Lead Generation Strategies – The Best Guide On The Internet

What’s the fastest way to grow your business? 

New sales, hands down. 

But…

Where do you get those new sales from? Because I can tell you from experience, no matter how good your product is, just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring will not get you new deals in the door. 

That leaves you with 1 choice. Getting leads! 

In this article we’re going to break down over 200+ different strategies for generating leads with your business. Whether you’re selling B2B or B2C you’re going to get the most complete guide for lead generation strategies on the internet. 

What Is Lead Generation Strategy?

Lead generation is the process of identifying prospective customers who fit your target profile – meaning they are either a firmographic or psychographic fit – and developing them for the sales pipeline. 

When you reach out to prospects you create awareness and demand which builds your authority, establishes trust, and gets your brand noticed! 

You use lead generation as a way of creating enough people to raise their hand and say “Yes! I do want to learn more about your product or service!” 

You can get these people by executing on the advice within this article and from our other articles on SERP Co. 

Sounds easy right? Just plug and play the tactics below and people will be lining up out the door.

Wrong. So wrong.

But that’s why we have a lead generation strategy! Because with a strategy you now have a playbook to follow and take action on. Thus increasing your odds of generating high quality leads. 

Quick note – your goal of generating leads is to develop Sales Qualified Leads (SQL’s) which are people who fit your target market and additional criteria. I like to use SQL’s as the main indicator of a lead pipeline for both B2C and  B2B companies, although some people differ on this opinion. 

If you’re interested in reading further take a look at my article, “What Is Lead Generation?”

Difference Between Lead Generation Strategy & Tactic

Strategy: noun: “a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.”

I put this definition here because I believe it’s important to understand the difference between the two. 

Tactics are the means of achieving a desired objective or goal, while strategy is the overall campaign – and how the tactics work together – for achieving the goal. 

So many times I’ll hear people say they’re using SEO or Email Marketing as their main strategy – but the strategy is how you’re using both and when you plan to develop them fully. 

Strategy is about connecting the tactics into a complete plan for how all of the major marketing channels work together. 

An example of this could be as follows: you’ve done some keyword research and you found a problem your target profile experiences which can be solved with a high quality blog post with a Call To Action (CTA). You go about creating this blog post and begin getting backlinks for it to rank. Additionally, you’re a savvy marketer and you send the link to this blog post via email and social to your target audience. These prospects visit your website, read your content and some download it. 

Creating A Lead Generation Plan

There’s a saying I think is insightful: “Plan your work, work your plan.” 

With a well-developed lead generation plan you’ll be able to:

• Position yourself as the expert to your target audience
• Allow the sales time to spend their days selling – which generates more revenue
• Deliver measurable results for the C-Suite

So, how do we get there? 

With the following steps:

1. Map your objectives and goals

You need to understand your products buying cycle and your target audience. Are you a high velocity, low budget product or are you a multi-month Enterprise solution? 

Do you have sales people, or will the internet do all your selling? 

How many leads will you need to generate to reach your sales goal? 

What kind of resources do you have on hand? 

You need to have these questions answered before you can begin to implement any strategy. This will determine where you’ll need to put your attention on. 

2. Define the SQL

You’ve probably seen the meme’s or heard about how Marketing and Sales never play nice. When times are good, nobody has a problem; but when times get bad – things can get ugly. Sales thinks marketing is sending sub-par prospects, and Marketing thinks sales is picky. 

That’s why it’s vital you define and agree upon what a qualified lead is, and write it down! This way it’s in black and white with no misunderstandings from either side. 

3. Map Your Channels

Every industry is different – and every budget is different. Plus, prospects need to hear your message multiple times before they begin to take notice of your offer. To effectively execute you must map out the channels (which we’ve done in this article!) and develop a process for multiple touches. 

4. Map Your Tech Stack

You’ll need to capture, measure, and quickly respond to leads when they come in. Either you’ll need to use a free CRM or go with the legacy providers like Salesforce or Hubspot. 

Beyond that, you’ll need a way to get clean data by either purchasing lists or using a Zoominfo product. 

And if you’re savvy getting a lead scoring tool will help you understand who needs to be developed further. 

Either way it’s critical you understand your current tech stack and know what else you’ll need to bring into the fold. 

5. Analyze & Improve

Like anything in life – it isn’t going to be perfect the first time. You’ll need to measure and track everything you do, and then split tests for improvement. 

The good news, if you’re a sales nerd like myself this will be a blast! 

Lead Generation Strategies By Channel

So which lead generation strategies work best? 

Well, if you ask Hubspot they would say SEO & Email marketing. Results below: 

From our experience we believe this to be true across the board within a variety of industries. The market has shifted to education first marketing where the marketing department and sales department are beginning to look eerily alike. 

Many companies are finding that marketing is becoming responsible for leads who are nearly 70% of the way through the buying process, and sales is tasked with closing the deal. 

In my opinion there are 2 main lead generation channels, each with different sub-channels. 

Internet Marketing & Advertising Channel

Website

Create gated content

Gated content is material you’ve created where the visitor must fill in a form to get access to. This content can be anything: ebooks, white papers, reports, upgraded content, etc. What’s important is the visitor is giving you their information in the form of email address, name, phone number, or any other personal info for access. Below are a couple examples.

Get leads for an in-depth webinar

Provide a guide your visitors must have:

Offer a unique video in exchange for your visitors info:

Provide a custom template for plug and play:

Then… Offer Co-Created Gated Content!

No matter who you’re targeting for your business, there are always dozens – if not hundreds – of companies who are also targeting those folks. If they’re not direct competitors then create a relationship with them and offer joint content. 

You’ll often get access to promoting it to their email list, and there’s a great opportunity to get a lot of leads from this partnership.  

Offer A Coupon Or Discount Code

Discounts work – they’re the perfect way to help get fence-sitters to commit to offering their information. Additionally, if a person is thinking of purchasing your product then a discount will get them to buy. 

Use The Spin Wheel To Offer Discounts

MakerBot offering a 2 for 1 special:

Personalized Discount Offer:

Optimize your website to promote your lead magnet

Provide a freemium product or free trial

When a prospect is the decision part of their buyer journey, they likely know they have a problem, and the best options to fix, but now they need to educated themselves on the products which would best solve their need. This is where free trial comes in as a perfect lead generation idea – in fact over 93% of web-based companies offer free trial in their marketing funnel. 

