#2 / Introducing 12 Effective Lead Generation Strategies to Boost Your Business

The digital lead generation advertising spending is thriving. From 2.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2019, this figure is forecast to reach 3.2 billion by the end of 2023, in the United States alone, informs?Statista Research Department.?

So, what are leads? Leads are people or companies actively shopping for vendors looking to make a purchase in the next thirty to ninety days.

Then what is lead generation in marketing? It is one of the steps in a combination of targeted tactics to identify, attract, and engage with visitors to convert them into high-quality leads. Here are the three stages common to B2B when building an effective lead strategy, in the order of leads touchpoint:

1. Lead awareness:?Spotlight your business to prospective leads. This happens by investing in tactics that brings people to your website, blog, or social media profile. At this stage they are not yet leads, but anonymous visitors.
2. Lead generation:?Get website or social media visitors to take action and share their contact information in exchange for an offer that adds value to them. You can ask for just the lead’s name and contact email but also for their phone number, company’s information, and more, as long as it makes sense for the value you offer.?
3. Lead scoring:?Qualify leads by using a numerical value (a.k.a. score) to determine their interest level or if they’re ready for a sale. The scoring system will vary for each business. Leads can receive a higher score if they regularly engage with your business on social media or if they’re using the free trial of your product.

Now, let’s discover 12 lead generations that can help your business’ leads grow exponentially.

Create Gated Marketing Content

Gated content is any digital material only accessible to the audience in exchange for their contact information filled in an online form.?

HubSpot is a good example to showcase this highly effective strategy. Their website contains valuable educational assets for marketers and businesses investing in a digital marketing strategy. Unlike normal blog posts or landing pages, the downloadable content is “locked.” So, their website’s visitor must complete their lead capture form to download their reports, e-books, guides, etc.?

Gated content assets often include:

• White papers
• E-books
• Guides
• Reports
• Courses
• Worksheets
• Online tools

Your business gives its audience something valuable for free. In return, you build credibility as an expert in the area and attract high-quality leads interested in topics related to your brand offerings.

Optimize Your Website To Promote Your Lead Magnet

Redesign your website to make sure visitors can easily find your lead magnet. Most of your visitors will find out about your business by visiting your website, so design on-site funnels that attract and drive your audience toward lead magnets on your site.?

You can have multiple lead magnets, which makes it easier for your audience to resonate with the one providing the most value to their needs and interests. Here are some ideas on how to do that:

• Highlight it as the primary homepage call to action.
• Promote relevant lead magnets at the end of blog posts and pages.
• Use a lead generation pop-up.
• Create a resource library filled with gated content.
• Add a lead generation hello bar (that sits at the top or bottom of your site).
• Promote your lead magnet in the sidebar.

Use Your Social Profiles To Promote Your Lead Magnets

Highlight your lead magnet on social networks, driving up your business engagement rate.?

By placing your lead magnet in your profile or as one of the main features of your page, you make it easier for visitors to know about what you offer. Some examples are hero images on profile pages, Instagram highlights, or Story highlights on Facebook. Also, leverage call-to-action buttons, driving users to your lead magnet instead of your homepage.

83% of B2B marketers report finding the greatest success on LinkedIn (Source:?Sprout Social), where four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions.

This also works for B2C, as 82% of people use Instagram to discover new products and services, and 87% said they took a specific action, like making a purchase, after seeing product information (Source:?Facebook for Business)?

Use Paid Ads To Grow Your Business on Social Media

Get discovered by your ideal target audience by leveraging social platforms with insightful targeting options.?

LinkedIn is obviously known as the most likely candidate for B2B social media lead generation since it has the largest pool of monthly users. LinkedIn also offers some of the sharpest tools to collect leads on its platform, such as?LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.?

You can target your audience on macro-levels by using demographic segmentation, or even micro-levels by using behaviour and psychographic segmentation - preferable if you want to generate high-quality leads.?

Leverage Chatbot Conversations

Employing chatbot tools can set up preliminary communication, build rapport with prospects, and get users to take action.?

Chatbots can be used as an automated extension of you as it filters through your audience and deliver leads. Available 24/7, they’ll encourage your audience to subscribe to blogs or access downloadable gated resources.

