As a business owner, it’s vital that you use lots of different tactics to move people into your sales funnel. And you want to ensure you’re attracting the highest quality leads possible.
So, in this article, we are going to look at ten powerful lead generation strategies that you should be using to grow your business. Read on to learn more.
What is lead generation strategy?
Lead generation or lead generation strategy is the process of attracting, engaging, and converting prospects into potential buyers. In other words, you generate leads by trying to convert strangers into someone who might be interested in purchasing your product or service.
But what is a lead?
A lead is someone interested in buying your product but has not made a decision yet. They might have downloaded a whitepaper, submitted a query form, signed up for your newsletter, and so on.
Leads need to be qualified by your sales and marketing teams to determine them a good fit for your business. But you can use lead generation strategies to target the right audience and bring them closer to your business through personalization in marketing and relevant content. Usually, sales and marketing teams work side-by-side to develop such a strategy.
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In a way, you are warming up potential buyers by introducing your product or service and showing them how it works. This helps to put them on the path of making a purchase.
Why do you need a lead generation strategy?
A lead generation strategy lays out the plan of action your teams will take to drive more leads and traffic to your business. You may decide to produce more content on your website, start a newsletter, boost your advertising efforts, and so on.
These strategies will help you target the right audience and customer profiles, educate them about your products, and convince them to sign up or make a purchase. You can use lead generation strategies to find new leads as well as move existing leads down the sales funnel.
To maximize the effectiveness of your lead generation strategy, incorporating a robust lead generation system is crucial. This system can seamlessly integrate various elements of your plan, from content production to advertising efforts, ensuring a cohesive approach that not only attracts the right audience but also efficiently moves leads through the sales funnel, ultimately driving conversions and business growth.
The benefits of a well-planned and executed lead generation strategy include:
- Improved lead quality.
- Increased brand awareness and visibility.
- Expanding your market and customer base.
- Targeting desired customers and markets.
- Collecting prospect and audience information.
- Finding new business and partnership opportunities and boost revenue.
- Increased social following.
- Improved prospect and lead quality.
- Gathering more customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies.
- And, increased sales and profit ratio.
Lead generation challenges
Before you decide what lead generation strategies your business should focus on, you first need to consider some common lead gen challenges that most marketing and demand gen teams face:
Creating the right strategy
The first hurdle is finding the right strategy, or combination of strategies, that will bring you desired results. What works for some organizations may not work for yours.
To combat this, you will need to research your target audience and markets thoroughly. And you will need to conduct trial and error experiments and testing to help you determine what will work with these targets.
Finding the right people, teams, and resources
Next, you have to figure out who can help you achieve these results effectively. You will need buy-in from execs to get started on some of the more demanding and expensive projects.
On the other hand, you will need human and technology resources to get the projects rolling. For example, you will need copywriters, designers, and web developers to create effective landing pages.
The right people, tools, and resources can help make your lead generation strategies accomplish your set goals.
Funding and managing lead generation strategies
Part of securing buy-in from upper management means getting the funding and resources you need to support these projects. And it can be hard to help execs envision how certain strategies will bring them more leads and sales.
You need to sell your case here: How and why do you need to run this campaign? Who is the best person to lead this campaign or team? Getting support is crucial to the success of your lead gen strategy.
Tracking and measuring results
Next, you need to track the results that come out of campaigns. If you run too many campaigns simultaneously, it may be hard to identify what is helping the most. Tracking results requires organizational skills and tools. This means additional expenses and time requirements. Prepare for that proactively, so you are not stuck later.
Maintaining desired outcomes
Finally, the biggest challenge is to have a steady flow of leads coming in from different strategies and campaigns. This is a tough one as trends change and campaigns need to be updated frequently. But with the right team in place, you can stay on top of changes, track results, and make the right moves to maintain your desired results.
While there are a few challenges involved, being aware of these will help you create a better lead generation process for your teams proactively.
