Research by HubSpot shows that six out of ten marketers say that lead generation is their first priority, because you need to attract high-quality leads for your business to grow.
These leads can turn into paying customers. But how do you attract these high-quality leads? Below, we’ve gathered the best lead generation strategies and their best practices.
Use social media
Social media is not just about selfies and memes. It is a powerful tool that you can use to generate qualified leads and convert them. Social media generates 2* the marketing leads as PPC, direct mail, telemarketing, and tradeshows. Furthermore, research shows that 47% of marketers agree that social media is one of the best places to generate leads. Even physical businesses like estate agents need to generate leads through social media nowadays.
But how can you use social media to generate leads? The best way to do it is to create targeted campaigns for specific demographics. But first, you need to know your audience by asking yourself the following questions?
- What are my audience’s goals?
- What platforms do they like?
- What kind of data are they searching for?
- What are their primary pain points?
Firstly, you should gather some data and answer the above questions based on it, use that knowledge to develop content that;
- Resonates with them
- Is value-based
- Solves their problems
- Entertain them
Note that posting content is not all that you need to do. You have to engage your social media audience. How? You can do this by providing feedback, asking them questions, or even replying to their comments. When you do this, you increase your chances of generating quality leads.
Use retargeted ads
Many of your website visitors will not become leads. Well, that’s okay. You can use ads retargeting to stay on top of their minds. This retargeting specifically shows ads to individuals who visited your website in the past.
Retargeted ads have a high CTR rate. Why? They look like any other ads but offer increased urgency/discounts. The retargeted ads are designed to lure your visitors back to your site.
Leverage content marketing
Content marketing provides one of the most effective and durable strategies for lead generation. This is mainly because content can always be accessible on your website for many years to come.
The best thing is that there are many forms of content that you can create to generate leads. They include;
- FAQs
- How-to-guides
- White papers
- Ebooks
- Blog posts
Note that when you create content, your main aim should be to be helpful. Creating helpful content can help you be a thought leader. This will allow you to attract new customers in multiple ways.
As stated above, content marketing is one of the most effective tactics for lead generation. Generally, it can generate 3* as many leads as outbound marketing tactics. Also, it costs 63% less than other lead-generation strategies.
Consider cold emailing
Cold emailing involves a process where you reach out to potential customers without having any prior connection. The result? You can create awareness about your businesses and get replies from prospective customers.
This may seem daunting. But when you do it right, you can generate leads. So, how can you create effective cold emails?
- Have a captivating subject line
- Keep it short
- Avoid negative or positive language. Stay neutral
- Make your subject line have an internal email vibe
- Go straight to the point
- Optimize for mobile
Use live chat to engage visitors
Live chat provides an exceptional way to get leads on your website. Most individuals who visit your website often have questions about your services/products. So, when you connect with your website visitors via live chat, you can answer their questions.
This ensures they don’t bounce off your website since you will be there to cater to their needs. Customers love having their questions answered right away. Furthermore, 40 percent of customers are more likely to take action on your website if you provide live chat services.
But how can you provide the live chat service? The best way to do this is through chatbots. Chatbots ensure that the lead generation process is more automatic. If you use the chatbots well, you can easily;
- Collect contact information
- Assign new contacts to your salesperson for follow-up
- Send welcome emails to new leads
- Offer advice to your customer
- Make it easy for visitors to convert
Use pay-per-click (PPC)
PPC will allow you to place ads on your websites and search engines. The best thing about it is that you only pay when individuals click on your ads. PPC ensures you can have quick conversions from leads that correlate with specific searches.
But how do you ensure PPC is effective in lead generation and conversion?
- Optimize your landing pages with a clear call to action
- Write compelling copy and catchy headlines
- Use analytical tools to track your performance
Optimize with SEO
Fifty-nine percent of marketers believe that SEO optimization is one of the most effective ways of generating leads. Why? SEO provides one of the best ways for people to find your website. Also, the best SEO strategies can ensure you land on the first page of search engines.
These strategies may include things like;
- Keyword research
- On-page optimization
- Link building
- Valuable and high-quality content
Use video marketing
Video content is very easy to consume.This makes it one of the most popular forms of marketing in today’s digital age. Also, it has many users. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok are where visitors go on purpose.
People prefer to watch product presentations, unboxings, or how-to videos on these platforms. So, why not leverage them? You can use video marketing as an effective form of lead generation with the help of a virtual assistant.
But make sure you optimize your video content to rank well on Google. Also, you can use hashtags to enhance the social aspect of your campaigns.
Ensure that your strategies are data-driven
Data-driven strategies can allow you to enjoy optimal results. It is because the insights you get from the data can ensure you make decisions backed by numbers. For instance, you can use the data you get from customer behavior to tailor your content to meet their preferences and tastes.
Additionally, you can use A/B testing to determine which campaigns are effective and which are not. It will help you to optimize your marketing efforts.
Understand your audience
Knowing your audience will ensure that you focus your efforts where you can have the most impact. This will lead to a stronger ROI and a more effective lead generation. In addition, knowing who you want to reach out to will allow you to tailor your services/products/messaging to meet their specific preferences and needs.
A significant part of knowing your audience involves creating a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customers based on;
- Real data of your existing customers
- Market research
These buyer personas can enhance your lead generation efforts by guiding you on customer service, content creation, and product development.
Have a balance between outbound and inbound marketing
Lead generation is all about attracting prospective customers and converting them. Because of this, many believe that inbound marketing is the only way to achieve lead generation. However, that is not true,
When you balance outbound and inbound marketing, you stand a higher chance of developing a healthier pipeline. Outbound marketing is ideal for speeding up the sale cycle and filling it with qualified leads. On the other hand, inbound marketing provides an excellent long-term lead-generation strategy.
Optimize your website
Your website is a precious asset for lead generation and conversion. In fact, the best website can lead to a more than 11 percent conversion rate. A website serves as a digital storefront for your company. Optimizing it for lead capture is essential for lead generation. To achieve this, consider partnering with a laravel development company to ensure your website is built with robust, scalable, and efficient code.
But how do you optimize your website? You can do this by;
- Having an intuitive and clean layout
- Having effective call-to-action buttons
- Optimize website for mobile
Diversify your lead acquisition channels
If you see results from one channel, you may be tempted to focus only on that channel. However, this increases the chances of emptying your pipeline if something happens to that one favored channel.
So, to reduce this risk, ensure you have as many channels as possible for lead acquisition. You can always depend on the working ones if you have channels that do not achieve the desired outcomes.
However, your main goal should be to ensure that all your lead acquisition channels are stable and that they keep on growing.
Wrapping up
An effective lead generation strategy can ensure you have a steady stream of qualified leads. Thus, you can have a healthy pipeline that increases your business revenue and easily converts new customers.