Investing in chatbots can free some of your time to use it in other areas of your business or to engage with leads that turned into customers building their loyalty and advocacy.?

Send Valuable Newsletters

Newsletters help your business stay top of mind with prospects and returning clients.

By crafting a newsletter that will deliver consistent problem-solving and engaging content, your prospects will want to connect and stay in touch with your brand, and will therefor likely exchange their email address for access. In your newsletter, remember to include promotions for your products and services that can drive prospects further towards a purchase.?

Looking to implement this idea? Here are some content examples for your = newsletter:

• New blog posts
• Updates about your products or services
• Special offers
• Upcoming webinars
• Free resources—this can be a reminder of existing material or referring to a new one
• Recommended reading from other thought leaders

Offer a Coupon or Discount

Speed up the process of turning prospects into buyers by offering a coupon or discount as your lead magnet.?

48% of consumers are more likely to purchase sooner with a coupon or discount, and 32% look online for those every week (Source:?SocialMediopolis)? The opportunity of saving money impacts most consumers or starting businesses’ buying decisions.

Free Product Trials

Free trials allow consumers to experience the benefits of products and make a more informed purchase decision.?

Once free trial users sign up, you can encourage them to become paying customers later with additional offers or by promoting the benefits of upgraded accounts.?

According to?Forbes, a “Free trial is an excellent sales strategy that can lower your cost of new customer acquisition,” by removing aggressive selling and making the value proposition clear to the customer.

Target Specific Keywords

Uncover keywords that will present phrases your ideal prospects search for.?

Be sure to apply best practices for SEO to boost more interest and generate more traffic to your business online. The more visible your business is in your audience’s search, the more likely you’ll generate potential leads.

Clearly understand your audience, research the terms they search for, and target those keywords in multiple ways. Here are some examples of how to use this strategy:

• Create evergreen content on your website, blog, and social channels optimised for their target terms.
• Develop an on-site blog strategy around your audience’s target keywords.
• Target the terms in pay-per-click marketing.
• Guest blog on sites that cater to your audience’s target terms and have a proven track record of high shareability.

Retarget People Who Have Engaged With Your Brand

Reconnect with prospects who have engaged with your brand but didn’t convert into leads. This step combines lead awareness and lead generation, as you don’t need an email address to retarget page or website visitors with an ad.

With a retargeting strategy, your visitors keep viewing relevant ads for your brand and products. This strategy helps to recapture your audience’s interest and brings them back to your business at a later time.?

Check out Google’s display ads and LinkedIn’s ads feature to learn more about how to increase engagement with your brand’s website or social pages.

If you have a sizeable gap between your retargeted traffic and lead numbers, that means the value of what you're offering might not be clear to your visitors. Maybe it’s time to re-assess and improve how you communicate with your leads and your lead magnets.?

Create a Referral Rewards System

You can generate high-quality leads that will have a pre-established trust in your product or service through a referral system.?

Every business should invest in a strong referral rewards system. By asking customers to think about people who would benefit from your product or service, they'll refer leads that are a good fit for your brand.

In exchange for your customers “marketing” your service, you may offer them benefits or discounts. People will trust and value recommendations from their friends and peers, so this can be a powerful way to fill your lead funnel.

Host an Event

Host an in-person or online event while capturing their contact information via event registration.?

Events allow you to connect with customers in real time, answer questions, and learn more about your audience while actively guiding prospects through the sales funnel. A few event options to consider are:

• LinkedIn Live Workshop
• Seminar
• Meetup
• Conference

Conclusion?

In conclusion, most businesses are heavily investing in lead generation strategies. Those help customers learn about a new product or service while ensuring a continuous revenue stream. How? An effective lead generation strategy connects you with new customers every day.?

Most of the lead strategies listed here are content marketing-based. These generate multiple times more leads than outbound marketing at less than half the cost.

Determining how to allocate your marketing budget can be tricky, but knowing which strategy and tactic are the most cost-effective. Which of these lead generation strategy ideas can you implement now? Choose one or two to get started, build your way up to all 12, and see the results!??

Any other suggestions of lead generation strategies that work really well for you? Share them in the comments!