Lead generation process
To execute lead generation strategies that work well for your business, you need to pay attention to the lead generation process. How exactly are leads captured? What steps are involved? What options are available for you to use? How can you optimize the process?
Here is a quick overview of the lead generation process:
- A visitor finds your business through a marketing channel (ad, social media, newsletter, website, SEO)
- The visitor clicks a call-to-action (CTA) (sign up or download button or relevant link)
- They arrive at a landing page designed to gather information in exchange for something (offer, free download, discounted consult)
- They fill the form, and you have a new B2B lead.
- Your sales and demand gen teams connect with the lead through cold outreach such as a “thank you for downloading” email.
- While interacting with this lead, the sales rep will identify what stage of the buying process the lead is in.
- The rep will qualify the lead based on how likely they are to purchase your product.
- If the lead is qualified, the rep will nurture the lead, move them down the sales funnel, and convert them into customers.
Now, you can see there are several points where your teams can get involved. For instance:
- You can improve and optimize your marketing channels to get in front of the right audience with lead generation tools.
- Then, you can create effective CTAs that encourage your visitors to sign up or download.
- Then, you can design landing pages that promise value and information security. Here is where you have to convince your visitor to provide their information.
- Next, you can train your reps in lead qualification and nurturing to convert more leads into customers.
- And, you can assign customer success managers or account managers to take care of these customers even after they buy.
Your lead generation strategy should take these different stages into account so that you can convert more visitors into leads. But how do you do that? Let’s have a look.
Lead generation strategy steps
There are a few different factors to keep in mind when using lead generation strategies for your business. Both B2C and B2B lead generation strategies include the following six components:
1. Lead capture
To stay on your visitor’s radar, you will need to capture some of their information, known as a lead capture. This could be their name and email address. This is enough to stay in touch with them via your newsletter or promote new products and discounts.
The next time they visit your website, you may ask for additional qualifying information such as business name, position, or business size. This helps you further understand this lead and qualify them.
However, not everyone is willing to provide their information all the time. So, you need to make it worth it and, as a rule of thumb, you should:
- Give before you ask, and
- Make every part of the marketing process valuable.
Then, follow through by providing valuable and relevant content and not spamming their inboxes.
If a visitor trusts you with their email address, make sure you respect that trust and email them relevant information and updates. Most customers do not hesitate to unsubscribe when they receive irrelevant content and feel like you are spamming them.
2. Lead magnet
Lead magnets are incentives that further drive interested prospects into becoming qualified leads. With most lead magnets, you want to provide a valuable piece of content that convinces the prospect to move down the pipeline. Some common lead magnets include:
- Webinars, tutorials, and training videos,
- Newsletters,
- Whitepapers, ebooks, and guides,
- Samples or free trials,
- Thought-leadership content and expert interviews,
- Free consultations and product demos, and the likes.
You can use these tools to establish your organization as an expert resource and authority in the field. And when your customers need a service like yours, they will remember your company’s name.
3. Landing page conversions
The biggest asset you can use to convert more customers is high-quality landing pages. This is the page customers land on after clicking an ad, social media link, or other promotional elements. And it is here that they will go the next step and sign up for your service or make a purchase.
Landing pages exist outside of your company’s website and are used for single campaigns. So, you will need multiple landing pages for different campaigns. This also helps track each campaign efficiently.
4. Lead qualification
Lead qualification is the process where your reps use the lead’s information to determine how likely they are to buy. In other words, they determine the quality of the lead. Is this person here to buy? Are they the primary decision maker? Are they here only for the content? And so on. High-quality leads are your ideal customers and they will need more nurturing.
5. Lead segmentation
By segmenting your leads, you can create more relevant marketing funnels for each segment to move them closer to making a purchase. Here, your teams can segment leads based on their information, habits, and activities such as:
- Job title
- Region or location
- Lead magnet that attracted them
- Pages they visited on your website
- Content they downloaded, etc.
Remember, not every marketing campaign works for every lead. This information can help you develop more relevant campaigns.
