“Why would anyone need a strategy for lead generation?” is a bit like asking “Why would anyone want to put petrol in the tank of a vehicle?”
A business can only survive if it has a steady influx of customers, and that steady influx of customers is maintained by lead generation. Customers determine the profitability of the business, and therefore if there are no leads, there are no sales and therefore no profit.
So, how can a business ensure that the petrol of lead generation is constantly topped up and that the business vehicle is kept running profitably?
Rather than being a quick “injection” supplying your business with leads every now and again, a successful lead generation strategy is one that compliments your overall marketing strategy with the sole purpose of generating a steady influx of new leads. To successfully generate a regular flow of leads, it is important to incorporate lead generation into your marketing strategy and overall marketing plan.
The rest of this article will discuss a few simple ideas designed to help you implement effective lead generation strategies and give your lead generation efforts a boost.
Audit your website
At the point where you’re serious about optimising your website for lead generation, the easiest place to start is with what you already have. This means that you have to look at your website more strategically and carry out an audit with the aim of identifying already existing lead-generating opportunities.
You can add forms and CTAs to high-traffic pages, test different forms on different pages, and measure the performance of each piece of content using tools such as Sumo or Google Analytics. You will also need to test your lead generation process in addition to your web pages. Are there too many steps preventing your potential leads from giving up their information? Perhaps you need to try out different copy sequences in your CTAs. There is no hard and fast rule, so the only way to know what is likely to work best for your business is to assume nothing and test everything.
Using Problem-Solving Videos
Read the text below, and then look at the illustration:
A 3-sided figure with one angle pointing downwards
Which of the two drove the point home for you – the text or the picture? If you’re like most people, the picture would have offered an instant explanation of what the author meant, and this proves that most people find illustrations easier than text to understand. This is very important when it comes to creating tutorials or any content offering a clear guide. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a lot more and this is why problem-solving videos tend to be successful at lead generation.
The best way to use videos for lead generation is to create problem-solving video tutorials. Does your product solve a problem? Or do your competitors’ products feature a problem that your product addresses? Create a video that focuses on the problem and which shows how your product solves the problem. Then add a call-to-action encouraging viewers to take action – they can sign up to your newsletter, download a pdf guide, it doesn’t matter. You can host the video on to your website using SEO-rich keywords in the title, as well as on YouTube using the same SEO-rich title, as well as an explanation of what the video is. This will help you reach the potential leads who are already searching for ways to solve the specific problem you’re offering to solve. Remember to add a strong CTA in the text section of both pages, as well as at the end of your video.
Blog regularly
Blogging is one of the most successful and most popular lead generation strategies that businesses use. Millions of internet users consume blog content on a regular basis, so it makes sense for businesses to appear where their potential customers spend time. If you follow the right steps, you can ensure that the content you put out helps you become an authority in your niche, giving your business the opportunity to generate an unlimited number of leads.
If you’re worried about your lack of blogging skills, you would be pleased to learn that blogging is one lead-generating activity that you can very easily outsource. There are freelancers and specialised blogging outfits whose services you can employ. All you have to do is provide them with guidelines on what keywords you wish to rank for, what your target customer looks and sounds like and the onus is on them to create high-quality articles that will keep your blog readers hooked.
As your blog audience grows, so will your potential for lead generation. A good tactic is to consistently produce content relating to, but not directly attempting to sell your products or services. Explain to your readers potential problems that they might face in the niche your blog caters to. Then offer a number of solutions to the problem and include your product/service as one of the solutions you offer.
As always, remember to include CTAs within your blog post which help, rather than hinder the reader to take action. Rather than repeat the same CTA, you can use a variety of different CTAs within the same page – a phone number, free download, free human consultation. Whatever you choose, it is important to encourage your readers to take action immediately.
Giveaways
Giveaways are one of the most often overlooked but most effective lead generation strategies out there. Giveaways are one of the reasons why some people have favourite products and services providers. As a business owner, you can introduce periodic giveaways into your marketing strategy, and incorporate these into different parts of your website.
If you run a monthly giveaway, for example, test a popup on your most highly trafficked pages and let it run with a countdown timer until the winner is picked. You can offer your products, services, or even complementary products and services to people who take certain actions on your site – people who enter the giveaway, purchase an item, follow you on social media, etc. Especially when applied to customers with a strong interest in your niche, the opportunity to win a highly coveted item could be too irresistible for potential customers not to enter. Once you start getting leads, you can score them, and nurture them until they become customers.
Free Ebooks
People just can’t seem to resist a good, free product especially when it contains the solution to their problems.
Think about it.
Most people will pay good money to solve problems, so when someone offers the chance to solve these problems without the added cost, it is almost too tempting not to take them up on the offer. This is why the “free eBook” strategy has proved so successful in the lead generation space over the years.
This space however has been well and truly milked, so it is not always as easy as publishing an eBook and expecting leads to pour in. One size no longer fits all, so here are a few rules of thumb to follow when creating eBooks for lead generation:
- Be specific. Laser-target your book to fit your audience. If you are aware of any characteristics that help define your audience better, use them in the title of your book. This is why a book titled “The ultimate guide to hair removal in women under 40 with sensitive skin” will always perform better than one titled “Free hair removal guide”.
- Know your audience. Have an image of your typical customer in mind, and write as though you are addressing this person specifically. This will help ensure that your tone is on the same frequency as that of your audience.
- Optimise your landing page. This cannot be stressed enough. Remember that your landing page is where the magic happens, and the content on this page is your convincing salesperson. When it comes to eBooks, FREE isn’t enough anymore. Lots of us have free eBooks sitting in all sorts of folders that have never been opened. Take the time to craft your landing page with the intent to make it appeal to your readers, and the time you spend doing this will pay off in terms of leads.
Conclusion
Hopefully, by now you should have at least one or two lead generation ideas that you can start working on implementing right away. Whichever idea you choose, it is important to remember that your landing pages and CTAs are key to the success of your lead generation efforts. If you have any questions about lead generation, or if you want to find out how Act! can help you generate more leads, take our free self-guided tour here.
