The goal of every commercial company is to get more leads so that those leads can be converted into actual paying customers. Unless the company is ultra-successful already, it’s not likely that droves of people are going to take down your servers the moment your website, product or service offer goes online. It’s going to take hard work, the proper lead generation techniques and completely knowledge of your brand and your target base. Put those things together and you’ll have a perfect combination of lead generation techniques that equal far more paying customers that contribute to your bottom line. I can’t do anything about the hard work or the knowledge about your company and overall marketing culture. Those things are up to you. I can give you the latest lead generation techniques, a few of which are listed below.
1. Website and Content Marketing
To get more leads to visit your website, you need to give your target market a reason to do so. This can be completed by designing a modern website that is simplistic, that involves engaging colors and design and that includes high-quality and highly-valuable website copy. The idea is to educate your audience, inform them and, if possible, entertain. Content marketing, which involves well-written web pages and a constantly published blog, can be a very effective lead generation technique. Just make sure to capture your leads once they land on your website by providing your contact information and, if possible, by collecting their contact information, which we will explain in more detail in a moment.
2. Social Marketing
Once your website is set up and you’re regularly publishing your blog, start posting your new blog updates on your social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. You should have links to your social network profiles on your website, and you should regularly engage your audience with your profiles so that you can get more leads from your social marketing efforts. Answer questions, educate with your knowledge and provide insight into your world. This is how you can use these lead generation techniques to their maximum benefit.
3. Video Marketing
If you have a knack for creating must-see videos, you might find video marketing a highly-effective way to get more leads. A trick to use with this lead generation method is to search for competing videos on YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing sites. See what other videos are popular in your niche. And make sure to make a note of all the tags and keywords your competitors may have used. These can help you optimize your videos so that you can get them seen by more people and get more leads in the process.
4. Email Marketing
Earlier we mentioned driving more traffic to your website using blogging and content marketing methods. Once they’re there, you’ll want to capture those visitors’ email addresses. This can best be accomplished via email marketing. Create an opt-in box using an email marketing platform like AWeber or MailChimp and come up with a free offer – a newsworthy ereport or white paper – and ask your website visitors to opt-in. If the free offer is exciting enough, your list will fill up. You can also place your opt in box on your Facebook page or on separate landing pages, just to expand your lead generation efforts.
Then, start sending out regular informative messages that educate, inform and entertain (notice a pattern?) Keep them spaced far enough apart so that you’re not annoying and, if possible, segment your list and your email messages so that each email is targeted and effective at helping you get more leads.
5. Mobile Marketing
Mobile is steadily increasing in usage, with smartphones and tablets dominating the tech world, and now is your chance to get in on the ground floor by including mobile marketing with your lead generation techniques. Make sure your website is responsive, which means that it will automatically cater to the website visitor by accommodating the screen they happen to be using. A person using a PC will see a different looking website than a person using a tablet, for instance. The websites will use the same colors and some of the copy will be the same, but mobile lead generation techniques need to involve fewer images, fewer words and fewer calls-to-action so that page visits, click-throughs and transactions happen with lightning-fast precision.
6. Ebook Marketing
Take your content marketing lead generation efforts and convert that copy into an ebook that you can use to get more leads. You can offer the ebook free on your website or, if it’s really good, you can self-publish it on the Amazon platform for an even more effective lead generation technique. Make sure you leave links to your website or other lead generation landing pages throughout the text so that prospects and customers always know where to go to learn more.
7. Paid Marketing
Pay-Per-Click Marketing platforms like Google Adwords can help you get more leads through targeted ads that show up when search engine users search for particular keyword phrases. If you are selling boats, you want search users who search for terms about boats to see your ads. This can be accomplished through effective keyword research and complete knowledge of the motivations of your target audience.
8. Webinar Marketing
All of the ideas included here can be stuffed into an informative and entertaining webinar to help you get more leads that remain loyal for a long time. Your blogs, emails and ebook copy can be turned into an informative script, your video can be converted into slides, your social marketing friends can provide you lots of potential audience members and you can use social marketing and paid marketing to advertise your webinar to an even greater audience.
An effective webinar will position you as the go-to person in your field and that’s the best lead generation technique of them all.
Now that you have eight ideas for lead generation, put them to use to get more leads for your brand, product and/or service, and start converting hose leads into actual paying customers.