6. Lead scoring
Finally, once you have your leads in place, you will want to use lead automation software to score your leads. This is similar to lead qualification but goes a step further. It scores leads based on the number of interactions and level of customer engagement. This helps your team prioritize high-quality leads and gives you real-time feedback on the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
10 Lead generation strategies
Taking the time to create and follow a lead generation strategy can go a long way in securing new clientele for your business. You can try various methods and techniques, but not all may apply to your business. Additionally, not all may be necessary to generate the optimum amount of traffic and leads.
Doing everything, all at once, can be more harmful than helpful. And it will be hard to track where the results are coming from. Try a few, give them time to work, study the results, and then try other strategies, if necessary.
Here are the top lead generation strategies to consider:
1. Create content for every stage of your customers’ buying journey
The people in your target audience will all be at different stages of their buying journey, which means they’ll also have different needs. For instance, some people might not even know that your business exists, while others might be at the stage where they are comparing different options before deciding what to buy. So, you’ll want to create different pieces of content for each stage.
Creating content for different buying stages can also be a very effective lead generation strategy for your business because it allows people to find your site when they are doing some research using search engines.
We have three main stages in a buying journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. For the awareness stage, you could create educational blog posts or infographics that attract prospects and introduce people to your business and what you do.
Then, for the consideration stage, you want to create comparison pieces or buying guides that allow your prospects to weigh up their buying options. Finally, we have the decision stage where people are ready to decide what to buy. And some of the content you can create here are testimonials or case studies that do a great job of convincing potential clients to make a purchase.
Now, let’s take a look at some examples of web content that has been designed to target people at different stages of the sales funnel.
Ping Identity is a company that offers identity and access management solutions for businesses. And, to introduce prospects to their brand and services, they’ve created a helpful blog post on security assertion mark-up language (SAML) and how it works. This works well as a lead generation tactic as it could help draw in prospects who might have come across this post while doing preliminary research about SAML or a related topic.
So, when those visitors come across this post, they’ll be able to get more information about SAML authentication, how it works, and whether it could be the solution to some of the problems their companies are having. And, if they like what they read, they’ll be encouraged to start a conversation with the company and possibly invest in their services.
On the other hand, we have Drift, a company that provides a conversational marketing platform for businesses to engage in personalized conversations with customers. On their website, they’ve done a great job of creating case studies that can convince prospective customers who are in the decision stage of their buying journey.
Take, for example, their case study on how they helped one of their customers, Okta, to increase conversions and scale revenue growth. This type of content is likely to work well in generating more leads for the company because it shows people the results that Drift has been able to get for past clients.
Failing to create content for different stages of your customers’ buying journey is one of the content marketing mistakes that can cost you more money and potential clients in the long run. So, if you haven’t already, it’s time to outline your prospective customers’ needs and start addressing them with content.
2. Consistently engage with your audience on social media
One of the most effective ways for you to attract ideal customers on social media is by regularly engaging them. But, to do this effectively, you first want to make sure you’ve done your research very well and have chosen the right social media platforms where your target audience is usually active.
Now that you’re on the platform, you want to start by posting content consistently as this will increase your chances of attracting potential customers. To help with this, you could create a content calendar and then use social media management tools like Buffer or CoSchedule to bulk schedule all your posts in advance.
You should also make sure to reply to comments or questions that followers leave on your posts so people can feel like they are actually engaging with your brand. Many social media platforms nowadays even have various engagement features like polls, surveys, or public chat spaces that allow you to engage followers or speak directly with them.
For example, the Instagram Live feature is a great way to hold public discussions with followers, give free advice for their businesses and even invite some of them up on stage so you can have one-on-one conversations with them.
If you can do this regularly, chances are your followers will get interested in what you do and they’ll start to ask questions about how your business can help them.
3. Guest post for authoritative sites in your field
Guest posting involves writing blog posts for other sites so you can get links that will lead back to your own website. This can help to get the word out about your work and show that you’re an expert in your industry. It’s also one of the great ways for you to grow your business and can help get you more leads because it exposes your brand to new audiences.