Salesforce uses free trial to show their product:

GoToMeeting Uses Free Trial to build leads:

Optimize your web forms

This is one of those lead generation strategies you’ll have to experiment with because your audience will differ from what industry experts say, but here are a couple ways to make your web forms easier for the visitor. 

Keep It Simple:

Would you fill a form like below?

Yeah – didn’t think so. But you would fill a form like this…

That’s the power of optimizing your form fill to making it easy for the visitor to give you their info!

Test If Phone Should Be 1 Field:

Keep it simple – and let your visitor only complete 1 field.  

Use Trust Icons On Your Forms:

Super simple to add and it boosts credibility instantly. 

Exit-intent popups

Sumo offers a special if you try to leave:

Here’s another one:

Use heatmaps to understand conversion issues

Heatmaps are good if you’re looking to understand your funnel leaks. There are a variety of different heat map tools out there, and different kinds of tests, but our favorite is the click mapping. This shows you where users are clicking most, and gives you greater insight into your webpages story. 

This is what a click heatmap looks like:

Run an A/B test

In the words of management expert Peter Drucker: “If it cannot be measured, it doesn’t exist.” A/B testing is how the internet improves. In fact, you’ve probably been a part of over 10,000 different split tests if you’ve been using the internet regularly for the past 5 years. Running A/B testing is the most comprehensive way to gain user insight and improve lead generation. 

Look at Humana who wanted to increase Click Through Rate for their lander:

Unbuonce did a split test to see if users preferred to Tweet or give an Email:

Version A:

Version B:

Here’s another eBook example:

Build a microsite

A microsite is a mini-website with limited functionality compared to your main “money site”. Typically these micro-sites get created with a unique URL meant to target a specific target audience. They don’t usually have ecommerce functionality, but are meant to be a lead generation tool for the target audience. 

Here’s another explanation from Wiki: “A microsite is an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as a discrete entity within an existing website or to complement an offline activity. The microsite’s main landing page can have its own domain name or subdomain”

TCS built a microsite for the NYC Marathon:

Use FAQ’s for lead generation

FAQ’s or frequently asked questions are the questions your prospects or customers have when reading through your website or before purchasing your product. Just like your “About Us” page, this is a great opportunity to convert those visitors who are sitting on the fence into quality leads! 

How though??

Well the best way to accomplish this goal is to actually link your content or another form fill to the answer. 

Free Trial Example:

Q: How do I know if there’s a free trial for this product?

A: We offer a free trial for 30 days. For more information, check here (link).

You might think it’s obvious, but marketers miss this all the time. 

Trade Ad Space with Non-Competitor

The idea behind this strategy is to find a business who’s selling products or services related to you, but isn’t a direct competitor. You’re going to reach out and offer to exchange advertisements with the goal of you reaching a new audience. 

You’ll want to make sure they have about the same amount of visitors or clients as yourself, otherwise the relationship can get lopsided. 

You’d be surprised about the effectiveness of this idea; joint ventures can turn out really positive for both parties as long as your traffic is roughly the same. 

Media buys

Media buying is the art of placing advertising on another web properties assets. For a certain fee you can get an advertisement on a high trafficked website, TV channel, or even podcast. 

This is going to be one of the most expensive lead generation strategies so be prepared to spend big money for media buys. For example, placing a display ad on a website like the Drudge Report can cost more than a new car for a single hour…

Create a slack channel

Creating a Slack channel is fantastic if you’re looking to be top-of-mind with potential customers and build strong relationships to gain word of mouth and referral leads. 

Setting up an account is easy – and it’s one of the best ways to build a community. Here’s the steps:

• Step 1 – Visit Slack.com and click “Get Started”.
• Step 2 – Sign up using your work email.
• Step 3 – Create the Team name (This could be your businesses name or whatever topic you want to build a community around).
• Step 4 – Create a custom URL.
• Step 5 – Pick your username.
• Step 6 – Begin adding friends and new members!

Direct the Eye

Humans are predisposed to following the eyes of those around us. By watching the eyes we could tell what the other person was up to, and could judge their character. So naturally if you use pictures where the eyes are pointing to the text you want them to read, the visitor will naturally follow! 

Amy Porterfield uses it to get more leads:

Post at the Right Time of Day

Knowing when to post on social media is tricky business. The reality is, there’s no perfect time for every business to post for highest engagement. It depends on your business model and target audience. The good news is many organizations have attempted to give you great starting points, and from there you’ll need to test and measure the results. 

Best Times For Facebook:

Best Time On Twitter:

Best Time On Instagram:

Best Time On LinkedIn:

Write Amazing Headlines

There’s a saying that for every minute you spend writing your body copy, you need to spend double writing the headline. We agree, completely. 

Headlines are the single greatest way to increase your conversion rate and there are some key points you’ll need to keep in mind when writing them! 

Step 1: Be Specific (Leverage Data & Numbers!)

Numbers get people to click because it’s understood better compared to words, and the brain has an easy time digesting them. There’s a reason those Buzzfeed list articles are so popular! 

Example: 

Step 2: Give A Unique Reason 

Why should anyone spend their time reading your content? What’s your unique reason? Here’s a couple words to get your started: 

• Lessons
• Tricks
• Ideas
• Secrets
• Strategies

Step 3: Convey Urgency

Urgency is the fuel to get the visitor to take action! Urgency makes your prospect feel one of their worst fears… FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). If you can leverage this feeling, you’re going to get a lot of leads!!

Add social sharing buttons to your website

Social media buttons are a great way to get users who are committed to your content to spread the news. You should be aware there’s been a 50% decrease of sharing on social since 2015, but this shouldn’t stop you from adding the option for your visitors. We recommend you put it on the bottom of your post until you begin to get shares, then add to the top of your content once you’ve gained authority. 

Here’s a good example of a social share bar:

Create a quiz

Quizzes are a great way to generate TOF leads. Here are some high level ideas why quizzes are awesome!

• Quizzes are fun! People scrolling through social media are more likely to click on an entertaining quiz. You’ve seen the “What Game Of Thrones Character Are You” quizzes. 
• Buzzsumo found that quizzes are shared 1900 times on average. So if you’re looking for shareable content this is one of the best options!
• Quizzes help build your Top Of Funnel leads. If you tailor the quiz enough you’ll find it’s great for getting data on your target audience. 

