Lead generation is one of the main challenges that businesses face. To grow your business and your revenue, you need a steady stream of qualified leads. Leads eventually become customers and clients, so your Digital Marketing strategy is crucial.
If you are struggling to get phone calls, contact form fills, or customers in general, the long-term strategy below will be very useful. Lead-generation techniques are vital whether you are looking for business-to-business or business-to-consumer leads.
How To Drive More Leads Video
What is a Lead?
Any potential customer or client interested in your business would be considered a lead when someone calls you or contacts you for more information. In addition, a lead can be a person or an entire business that wants to work with your company.
Leads can be further categorized into qualified leads, which include Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and Product Qualified Leads (PQLs). These qualified leads are crucial in the sales process as they have been identified and nurtured through marketing and sales efforts, making them more likely to convert into paying customers. Leveraging industry events and marketing automation can help transform these leads into valuable clients.
Why is Lead Generation Important?
An Accounting firm needs both long-term customers and new customers to stay afloat and succeed. A marketing agency needs to drive new clients in addition to existing ones. Lead generation is important because every new customer lead has a specific value to your business, and the more leads you drive, the more sales you can make. Targeting high-quality leads is crucial for better conversion rates.
To grow your business correctly with Digital Marketing, you need a consistent strategy for keyword research, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Paid Advertising, and effective lead generation strategies.
7 Lead Generation Best Practices
The tips and strategies below will be very useful when you are trying to generate leads online. Here at Surfside PPC, I believe in giving you long-term solutions because there are no quick fixes when it comes to driving new business. Understanding the lead generation process is crucial for effective lead generation, as it helps in attracting, engaging, and converting potential customers systematically. Keep in mind that you are competing with every single business in your industry that provides the exact products and/or services.
1. Start with a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet can be a promotion, an offer, a free incentive, or any reason a potential customer will contact you. Lead magnets are designed to attract sales leads by offering valuable incentives.
For some software companies, the lead magnet is a free trial of their software. For companies that sell educational products, the lead magnet may be free educational content. For service businesses, the lead magnet could be a first-customer discount or customer reviews and testimonials that demonstrate good service.
You can view the lead magnet example below from Social Media Examiner.
2. Create Compelling Content that Demonstrates Expertise
If you have years of experience, how do you demonstrate that to potential clients? One of the best methods is to create content that solves their problems. Compelling content plays a crucial role in generating leads by addressing and solving potential clients’ issues. For example, a video about how to do your taxes and a video about tax write-offs for Small Businesses will drive leads if the video is helpful. Some business owners think that giving away free information will cause them to lose customers. However, even if you educate certain potential clients, others will contact you to take advantage of your experience.
My YouTube Videos Drive Leads
I listed some videos from my YouTube Advertising Playlist below. Those videos have helped drive leads from businesses that want help with their YouTube Ads campaigns.
3. Optimize Your Website to Drive Leads and Focus on Conversion Rate Optimization
If your business’s main goal is to drive appointment requests, you should have a calendar on your website that allows people to book an available appointment. On the other hand, if you want to drive phone calls, you should have clickable call buttons on your mobile website and your number listed on your desktop version.
With conversion rate optimization, you can use Google Analytics to track your Key Performance Indicators. Then, you can test your offers, your website design, and different types of content to increase your conversion rate. Additionally, analyzing and selecting the right marketing channels tailored to different stages of the customer journey is crucial to optimize lead generation efforts.
4. Create a Landing Page
Landing Pages are where your business can send Paid Advertising traffic. They can also funnel your website traffic so you can drive more contact form fills and phone calls. A well-designed landing page is a crucial component of an effective lead generation strategy, as it helps capture and convert visitors into leads. Lastly, your homepage should be considered a landing page because it generally has a lot of page views, and it should drive leads as well.
5. Stick to a Content Marketing and Lead Generation Strategy that Increases Website Traffic
Content Marketing is planning content types, creating a strategy, following a content calendar, and consistently sharing content. Understanding and targeting your target audience is crucial in content marketing to ensure your efforts resonate and engage effectively. Your content marketing will improve over time as you build your social media and email audiences.
The key to using content to grow your audience is consistency. In the example below, Investing.com can use its large Facebook page to promote its podcast and drive website traffic. It’s easier to drive leads and monetize your business when you grow your reach across the internet.
6. Repurpose Content Across Social Channels
The most successful brands can write blog posts, create videos, record podcasts, and create social content. If you already have a great blog post about a topic, if you can repurpose the information using different mediums, you can reach more people. Some companies drive thousands and even millions of people from social channels like Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more. Repurposed content can help nurture a marketing qualified lead by keeping them engaged with valuable information across various platforms.
Your best bet is to focus on the social channels your potential customers are the most likely to use.
7. Use Paid Advertising
Paid Advertising campaigns are one of the best ways to generate more leads online. While you have to pay for clicks to your offer, you should use Search Engine Marketing, PPC Advertising, and Retargeting to see if you can drive a positive ROAS for your business. Targeting sales qualified leads through paid advertising campaigns can significantly improve your conversion rates. It makes sense to test Paid Advertising networks, but I would focus on SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Email Marketing first.
If you look at the example in the image below, the first four results in Google for the search term ‘Social Media Scheduler’ are all advertisements.
What is a Lead Magnet?
You may still have questions about lead magnets, their use, and how to use them properly. Lead magnets are designed to generate sales leads by offering valuable incentives to potential customers.
In Summary
Long-term lead generation involves content creation, website optimization, conversion rate optimization, SEO, and Paid Advertising. You need to refine and improve your strategy constantly. Ultimately, if you aren’t consistently creating content and focusing on building an audience, then you won’t grow your digital presence.
Businesses with an endless supply of leads generally have a large online footprint, a highly trafficked website, and tons of original content.