But, for this strategy to work well, you have to make sure you choose relevant websites that serve your ideal audience. One simple way to do this is by conducting a search on Google with a relevant search query like “write for us [your niche]”. For example, if you work in the health industry and wanted to write for relevant sites, you would search Google with this kind of query: “write for us health”. These are the kinds of results you would get.
Now that you’ve gotten a list of websites in your niche, you’ll be able to sift through them to pick the ones that are worth guest posting for. To help with this, try using a domain authority (DA) checker that can help you determine the domain authority scores of these websites.
A high domain authority is a sign of a website’s quality, so checking for this can help you determine which sites’ backlinks will help you to rank well on relevant search engine results pages. And, when you’re checking the DA scores of the sites you’re considering guest posting for, keep in mind that you should be looking for a score of 50 or more.
After choosing the sites you want to write for, make sure you also pick relevant topics that will interest your audience. One way to do this is by joining social media forums like Quora or Reddit so you can look for discussions on relevant topics or problems in your niche. This will help you come up with helpful topics you can use to create content that will answer some of your audience’s questions or help solve their pain points.
The entire point of writing these guest posts is to generate more leads for your business, so try to ensure you’re creating high-quality content that will attract people to your website. And, when your guest posts have been published, make sure to share them on your social media platforms so you can increase their reach, get new eyes to see them, and attract more leads.
4. Cold email people who are likely to be interested in your services
Cold emailing is a marketing strategy and lead generation technique that involves sending emails to potential customers who don’t yet know of your business. People do this in the hopes of establishing a connection with new leads that will eventually end up converting into customers.
Even though cold emailing can be very productive, you need to be careful that you get it right so your emails don’t go unopened, unanswered, or straight to spam. Make sure you’re personalizing the emails you send, so the recipients feel like you’re talking to them directly. If possible, include their name in the subject line and body of the email.
You should also try to keep your emails short and easy to read, but don’t forget to include a call-to-action that tells recipients what to do next. To help you get started, Bookyourdata has a very in-depth guide on how you can use cold emailing as the most effective marketing channel to get more leads.
And, when you’re ready to start crafting and sending cold emails that will get more leads, check out Woorise’s post on cold email outreach examples that you can replicate for your business.
5. Invest in SEO
Search engine optimization is the process of improving your website’s visibility on search engines like Google. This digital marketing strategy is vital for generating leads because it helps put your website in the view of your ideal audience so you can attract new visitors that will be interested in your business and the services you offer.
There should be three elements to every SEO strategy and those are content, technical SEO, and link building. Content is the information you have on your blog and website pages that tells people more about your business and educates them on the ways you can help solve their pain points. Technical SEO refers to the activities you do to make sure your website meets the technical requirements that will increase its chances of being found on search engines. And, as for link building, this is the process of getting links from other websites that lead back to yours.
Each of these three elements plays a very important role in getting your website to rank higher on search engines, so it’s important you pay attention to them if you want to get more traffic and increase the number of qualified leads you’re bringing in for your business. To give you more insight, here’s a beginner’s guide to SEO from Moz that can help you get started.
6. Provide a taste of your services for free
If you are able to give prospects a taste of your services for free, they’ll be far more likely to convert to customers. And, one easy but effective way you can do this is by offering a free trial period or free consultation for people who aren’t yet ready to become paying customers so they can see what they’re missing out on.
Let’s take a look at the Woorise pricing page to give you a better understanding of how to do this.
Woorise is a company that helps businesses create landing pages, forms, or social promotions that can help with lead generation. Now naturally, they will have some prospective customers who want to be convinced before making a financial commitment to any of their plans.
So, to give them a taste, Woorise has a free plan for $0 per month that allows subscribers to send out unlimited campaigns and receive up to 500 entries per month from these campaigns. It’s a great way to show people how their platform works and it can help them get more leads as people will be more likely to pay for more features if they get great results after testing out the free version.
