, organically interested in your products or services, they usually don’t need a push to become customers – they do so without your initiative.
However, when you target customers with targeted marketing methods and attract them to your site, you want to convert those visitors into customers. Now we’re talking about lead generation.
For example:
A lead discovers your brand through various marketing channels: social networks, your blog, or your site’s advertising. While reading your post, the visitor comes across your call to action (CTA) and clicks on a button or link. The CTA brings him to a landing page where they leave information about themselves: mainly an email address, in exchange for a discount, newsletter, e-book, or some similar benefit. The offer must be valuable enough for the visitor to leave their data in exchange for it. Congratulations – the visitor just became a lead.
Why is lead generation important?
Lead generation allows you to expand your clientele: instead of your income coming only from existing clients, you need to go the extra mile and acquire new ones.
Lead generation allows you to expand your market and business opportunities, build credibility and trust with customers, increase your brand visibility, and get more followers and reviews.
Appropriate lead generation tactics will bring you all the listed benefits that we can categorize under one, most important – more income for your business.
But how do you know what the best lead generation tactics are? We’ve collected five foolproof tactics that will be the wind behind your leads on the way to become satisfied customers.
1. Target leads with Facebook Ads
According to Statista, 2.93 billion people use Facebook daily, and a significant percentage of your leads fall under that number.
Facebook has been used for advertising since its inception, but paid advertising gives you much more opportunities than “regular” unsponsored posts – and the algorithm favors them. Facebook Lead Ads, which have been around since 2007, allow you to target leads according to preferred demographics: gender, age, interests, location, etc.
For your investment to pay off and for your Facebook ad to get noticed, follow these tips:
- Use filters to narrow down your target audience, then write for them.
- One ad is not suitable for all leads. Following the demographic characteristics, write several ads and market each to the target group where it will respond most.
- Use images or videos to increase the chances of people clicking on your ad.
- Use eye-catching colors, but stay away from blue and white – they schematically blend in with the colors of this social network and go unnoticed.
- Provide a clear CTA – without it, people will see your ad and forget about it. Tell them what you want them to do.
- Express simply so everyone can understand you and write short, legible sentences.
- Use cost-per-click (CPC) since it brings a bigger return of investment (ROI) than cost-per-impression (CPM).
2. Use a personalized email marketing campaign
Lead generation doesn’t necessarily always mean reaching out to a new audience. There may already be leads in your email list that you can turn into customers with just a little effort.
You should personalize email campaigns because they bring better results. Research has shown that three-quarters of leads take action on a brand when they receive a personalized email, while emails with a personalized subject line are 26% more likely to be read. Therefore, the email subject should contain the recipient’s name for best results.
When you start an email campaign, monitor its success: the rate of opening emails and clicks on CTAs so that you can adjust and change the campaign if it does not bring enough results.
Include in emails special offers: discount codes or coupons with a limited duration. If the lead has 24 or 48 hours to use them, and the offer is good, it can speed them on their way to becoming paying customers.
3. Create high-quality content
Creating quality and original content is beneficial in many ways, including generating leads.
Valuable content works for your SEO: search engines will know they appreciate it, and you will be well positioned in the SERPs. Your leads should be able to find you quickly, so spend time researching keywords, choosing the right ones, and creating content around them.
Furthermore, quality content that benefits your leads and customers will make you an expert in your industry, which is important for building credibility, trust, and brand awareness.
When using content to generate leads, be smart: you’re not limited to blog posts available to everyone. Create an e-book, guide, or study that will be closed. Interested parties will get access when they leave their contact information. Of course, do your best to justify their trust and provide them with precious content, or they will never return.
4. Attract leads by using LinkedIn
As LinkedIn states, “Qualified leads come from a quality audience,” and the LinkedIn audience has twice the purchasing power of the average web audience. Let’s see how you can take advantage of this statement.
If you want to use social media for advertising, Linkedin is probably not your first choice, but you should consider it. LinkedIn has created Lead Gen Forms that are available for message ads and sponsored content. These forms are automatically populated with user profile data when they click on your CTA, making it easy for them to sign up for your products or services.
Another way to reach leads on LinkedIn is to connect with people who belong to your target audience, interact (like, share, comment) and then send them a direct message to offer your products or services. You can send messages even to people who are not in the first circle of your connections – use the InMail option to reach the desired contacts.
Of course, this does not mean you should spam people with offers they do not need, but it requires careful analysis: approach people only if you feel your services could help them. Otherwise, you will lose credibility, and a bad reputation will spread quickly.
5. Interact with leads on forums
Forums like Quora and Reddit are places with high daily visits, where people discuss various topics.
Find a forum section related to your industry and see what people chat about. Get involved and offer advice on their concerns. You will quickly establish yourself as an expert in your niche and a trusted person. However, don’t forget to include CTA in your response.
For example, suppose you’re a manufacturer of baby equipment, and the person does not know which crib is the best for a newborn. In that case, advise them and invite them to your salon, where you will show them the advantages of each model so they can make an informed decision. Voila – you got yourself a lead, not just one, but many others who will see your conversation on the forum and come up with the same concerns.
Need help generating leads?
Every business needs leads, and you need an effective strategy to attract and retain them.
Try one of the five suggested tactics discussed in this article, or better yet, use a combination approach for best results. If you are new to digital marketing and don’t have time to learn about advertising on various platforms, contact us, and we will be happy to do it for you.
LeadIn Media is a marketing agency specialized in helping increase your revenue, and the first step on that path is to use all available potentials to your advantage.
