8 Lead Generation Strategies That Are Easy and Effective

Arguably one of the most crucial parts of running a successful business is the ability to gather as many relevant potential leads as possible. Oftentimes, the amount and quality of the leads collected are dependent on other factors such as online marketing, brand awareness, customer promotion incentives, etc. Because of these other components affecting the effectiveness of any lead generation strategies you attempt, it can be difficult to assess how well a lead generation strategy is working on its own.

In order to make sure any lead generation method you use for your business has the fuel and momentum it needs to be successful, we put together this guide to help walk you through lead generation best practices from start to finish. 

Set Your Lead Generation Strategies Up For Success

The best way to lay the foundation for a solid lead generation campaign is to start with the basics. What is lead generation? Lead generation, also called lead gen for short, is the process of gathering information about a potential customer who has shown interest in your business’ products or services. 

Necessary Ingredients for Successful Lead Generation: Brand Awareness

Now for someone to show interest in your business’ products or services, they must be introduced to your business somehow. This is where we address one of the most important components of a successful lead generation strategy, brand awareness. If people don’t know about your business and aren’t exposed to your business in some way, chances are they will never become a potential lead.

Brand awareness encompasses everything from advertising campaigns to online reviews to influencer marketing. Anything that helps your business or brand garner attention from a potential customer is brand awareness. So to make sure any lead generation efforts you pursue are effective, prioritize brand awareness campaigns first.

Necessary Ingredients for Successful Lead Generation: Website SEO

Similar to brand awareness, if no one can find your website, product pages, or blog posts, how will they learn about your business? With a strong SEO strategy for your website, you can make sure your site is ranking for the keywords that are most likely to bring in qualified leads. 

Work with an agency or use online SEO tools to ensure that your business’ website SEO is helping key pages rank for your target keywords. Also, be sure to update old content for a quick SEO boost.

Necessary Ingredients for Successful Lead Generation: Quality Content

When a potential customer does find your website or sees your brand’s post on social media, you want that person to find value in the information they interact with. That’s why creating quality content on your website, in your white papers, industry guides, webinars, and blog posts is so critical. If the information is sparse, not particularly helpful, or doesn’t offer a unique approach to a commonly discussed topic, the viewer will probably move on.

Make sure that the content you produce creates value for a potential customer or client and you have a much better chance of turning that person into a qualified lead.

Lead Generation Ideas For Your Business 

Now that the groundwork has been laid out, it’s time to decide which lead gen strategies are the best approach for your business needs and your target audience. Here are some easy lead gen ideas that your business can quickly implement:

1. Product Demos: A classic lead gen strategy for a reason, offering product demos for your software or service is a fantastic way to introduce someone to your product and pair them with a knowledgeable guide so they are able to better familiarize themselves with your tool. 
2. Offer a Free Trial: Free trials are popular because they are so effective. People love free stuff so letting them experience your product or service for free creates the opportunity for them to become hooked. 
3. Make Web Forums Quick and Easy: Whether the forum is for scheduling a demo, signing up for an email newsletter, or downloading a white paper, make it as simple as possible. Only ask for the information you absolutely need. The more information you ask someone to disclose, the less likely they are to fill out the form. Especially if the form includes many fields and most of the fields are marked as required.
4. Opt-in Content/Gated Content: By generating valuable content, either in the form of a downloadable guide, webinar, etc, you have an opportunity to make accessing that content a lead gen campaign. Gated content or opt-in content is content that requires the viewer to provide information to obtain permission to view the content or participate in the event. Most opt-in or gated content works best when the information: 
   1. is incredibly valuable to the user 
   2. offers some kind of utility to the user by making their life easier in some way
   3. is a unique opportunity or perspective on a topic 
   4. is hidden behind a veil of mystery that entices the user to find out more
5. Make Your Content Shareable: A passive lead generation method is to develop content that is more shareable. I know, it’s easier said than done, but there are a few things you can do to help nudge the content in the right direction. If you share an infographic on your blog, include a shortened link with a copy link button to make it easy to share. Include data, graphs, charts, and statistics in your content that can be used as a reference by others. Creating value for your viewers is the best way to make your content shareable.
6. Use CTAs Often: Call-to-action messages are great and very versatile. Be sure to use CTAs frequently such as in your blog posts, in pop-up messages on your site, embedded on the shortened URLs you share, in your email campaigns, and on social media posts. The main goal of your CTAs should be to encourage the viewer to take some kind of action. That action could be signing up for an email newsletter, attending an online webinar, or booking a product demo. It’s totally up to you.
7. Remarketing: Whether it’s an abandoned shopping cart or someone who visited your site and left, remarketing can be a powerful lead gen tool. By tagging users who have visited your site or taken an action, you can create remarketing parameters to reach out to them again.
8. Referral Campaigns: One of the most effective lead generation strategies is using referrals through existing customers. By offering an incentive for both the current customer and their connections, it’s a win-win-win, everyone benefits. Your current customers get a discount or free product, your new customers are introduced to the service at a lower price to start, and you have a new lead that is relevant enough for your existing customer to feel comfortable inviting to join.

Lead Gen Optimization

Don’t forget to optimize your lead generation strategies by testing, tracking, and analyzing any lead gen campaign you decide to run. There are a number of ways to optimize your lead generation to make sure it is firing on all cylinders including:

• A/B Testing: Test everything! Seriously. Test two versions of your advertising copy. Test CTA button colors. Test the images used in a social media post. Test different blog titles. Then track the results. You can optimize your lead generation significantly just by testing to find out what influences people to take the action you are looking for. 

• Heat Maps: By using heat maps on your web pages, you can get a better understanding of what viewers are looking at and if your CTAs or messaging is catching their attention. See if there are any places on the website where visitors are getting lost in the funnel or maybe they are getting distracted by something else you don’t want them to focus on. By stepping into the shoes of someone else and seeing how a user navigates your website, you can learn a lot.

• Surveys: It may seem simple but you can learn a lot by just asking your customers what they want. If you’re planning on putting together a new guide or webinar, send out a survey in an email or social media post asking your customers what topic they want you to focus on. Make the survey as quick and simple as possible. Maybe even offer a little incentive like a drawing or a promo code for those who participate.

With a strong foundation of brand awareness, website SEO, and quality content, any of these lead gen strategies can catapult your business to new heights. When you combine the upfront work with lead generation techniques that are easy to implement, you have a far better chance of collecting larger amounts of relevant qualified leads for your business. In the end, the right groundwork will save your business a lot of time and money spent on lead generation.