Don’t believe me? Take a look here:

SEO

Personalise your landing pages to match search intent

This lead generation strategy takes a bit of time to complete – but the increase in conversions is well worth the effort. You can increase the number of leads your website generates by offering personalized content only they would like and find useful. 

For example, if your website is about marketing and you’re targeting keywords for chiropractors, why would you offer generic lead magnets? You would want to offer 

Use Google Analytics To Find New Keywords

The beauty of SEO is not in targeting the main keywords for traffic, but finding long-tail keywords for highly specific traffic. You can actually use Google Analytics to find keywords with specific intent, but low search volume. These keywords are very likely to convert because there’s such high intent behind them. 

You can do this by going to the following:

Target competitor’s keywords

You can use tools like Ahrefs to get a look at what keywords your competitors are going after. If they’re going after those keywords, you’ll at least have a chance to build better content and rank for them since it’s likely those keywords are the ones your target audience are searching. 

Analyze competitor backlinks

Once again you can look at your competitors backlink profile to understand what brands and websites they’re going after. Once you’ve compiled a list you can start asking those people to rank into your website because your content is better! 

If you’re interested we have a great SEO guide on this that will teach you about successful backlink strategies. Over time your backlink profile will grow and you’ll start to rank. 

Guest blog

One of our favorite ways to gain high quality backlinks and leads is guest blogging. You’ll need to compile a list of web properties who aren’t in direct competition with you, but reach the same relative audience, and you’ll ask the webmaster if you can create content for their blog. 

I’ll be brutally honest with you – this is hard. You’ll need to find emails with tools like Hunter.io or Apollo which can take hours of work. 

Next, you’ll need to pitch ideas their audience will find useful, but hasn’t been done before to gain credibility with the owner and their audience. 

Make sure the content is high quality and not self serving. Your goal is to educate and make the audience go “Wow – I never thought of it this way”. Only then will you get the leads you’re looking for!

Target long-tail keywords

If you don’t have a long-tail keyword strategy you’re missing out big-time. 

Long-tail keywords are the phrases your prospect is searching for with high search intent. Ironically these keywords have low volume and competition, but very high conversion percentages. They’re also much easier to rank for with your website. 

Example: A person might search – “best protein powder for lean muscle” which is very specific and has high user intent; this is opposed to the search for “protein powder” which is very broad but high search volume. 

Here’s a visual example of long tail:

How To Find Long-Tail Keywords:

One of the easiest ways is to use a broad topic related to your company and let Google autocomplete give you ideas. Like below:

You can also look at the “People also ask” box on google, like so:

Another way to get long tail info is using a tool like ahrefs:

Include internal links in your blog posts

When it comes to generating leads through your website you’re going to find much of the traffic will be in the awareness stage of the buyer cycle. This is why internal linking is so useful, because it provides the prospect a chance to further educate themselves on their problem and your solution.

Normally you’re ideal lead generation process would be the following: 

But…

Visitors don’t always act like we expect them to. We’ve found a useful practice to get the highest conversion rate on your content is to provide internal links to topics your visitor will ALSO find useful based on their original search intent. 

Example: Let’s say somebody searches for the best protein powder for men over 50, and the land on your content answering this question. You’re going to find that if you link additional content like “7 Reasons Why Whey Protein Helps Joint Pain” will draw their attention because it’s ancillary to the initial issue the visitor was experiencing. 

The visitor will click into that article, and be drawn down the rabbit hole in your website because of interest, and at this point they’re most likely to opt-in for a lead generation form. 

Pro Tip:

1. Make sure the link is marked as “nofollow”.
2. Make sure you open in a new window.

Respond to blog comments

It is my firm belief if you post content you need to respond to your readers comments. A lot of the nuance you can’t communicate correctly in your article or post CAN be communicated within the comment section, it’s actually one of the first places a reader will go to before they even read the full article!

Here’s the truth: Silence Is NOT An Option. If you don’t reply to your readers, you’re basically broadcasting that there’s no reason to invest in your brand. Think about it – how would you feel if you leave a thoughtful comment, only to hear crickets?

Invest your time in replying to your readers comments and you’ll increase the chance of a lead, and more importantly a loyal customer!

PPC

Build negative keyword lists in Google Ads

If you’re unfamiliar with negative keywords it’s a way to eliminate your ads from being shown on keywords which don’t impact your ROI in any significant way. Look, Google has no problem spending your money if you let them, and negative keywords is one of the lead generation strategies the pros use for guaranteeing high quality ad spend. 

Here’s an example: Say you’re in the business of memory foam for mattresses. Keywords you want to show up for your Google Ads would be ones directly related to memory foam. But if your advertising in this segment, you’ll likely end up on keywords for foam, mattress covers, or bed sheets. Those keywords have low user intent and are highly unlikely to convert. This is the power of negative keywords!!

Use Gmail ads to target competitors’ customers

Gmail ads – these are interactive paid advertisements that pop up into the prospects gmail account. They’re only displayed in the top portion of the screen within the promotions tab of your gmail account. 

Like below: 

Why should you use them? Well, on average we spend 4 hours per day checking email for work or personal reasons, and gmail is the largest free email service being used today. It gets a lot of attention!

You should know Gmail ads are considered a PPC or pay-per-click ad meaning that you’ll only pay for people who expand the ad and click into it. This helps with keeping your targeting tight and costs low. Plus, this is perfect as a way to retarget a list of website visitors who don’t convert into leads!

Retargeting

Retarget people who have engaged with your brand

I’m sure you’re well aware of this, but the buyer’s journey is not a linear process. As business owners or marketing leaders, we like to think visitors who come into contact with our brand will follow an orderly process to purchase. They’ll visit the site, fill a form for a download, get a call with a sales rep all in a single session. 

Buyers just don’t act like this and we can’t expect them to. They go through phases of education before eventually becoming a customer, and this is where Retargeting is so important.

Retargeting is offering highly tailored ads to people who have visited your website or already been added into your contact database. There are 2 kinds of retargeting options available. 

1. Pixel Based retargeting 

This is the most common form of retargeting and is based on a user visiting your web properties, getting tagged via a pixel, and being served related ads.

2. List Based Retargeting 

This is where you already have contact information and you upload it into a advertising portal to create re-engagement campaigns. A good example of this would be if you have a ton of leads for an infographic and you’re looking to see which of these leads would want a new piece of specific content. 