This approach might not work for all businesses, as it depends on what you offer. But it’s a great tactic for most companies that sell digital products using a subscription-based model. So, if you fall in this bracket, you might want to consider giving your audience a free trial period of your products, as it will increase the chances of them becoming customers in the long run.
7. Offer referral incentives to your existing customers
To turn your existing customers into brand ambassadors and generate more leads, you could implement referral marketing. This means when someone recommends your services to a friend or colleague and this leads to a sale, they’ll receive something in return.
You could create an affiliate marketing scheme where people can sign up to promote products with a personalized link and then receive a commission whenever anybody uses their link to buy your product. Or you could provide discounts for customers who love what you do, recommend your business to friends or family, and make you more sales as a result. To give you some inspiration, let’s study an example of a company that does this well.
Semrush is a company that provides an all-in-one tool for SEO, keyword research, advertising, and other marketing solutions. Looking at its affiliate marketing program, you’ll find that they offer great deals for their affiliate partners.
They give out great benefits like $200 for every new subscription sale and $10 for every new trial. These incentives are a great way of getting more people to promote their platform and they also do a great job of increasing the leads and customers the company will get. If you don’t already have an affiliate initiative for your business, you should consider creating one and you can use this example as a guide.
8. Use paid search and social ads
Even though there are benefits to investing in paid advertisements, many business owners are often reluctant to do so because they fear it might not give a good return on investment (ROI). But, when done properly, investing in different types of paid marketing campaigns can be very fruitful.
To do this well, you need to first choose the right advertising platforms. To make the right choice, you should consider factors like your budget and the advertising formats used by the different platforms available. There are lots of different options to consider, including Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Instagram Ads, so you need to think about where most of your prospective customers are and how you can best reach them.
When you’ve chosen a platform, try to make sure that you include relevant keywords in the content of the ads you’re creating to increase the chances of them being seen by your target audience.
9. Create lead magnets your ideal customers will actually use
A lead magnet is a free resource or service that businesses give away so they can get the contact details of prospective customers. Lead magnets are great for attracting people who are likely to be interested in your business because they show what you’re all about and sometimes even give prospective customers the opportunity to experience your services for free.
Some common examples of the types of lead magnets your business could create include white papers, free templates, e-books, and free trials or consultations. To help you with this, you can study Woorise’s step-by-step guide on how to create an effective lead magnet and get the most out of it.
Now let’s take a look at a business that knows how to create effective lead magnets to give you some inspiration.
Hootsuite is a social media management platform that helps businesses improve their presence on social media. On their website, they have a library where they provide free social media resources and learning materials that are very useful for their audience. This includes their content creation toolkit for businesses that want to create better content for different platforms.
To get access to this toolkit, their prospects need to provide some details about the work they do and how Hootsuite can contact them. This works as a very effective lead generation tactic and it can help the company get new leads who can then be nurtured into paying customers.
You can also do something similar for your business depending on the products or services you sell. For instance, a law firm could offer a free consultation as a lead magnet or a design platform could provide free templates to get people interested in their tool.
10. Regularly assess your strategies and tweak where necessary
As time goes on, you’ll need to regularly assess the performance of your lead generation strategies and start making any tweaks where necessary. This is important because it allows you to see which strategies are working and which ones aren’t so you can quickly take action.
You first need to set some key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaigns so you can monitor them effectively. Some important metrics to measure are click-through rates, the number of leads gotten, and the overall time prospects spent on your campaign page.
To help you get started with this, Lead Forensics has a great guide on lead generation metrics and measurement for success that you can use to track and analyze the results of your strategies.
Conclusion
As a business owner, you need to ensure that you’ve set up various ways to get new leads so you can keep making sales. And, in this article, we’ve looked at 10 different lead generation strategies you can use.
You don’t have to do everything all at once. You can start with cold emailing, guest posting, or paid advertisements, and then work your way up to implementing each of these tips.
And, if you want even more information about developing your business, you can check Woorise’s blog for useful growth marketing and lead generation tips.
