Strategies and Tips for Lead Generation
Updated May 10, 2020
Every online business should have a lead generation plan to move prospects into their sales funnel. While some visitors will be willing to make an immediate purchase, the vast majority will need to warm up to a product or service. Part of the reason for the success of big brands is the fact they have invested in growing their recognition and trust.
When people visit a site from a recognized brand, they are already primed to purchase. Most small businesses do not have this brand recognition, but using the following strategies on a consistent basis will be enough to move a high percentage of visitors into your sales funnel.
Analyze the Competition
Many different tools let you find out the strategies your competitors use. From individual advertisements to squeeze pages, you can study the sales funnels of successful businesses. Look at the top performing sites and find ways you can tweak them to get some quick improvements.
Useful Tools: SEMrush
Study Popular Content
It is also possible to look at the results of any blog and social media content. You can see how many likes, shares, and reposts a piece of material received, enabling you to craft videos and articles you can be confident will find an audience.
Useful Tools: buzzsomo
Use Social Media Efficiently
Social media is essential for generating leads, but it is reliant on your ability to develop a system. Influencer marketing is currently working well, allowing you to tap into existing audiences. It is also vital that you adapt social content to suit individual sites, thinking about the reasons viewers are using the particular social network.
Useful Tools: musefind
Targeted Ads
Paid advertising can send you leads quickly, but they may convert at a low rate. Instead, focus on researching your audience first, understanding the demographics and interests of your ideal buyers. You can then target your ads to the perfect audience and stand a higher chance of being profitable.
Useful Tools: Google ads, Facebook Ads
Develop a Podcast
Podcasts are still reaching large audiences, with listeners eager to find content in their favorite niches. A podcast might take time to grow, but you can build a following of targeted and motivated people. Many of your listeners will also promote you to friends, helping to increase your leads organically.
Useful Tools: How to start a podcast
Build Relationships
Trying to build an online business alone is difficult. When you can develop tactical partnerships, though, it is possible for all parties to grow. Most industries have various sub-niches that you may not directly target. However, audiences will have overlapping interests, so a small number of businesses could promote each other without losing their audience.
Useful Tools: Join Facebook Groups
Focus on Video Marketing
Integrating video into your content planning is essential. Sites like YouTube and Facebook have vast numbers of users willing to watch video content. Creating short videos allows you to offer value to your viewers, before asking them to subscribe or go to a particular page to enter your sales funnel.
Useful Tools: 10 Top Tools for Creating Short Videos That ROCK
Create a Contest
Contests work well on social media and blogs. Asking someone to give you their email address requires trust, but the barriers get lowered when there is an enticing prize available. While you can use tools to create contests easily, it is important that the award is relevant if you want to reduce freebie seekers. While there are many ways to launch a contest, we think Facebook is the best place to run a contest.
Useful Tools: How to Create a Facebook Contest that Actually Works
Find Industry Forums and Groups
While strategies like paid advertising can bring vast numbers of visitors, there are alternative methods that will provide smaller numbers of targeted leads. Industry forums, Facebook groups, and Q&A sites can all bring consistent leads that will convert at a high rate.
Useful Tools: Google Search “Your Topic” + forums and in Face book search “Your Topic” + groups,
Optimize Your Squeeze Pages
Squeeze pages are highly effective ways of securing leads as they limit the numbers of options on a page. Testing different elements on your squeeze pages will lead to varying results, but you should eventually develop an optimized property. Testing headlines, text and video combinations, call-to-action buttons, and incentives can all play a part in the optimization process.
Useful Tools: How to Create a Squeeze Page That Converts at 21.7% (Case Study)
The Lead Generation Funnel
Converting a website visitor into a lead gets trickier every day. We have powerful strategies that work. One method is to send visitors to valuable information (using ads) where they can learn something useful. A contact form will be there as well in case they want to reach out to you.
Another method that works really well is to send visitors straight to a Quiz which asks questions to qualify them and then the lead is sent to your Inbox or CRM.
These are the basic structures of a lead generation funnel. There are many more complex lead generation strategies you can do with a funnel but I’m simplifying things here because no matter what sales funnel you have the goal should be to run that lead into a phone call as soon as possible. Click here to read more about this strategy.
While it is possible to make an immediate impact with some visitors, most prospects need time before they will make a purchase. Relying on quick sales won’t help to build an enduring business, with the cost to find a customer typically being high. Increasing the conversion rate for each visitor enables you to spend more on customer acquisition, seeing off competitors who aren’t following a similar plan. By implementing these lead-generation strategies into your business, you should have no trouble developing a consistent flow of new customers.
We hope you find these DIY lead generation tips useful. If you are having difficulty finding the time to execute these methods we can help with any of these strategies. Just contact us for a free consultation.