Email

Create a value-packed newsletter

An email newsletter is a way of communicating to your community about news, updates to products, and tips or tricks. You’ll get these people by having people join your email list, which could include subscribers, leads, or even just contacts who you’ve come across. 

Why should you create a newsletter? First – did you know more than 75% of visitors will never come back to your website? 

It’s a big sea of content and your visitor doesn’t have the time to read it all. So with an email newsletter you’re gaining the ability to reach those visitors without having to spend a large amount of money doing so, which is awesome!

Automate email marketing campaigns

One of the questions business owners ask us is: “How can I scale myself without adding a ton of HR expenses?” 

Email automation is our number 1 answer. With email you have the ability to scale your outreach to a large pool of contacts and can work to turn those prospects into quality leads. Rather than sending an email manually for every visitor who takes action, you can use email automation to deliver a highly tailored message without delay. 

It gets even better though – with email automation you can even scale your outbound efforts to begin turning contacts who might not have even looked for your content into long-term customers. By sending targeted emails you can generate a substantial more amount of leads compared to only content marketing or even SEO. 

Automating your email marketing saves you time and scales your efforts in ways you never thought possible before

Live Chat

Engage site visitors with live chat

If you don’t have live chat on your website, you might want to consider adding it to your arsenal! Here’s a couple good reasons to consider live chat: 

• Over 42% of website visitors prefer to use live chat software because it prevents them from needless searching on the internet.
• 75% of visitors are left satisfied with a live chat interaction, where only 60% of visitors are satisfied with an email interaction.

Why is this? 

Many reasons for live chat being so effective is the ability to filter out potential leads from just tire-kickers without the need to use expensive human resources. If you can determine through a machine a person isn’t qualified, why allow a person to spend their time on it? 

Content 

Turn your blog posts into in-depth guides

Image Source: Reliable Soft

Blogging is generally a big struggle for businesses.

As your goal is to attract leads, your blog post should resonate with it. Consider the question that your target audience might have and think about their struggles.

Made a list of all the questions? Great!

Now, take these questions and answer them through your blog posts, preferably where they go, “I think I should try (Your company’s) product or service.”

This will help you get high-quality visitors that can convert to paying clients. Considering that leads generated from SEO have a 14.6% close rate, you should SEO-optimize all your blogs.

Add dynamic CTAs to your blog posts

For every piece of content – for your website or print materials – including dynamic CTAs are a must.

Before you hit the “Publish“ button, consider which type of CTA would be best suited for your company. Here are a few examples:

Example A: Connect On Social CTAs

Image Source: Hubspot

In this case, you have to provide links that can connect leads with your company’s social media profiles. Also, try to create separate call-to-action for every social media channel to make it easier for your readers to follow you.

Example B: Bottom-of-the-Post Smart CTAs

Image Source: Zoho

Adding a CTA at the end of blogs will enable your reader to take action. It’s a win-win for you and them.

Example C: Blog Subscription CTAs

Image Source: AWeber

If you’ve been successful in drafting informative blogs, your readers might be interested in subscribing to your blog posts by email. This type of CTA will help increase your subscriber base.

Pack your content with data & sharable ideas

The holy grail of blogging is to create content that is packed with useful data and is highly shareable.

But that’s only half the battle.

Start with choosing a format for your blog post i.e. whether you want to write how-to’s, listicles, or question-based posts. 

Focus on SEO-optimizing it – but not too much.

Remember, shareable content is readable content. This is why you need to make your blog posts scroll-friendly, and use plenty of sub-headers. Add pictures, graphics, or quotes too.

And yes! Avoid “fake news” and use well-researched facts and stats only.

Update your old content

Google determines the quality of your website based on how “fresh” your content is. Check out this graph by Moz, for instance, that shows how with passing time, your published content becomes less fresh.

You should keep updating your blog posts to make them stay relevant. 

Start with fixing any grammar or spelling mistakes, remove broken links, link to newer, better resources, and optimize it with the right keywords. Additionally, make sure your old content meets all the newest requirements of Google‘s algorithm updates to show Google as your content is fresh.

Publish an infographic

If your content is dull, unoriginal, and just… sub-par, your audience won’t share it. 

This is where an infographic comes in. 

Infographics have a distinct appeal, and if designed well, can be equally informative. Focus on combining data, design, layout, and key lead generating elements to create an effective infographic.

Infographics should have a readable font with appropriate visuals for data representation. Along with a logical flow, they should be mobile-optimized too. Lead generation results are much better as well when you use infographics in your newsletters or marketing collateral when compared to other alternatives.

Use comment marketing

Rand Fishkin defines comment marketing as, “commenting on blogs in order to earn the trust of the other bloggers and also the author of the article.” 

So if you want more leads, you need to find your target blogs that not only have high traffic volume but also include your target prospects. The idea here is to get more exposure through the comments.

At the same time, you need to make quality comments. Simply posting “nice post“ isn’t going to cut the deal. It needs to be insightful enough to catch the attention of the author as well as the readers.

Send old blog posts to new prospects

It isn’t easy to post high-quality blogs frequently, which is probably why 60% of marketers have repurposing content between 2 to 5 times.

Sharing old blog posts will boost traffic, and also adds to your experience. For instance, if you covered a marketing-related topic two years ago, your prospect will instinctively add two years to your credibility as well.

In fact, many marketers consider sharing content on social media only once as a rookie mistake. 

So if you want to increase your retweets, views, and comments, freely share your old content multiple times. Plus you also get the chance to connect with an audience that you might have missed.

Informative booklets

Image Source: Virtual Diplomats

Informative booklets or informational booklets can be a highly effective marketing tool. 

You see, in addition to being comprehensive and eye-catching, they can give prospects all the information they need, arousing their interest in your products or services.

Before you start developing one, you need to identify the purpose of the booklet. Add lots of pictures and graphics and make sure that the content is presented well. Even the texture of paper, and the printing quality matters if you want to attract more leads through booklets.

Create White Papers

Image Source: Sharpe Copy

White papers can be a fantastic tactic for lead generation. 

People who download white papers can sign up for your newsletter or take any other action that you would prefer. Besides, these are leads who are genuinely interested in what you offer, making them more likely to convert to paying customers.

Having said that, you need to ensure your white paper is both insightful as well as visually interesting to keep your leads hooked and invested in your company.

Create a Downloadable eBook

Today, 51% of B2B businesses are using ebooks to make their content marketing campaigns more effective.

E-books are written with your target audience in mind, making them useful for accomplishing your marketing goals, and simultaneously improve your return on investment (ROI). 

Here’s what you can incorporate into an ebook:

• Valuable industry tips
• A list of important product features and details
• Troubleshooting 
• Comprehensive service overviews
• Case studies

You can create a landing page as well where people can give you their email in exchange for downloading your ebooks. This will then create a mutually beneficial for you and the prospect.

Provide an Assessment or Report

There are several well-renowned marketing sites that offer free assessment or reports of your website to analyze traffic, keywords, etc., to gain credibility and attract leads. 

Neil Patel’s site, for example, asks you to drop in your website URL for a free analysis to determine whether you’re getting enough traffic to your site. 

This can be very attractive for a prospect since they get something useful that can help them in their business. At the same time, it helps Patel’s website establish themselves as experts in what they do. 

Create a SlideShare Presentation

SlideShare is a popular presentation platform, with over 80 million users. It allows you to upload documents, infographics, and presentations in various formats.

I’d encourage you to use SlideShare for making presentations for: 

• Attracting leads, and
• Creating brand awareness

The platform has a built-in ‘Lead Forms’ feature that allows you to choose the “Collect Leads“ option for every presentation you upload after you integrate it with a marketing automation platform. 

You can also optimize your presentations for search engines and add clickable CTAs – both of which can be extremely beneficial for generating organic traffic.

Create a mini-course

Not everybody considers creating a mini-course for lead generation.

But isn’t this exactly why it gives you an edge over the competitors?

Interestingly, your mini-courses can either be in a video format or text format. You can release social teasers or a landing page trailer for every mini-course you make and then promote it on your social media.

It’s vital to ensure that your mini-courses are detailed and caters to the needs of your target audience. 

I can’t stress enough on the importance of narrowing down your focus as much as possible!

Create a podcast

Podcasts can be an excellent lead generation tool that can serve as an accessible entry point for prospects to kickstart engagement with your brand. Eventually, your listeners will turn into leads, and leads will turn into customers.

Wondering how to go about it?

During your podcast episodes, you can ask your listeners to click on downloadable links or direct them to fill in a short form with their name and email address. Create lead magnets to increase the effectiveness of podcasting for acquiring leads.

Here are the best lead magnets:

• White papers
• E-books
• Contests that have attractive prizes
• Free consultations

Create an automated webinar strategy

An automated webinar is a pre-recorded webinar. 

As it’s not “live” when your viewers see it, they can play it whenever they like.

Try to make an automated webinar strategy that is evergreen. Since these webinars can be viewed 24/7, 365 days, it should be absolutely perfect and provide the right solutions to your prospects. 

And sorry for the pressure, but you *cannot* mess up a sentence or even a word – by even a little bit – and if you do, you’ll need to restart. 

Trust me, getting this right will get you closer to landing high-quality leads. After all, 73% of B2B marketers believe it.

Link to your webinars directly in your content

Webinars revolving around timely topics or useful how-to’s use can be a crucial part of your content marketing strategy.

You can produce email invitations, blog posts, and social media promotions – all of which are linked to the webinar – to bring leads to your webinar through engagement. Also, these can be great for list-building as usually, attendees have to register before participation, giving you a chance to capture their personal information in your database.

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

Do you see how Larry Kim has used his Twitter for getting leads to register for his webinar? It’s got a link along with an eye-catching graphic.

Or, in this case, Datanyze and Drift owners have included links to the webinar directly in their blog – twice!

Post in Comment Sections

Yes! You can get more leads by commenting on your favorite blogs or posts.

Commenting is a marketing tactic where you leave feedback that helps you connect with the author of the post and their readers.

Let’s take LinkedIn, for example. 

You might have already heard you should engage with connections by commenting and liking on their posts. Doing this will not only help you get noticed and build your authority, but it’ll also generate interest.

Your comments can be anything on any platform – compliments, asking follow-up questions, offering constructive feedback, or anything that adds value to the post.

Industry Research Reports

Industry research reports offer in-depth analysis and insights on different aspects. You get access to comprehensive data and analysis that are easy to read and adjust, along with charts, images, and graphs.

Now, what you can do is use the information from these reports and incorporate them into your content. This will make your articles look well-researched, factually correct, and relevant.

The other advantage is that readers find these reports reliable, which can work in your favor; precisely why it’s encouraged to add lots of statistics and links to your blogs.

Copy & paste templates

One can never be sure when writer’s block can strike, which is when copy and paste templates can come handy – or rather ‘customized’ copy and paste templates.

The Internet is filled with templates for landing pages, blog posts, Facebook ad copy, lead magnet ideas, copywriting, or email. So don’t be afraid to take some inspiration or copy-paste if you find anything suitable.

Joint webinars

Image Source: Neil Patel

I’ve already spoken about the power of webinars for lead generation.

Now, I’m suggesting you hold webinars with a partner. 

Joint webinars can create new lead opportunities by giving you direct access to a new audience. Your webinar partner needs to share a similar audience, and offer complementary products and services for this to work though.

In other words, co-hosting webinars with your direct competition is a strict no-no.

Live Video

Generate email leads from video views

Video marketing shows a tremendous potential to completely revolutionize lead generation. The only thing you need is having the right strategy and tools in place. 

In fact, you’ll be surprised at how easy converting visitors into leads can be! Here’s what you can do:

• Optimizing the videos according to the social media network. Different kinds of videos work on different social media networks. 

For instance, one-minute videos are better for Facebook, whereas elaborate tutorials get more views on YouTube.

• Creating an email gate for capturing leads. Gated videos are media where viewers won’t be able to watch the entire content unless they fill in their contact information. However, this can be a little risky since lazy viewers might abandon watching the video altogether.

Create a Promo Video

A promotional video (also known as a promo video) is meant for promoting a specific marketing initiative, event, or sale. The vibe of these videos is similar to that of a teaser video created to grab the audience’s attention instantly.

You can also include promo videos in email campaigns. Simply replace text and static images with video thumbnails to improve your open and click-through rates.

Create an Explainer Video

Explainer videos explain your company’s product or service through a short online marketing video. This directly provides all the information to your leads that not only stirs interest but also improves conversion rates.

ˆThis is what an explainer video looks like. Do you see how neat and to the point it is?

You can use these videos on your landing pages or product pages. Once your visitors have watched your landing page video, you can add a video call-to-action to invite them to download an e-book or guide.

Influencer & Affiliate Marketing

Image Source: Big Commerce

Create a referral rewards system

A Heinz Marketing study found out that companies with formal referral programs have 40% more leads coming from referrals. Even then, referral marketing remains a relatively untapped source for generating leads. 

You can use your present customers for marketing your products or services, and since these people might already have people who trust them, getting leads will become easier. 

Technically you don’t have to spend money on getting referrals as well – you can offer the customers discounts or give a percentage of sales.

Social media influencers

Image Source: Digital Examiner

You should seriously add social media influencers to your content approach. 

Schedule interviews or do features with them to encourage more influencers to connect with your account, which in turn, can boost your following. 

You can offer monetary benefits or freebies to influencers on Instagram. But be careful to select only those influencers whose interests align with your company‘s core values, and have a similar target audience. 

After all, these people will become representatives of your brand.

Create Lead-Swapping Relationships

Building lead-swapping relationships or lead-sharing relationships is a unique way to generate leads that can help you in the long run. In this case, the involved parties share leads with related businesses – not direct competitors though.

If you’re in a friendly relationship with a business that has the same clientele as yours, you can swap leads from time to time with them.

Even the big data approach can work to get more phone numbers for cold calling.

Give Away Licenses to Influencers

When you give your products or services to influencers, they are likely to use the products themselves to create a positive image for their audience. They can also do giveaways where they offer discounts if their viewers use their promo code.

Whatever be the case, it’s important to have a license in place that gives the influencer as well as your company usage rights for the created content. 

Keep in mind that there are different kinds of licenses, so make sure you get that works best for you.

Interview influencers in your niche

I‘m sure you must have already seen top influencers doing interviews.

But have you wondered why everybody wants to do interviews?

Well, interviews serve as professional platforms where influencers can engage, educate, and entertain their fans. All these benefits will, in turn, increase your credibility and widen your reach once you get influencers on board for interviews.

Also, since it‘s social media, influencers get an ego boost as well as their brand looks more “in demand.”

Basically, everybody wins.

Press Releases

If you think that press releases are now an obsolete practice for lead generation, I’m going to have to stop you right there.

The best press releases merge effective elements of traditional PR methods with modern tools that can work in favor of marketers. These can be:

• Product launch
• New research
• Industry award
• White paper
• Ebook
• Company milestone
• New partnership

As for getting more leads through press releases, you need to follow two crucial steps:

1. Create an impactful call to action. For example: Click here to get your FREE trial of ABC product/service. Avoid using the passive voice as much as possible.

Image Source: Marx Communications

2. Pair your press release with an effective landing page. Not only should it highlight the benefits of your offering, but it also needs to provide the necessary information that educates them about the offered product/service’s use.

Media Interviews

Launch a podcast

Image Source: eMarketer

How to launch a podcast that generates leads – the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

One of the best ways to get leads is to share strategy secrets that can help your prospects. Even answering FAQs or simply asking your listeners to visit your website can work wonders.

Have happy customers? Interview them on your podcast – provided the interview can add value to the audience. This will help you build a successful relationship as well as attract an audience similar to your target customer base.

The only thing you need in your arsenal? A microphone, an audio editing software, and some solid passion for a topic.

Get interviewed using help a reporter out (HARO)

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a not-so-secret weapon commonly used by PR firms and journalists. 

It’s a platform that connects journalists and bloggers to experts in different fields for getting content resources. This is actually mutually beneficial as in exchange for supplying information, business owners can get increased exposure through backlinks.

So if you want to get more leads, try to set up interviews with industry experts that might appeal to your target audience. Trust me, there are many people who can help you get leads by sharing their expertise, top tips, or case studies.

Social Media 

Facebook

Promote lead magnets on Facebook

Facebook has 1.73 billion daily active users.

Let that sink in.

So why not use such a gigantic platform for promoting your lead magnets? Here are a few tips to help you get started:

#1: Add a Cover Image That Uses a Call-to-Action Copy and Arrow

The above cover photo is SOLID, to say the least. An all-black background with white text and a huge arrow pointing towards the download button lets the prospect know exactly what he or she should do.

#2: Create Attractive Lead Generation Posts

Every content strategy needs to strike a balance between engaging non-promotional content and promotional content. And since Facebook offers a variety of options, you can use it the most suitable one to promote your lead magnet.

After copy and pasting the link of the lead magnet directly on the pages status box, you’ll find that an image and the metadata will be automatically generated. This can then direct potential leads to the landing page.

Make the most of Facebook’s targeting options

I’ve already used the word “target market” a few times before in this article. When using Facebook, however, we’ll have to swap it with “audience.“ 

It’s always wise to target a group of customers to increase the effectiveness of your marketing content.

Image Source: AdEspresso

Facebook gives you the option to niche down by offering targeting options such as age, job title, gender, income, location, and more.

For example, users who have searched for vegan food will see ads of companies selling vegan products. In the same way, you can use Facebook to get more leads based on your targeting options.

Start a Facebook Group

Facebook groups can be an excellent way to share content, engage with your followers, and build brand awareness. In fact, it’s also an awesome tool for growing your email list.

What I‘m suggesting is to create a Facebook group to get more leads.

You can collect emails by asking onboarding questions. But simply asking, “Could you please give me your email address?“ isn’t going to work.

Image Source: Social Media Examiner

Instead, you can ask prospects for an email in exchange for a relevant freebie and for verification purposes. Just take a look at the question I’ve added above – yes, it can be that easy!

Quora

Post on Quora and answer questions

If you want to dominate a social media platform to generate a couple of thousands of quality leads and create a huge online community within months, look no further than Quora.

For those of you who don’t know, Quora is a question and answer site/community for people to voice their opinions.

Kind of like Yahoo Answers – but with genuinely good advice.

There are two ways to get leads on Quora: posting questions and answering questions.

The questions you post, of course, need to be well-drafted and thought-provoking.

As for the answering bit, you’ll have to find lead-generating questions. Go through as many answers as possible in relevant topics to identify your favorite writers, and then make sure you submit insightful answers.

Twitter

Promote your lead gen content on Twitter

Twitter can make your lead generation campaign ludicrously successful.

But…

This success is largely dependent on how well you write your tweets.

Tweets can have different forms: images, videos, links, or casual status updates. What you need to identify is a form that generates the most engagement when you promote your lead generation content.

Also, after drafting the tweet, don’t forget to add the right hashtags, emojis, and keep it short and sweet.

For the hashtags, you can use hashtags.org that can be an excellent tool for tracking and analyzing hashtag performance.

Become a thought leader on Twitter

If currently your thought leadership program is only focused on creating and pitching contributed content, let me tell you’re missing out – so much.

When you follow and engage with influential industry influencers, reuse and repurpose thought leadership content, and curate and share third-party content, you’ll be able to amplify your lead generation efforts.

The idea here is to gain the trust of your audience that your guidance comes from insight and expertise.

To establish yourself as a thought leader, take your talent, experience, and passion and put it together in the content you offer. This will ultimately make you a credible personality on Twitter.

Leverage Twitter Search

Just like Facebook, you can adjust your targeting options on Twitter.

Your targeting options on this platform include:

• Keywords
• Location
• Gender
• Followers
• Tailored audiences
• Interests
• Behavior
• Tweet engagement
• Event targeting

After fine-tuning your targeting options, you’ll be able to leverage your content better. Not only will you save money, but you’ll also get genuine leads who might be interested in what you have to offer.

And did I mention that the ROI will be better as well?

Create Twitter Lead Cards

Twitter had introduced Lead Generation Cards back in 2013.

Today, these Lead Generation Cards have evolved and grown into a brand-new process called Twitter Business accounts.

You can use these cards to expand your reach and grow your audience by converting your followers into prospects. 

Here’s a quick rundown:

1. Start a Twitter business profile.
2. Connect with your already established audience by uploading your email lists as well as following users.
3. Add a CTA button on your profile where users can directly subscribe to your emails.
4. To increase the visibility of your business profile, use the right hashtags and keywords in your bio.
5. Start tweeting, and don’t forget to request your audience to follow, retweet, and subscribe!

Tag influencers in your tweets

There is zero doubt that adding keywords and using hashtags will amplify your lead generation efforts.

I’ll ask you to do one more thing along with that: tag influencers in your tweets.

When you consistently share influencers’ content and tag them, the chances of them noticing you get higher. This can create opportunities for future collaboration, and who knows, they might even return the favor by sharing your content and tagging you!

Doing this will give you access to leads who are a part of the influencer’s audience.

Instagram

Build a following on Instagram

Building a following on Instagram can be time-consuming, but is equally rewarding. 

Your Instagram followers can be very loyal and genuinely willing to try out your products and services, which is what makes them so great.

But to build a mass following on the platform, you need to focus on sharing high-quality content that reaches more people. Collaborating with other influencers and using relevant hashtags can also improve your reach.

FYI: #Dont #Be #This #Person #!

The audience should trust you, and for this, you need to make your brand look reliable – not spammy.

See how Neil Patel’s ‘gram game is on-point? It’s got relevant videos, a well put together bio, and his website.

Youtube

Create YouTube videos

The best way to get more leads and conversions through YouTube is by uploading quality videos on the platform.

While putting up useful content is crucial, there are several other factors that you need to consider to take maximum advantage of YouTube, such as:

• Optimizing your content using keywords that show up on search engines.
• Adding YouTube cards – which are clickable links – towards the end of the video to direct viewers to relevant content.
• Promoting landing pages with end screens. It can include social tags along with a verbal cue like “head to our website“ or “follow.“
• Encouraging and responding to comments in the comments section.
• Creating and promoting creative, not overbearing, ads.

Create a mini course on YouTube

Image Source: John Chow

If you want to learn something or watch a live demonstration, what’s the first place that you check?

YouTube, right? I concur.

By creating mini-courses that educate the viewer about relevant topics related to your target niche can be great to lock in more leads. 

Make sure that the mini-courses are well put together, informative, appealing, and have clear audio.

LinkedIn

Promote Lead magnets on LinkedIn

Image Source: Perfect Boom

For lead generation, there’s no doubt that LinkedIn is the best social platform.

People have also become aware of how publishing blog posts and articles on the platform can be an excellent source for acquiring leads.

When people are reading your posts, it shows that they are already invested in your content. Then why not make the most of this opportunity and incorporate a lead magnet right into your article?

This will help you promote your lead magnets as well as publish content to engage with your connections

Use LinkedIn Advertising to target big spenders

In my experience, you can get some really high-paying clients on LinkedIn, especially if you’re looking for B2B prospects.

The problem, however, is connecting with such clients.

But I also have a solution: LinkedIn advertising.

Image Source: Social Media Examiner

Targeting the right people is always fundamental, and on LinkedIn, you can distinguish your target audience based on various attributes.

LinkedIn also offers a wide range of advertising options. Currently, you can choose from four advertising formats:

• Pay-per-click (PPC) or Cost-per-impression (CPM) for text ads.
• Sponsored content, for video, single-image, or carousel ads.
• Message ads (previously known as sponsored InMail) for delivering personalized content through LinkedIn messenger.
• Dynamic ads, for targeting a specific individual. In case you want to deploy dynamic ads, you‘ll have to speak to a LinkedIn rep directly.

Use LinkedIn Smartlinks

LinkedIn Smart Links permit you to package and share content from within your Sales Navigator workflow. You can also track viewing patterns and gain insights to understand the interests of your prospects and customers.

You’ll find them at the top of your Sales Navigator homepage on the Smart Links tab.

Physical Marketing

Mailers

Direct mail

Lead generation is one of the most common purposes of direct mail as they help to improve the efficiency of your marketing campaign in multiple ways, namely:

• Higher response rates for more leads
• Higher conversion rates for better leads
• Matches customers to your sales needs for a more consistent flow of leads

You should deliver a valuable message about sales, discounts, or relevant facts, but no junk. Try to include viable tracking systems such as QR codes, numbered coupons, etc., to track who is responding to your messages, and who isn’t.

Postcards

Postcards add that much-needed personalized touch to make your clients and prospects feel special.

But…

Sending out postcards isn’t exactly cheap, and since every lead isn’t equal, I’ll suggest pre-qualifying your prospects before you chalk out your final list. 

Additionally, you should also work on creating a response mechanism. For example, you can direct your prospects to your website’s landing page to get a free demo, invite them to bring the postcard when they visit your store to get a discount or mail the postcard back to get a free sample.

Radio / TV advertising

TV and radio advertisements

Image Source: Fabrik Brands

When you use direct response TV advertising, you have to create a TV commercial or an infomercial that can present a value proposition to your audience. The advertisement should include an offer and a call to action to encourage the viewers to purchase the product or service. 

It’s also vital for the advertised response methods – websites, 1-800 numbers, or mobile media – to work smoothly.

When you use direct response radio advertising for generating leads, your consumers will respond to a call to action and use the same response methods in the case of TV advertising. 

However, instead of infomercials, you should work on developing catchy jingles to increase repetition and memory for listeners.

Take your target niche into account though; there are specific geographic restrictions in case of radio advertising.

Sponsorships

Forum Sponsorships

Forums can bring together a premium panel, hailing from top industries, including experts and influencers, for providing an opportunity for unparalleled branding, lead generation, and thought leadership opportunities.

So when you sponsor forums, you can get more leads in the form of the delegates who choose to become a part of the panel along with other interested participants.

Sponsor a charity event

You can use sponsorship to achieve several objectives. Although for lead generation, in particular, sponsoring a charity event can work wonders.

Not only does it make your brand look socially responsible, but it also creates opportunities for you to engage with prospects. 

For instance, you can get a full list of the attendees along with their contact information, or you can request a private meeting space where you can speak about your products or services.

You can even provide a custom experience to selected prospects for giving them a fair idea about your brand and its offerings.

Speaking Events

Host an event

Host a speaking event where you put spokespersons (this can be you) in charge to talk about your brand and the product or service you offer.

The idea here is to deliver a stellar speech that can turn select audience members into future clients. So if you choose to be the speaker, you’ll be able to establish yourself as an expert, increase your exposure to clients, and get referrals.

Plus, you can also put together a plan to engage with people after your presentation to collect their personal information in exchange for a lead magnet. 

When you’re successful in making a grand speech, obtaining the contact information becomes easier as well.

Join Chamber of Commerce (and participate)

Many of you might have wondered whether joining a local chamber of commerce is worth it.

Well, if you take into account the publicity boost, mailing list access, networking opportunities, and the freebies and discounts, I’ll suggest you join one – and join one fast.

I mean, just that at what the good people at Helotes offer their members.

Heads up: getting success requires a lot of work though! You need to stand out from others since everybody is looking for the same thing – customers.

Think of the chamber of commerce as your local power broker.

You get a chance to rub elbows with professionals of your target niche. And if you‘re successful in making a good first impression, they might even refer you to their known ones.

Thus, joining and participating in the local chamber of commerce can be a fantastic prospecting opportunity.

Join Communities

No man is an island, and no customer acts alone.

I remember reading this statement somewhere, which, in my opinion, perfectly describes why you should join communities.

Firstly, communities consist of people who share similar problems – for which you can offer similar solutions. 

Secondly, they can give you access to multiple people at a single platform. 

Thirdly, it helps you cultivate personal relationships with your prospects.

What you need to do is win their trust and make them see how using your products or service can make their lives easier. Once you land your first member, the others will follow. 

Leads that come via communities are also incredibly loyal, which is another advantage.

Conferences

Attend a trade show or buy a booth

41% of companies consider event marketing as their top channel for getting leads.

Whether you attend a trade show or buy a booth, you get to interact with like-minded prospects where your sales representative or even you can catch high-paying clients.

Here’s a rundown of some of the biggest benefits of visiting a trade show:

• Raising brand awareness
• Forging alliances with business owners that can help you at the vertical markets.
• Getting highly targeted leads that can actually convert into customers
• Learning more about your target industry and audience.

Executive Events

Executive events, as the name suggests, and places where industry leaders and experts get together to discuss pre-determined topics. I would highly recommend visiting executive events if you are a B2B marketer to gain leverage.

Moreover, B2B clients place orders from people whom they trust. So these events can be great for networking with such clients.

Hold Topic-Driven Seminars

Seminars are webinars really – just the non-virtual version of it.

Holding a seminar, in general, can be fruitful for your lead generation endeavors. But, once you focus the program around a topic, you get access to quality leads. In other words, people who attend topic-driven seminars are more likely to buy your products or services.

Having said that, you need to be very careful with the topic you choose. Spend time researching the market to find out what interests your target audience, and how you can add more value.

Throw a Happy Hour

Happy hours are a more casual tactic for lead generation.

While it’s supposed to be fun, it doesn’t mean you cannot still get work done!

After you hold or attend a conference, host a happy hour event for everyone who attended the convention. The casual setting will help everyone relax and more open to personal discussions.

You can use these events for building relationships and learning more about your prospects. Then, from the information collected, you can personalize your pitch when approaching the prospects, improving your rates of converting them into customers.

Create a Conference Add-On Event

Host an Expert Chat

You might have already seen or even attended sessions where experts get together to discuss relevant topics.

These chat sessions are understandably more professional and are slightly more technical, which is why they aren’t exactly meant for generalists. Hence, you should make sure everyone who is a part of the meeting has some technical understanding.

Even here, you can network and market your brand, and products or services.

Host a virtual summit

A virtual summit is a type of collaborative online event where a host interviews multiple speakers – this can be you or someone who represents your company. 

A summit is a very powerful marketing tool for entrepreneurs – established and budding alike. It’s an online conference that showcases a collection of online presentations from various experts on a single topic.

Make virtual summits free, if possible, that offer the same benefits as the traditional, more costly ones – all in exchange for an email address.

Since people want to listen to industry experts, you’ll be able to provide something valuable to your targeted customers that will not only help you win their trust but also add more leads to your pipeline.

Exterior Signage

Billboards

I’m not going to lie; billboards aren’t exactly the best available lead generation strategy.

But if you do it correctly, it can still work.

A billboard ad can breed familiarity, making people aware and comfortable with your offered product or service. However, it’s extremely crucial for billboards to be flashy and eye-catching.

Think about it: would you remember a dull, boring billboard?

Let’s take a look at some *really* excellent billboards that get the message across beautifully:

Example A:

Example B:

Final Thoughts

There are A LOT of ways to get leads and grow your business online. It can be overwhelming, to say the least.

You don’t need to utilize all of these methods to achieve awesome growth for your business and, in fact, you shouldn’t.