Let’s face it, every online business that wants to thrive needs sales, and you can not have sales without leads.
With any information readily available for free, the online space is oversaturated with offerings, and this has changed the entire lead generation mechanism. Contests, Referral customers, and other traditional ways may have worked 20 years ago, but the online world has evolved to a point where they are not relevant anymore.
Read on to find 10 trendy and high-performing ways to get leads in today’s digital landscape.
PPC
Pay Per Click puts your brand in front of potential customers, without having to worry about the rankings of your website. This is a quick and effective way to get more leads and get better insights through customer data obtained via tracking. When executed properly, PPC can be cost-effective because you would only pay the search engine if and when your links are clicked.
When your ad shows up on searches on keywords that you attach your brand with, the leads garnered are generally high-quality.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization consists of a plethora of activities that make it easier for search engine algorithms to crawl through your website, index its pages, and rank it favorable within their ecosystem. When the website’s blogs, meta-descriptions, headers, and other content are written using keywords relevant to the business niche, they tend to show up higher in the search results pages.
The higher your website ranks, the more traffic it receives, and that increase the probability of getting leads from these visitors. A healthy combination of on-page, off-page, and local SEO can bring out the best results. The best part is, unlike advertisements, this can be done for free!
Free E-Books and Guides
Who doesn’t love freebies, right? With free-to-download informative ‘how-to’ e-books and guides, you can collect leads with ease. This is a great tactic especially for those with a very specific business niche. For instance, an e-book on growing cherry tomatoes in your backyard is a good lead magnet for a gardening supplies store.
Even with a few pages of content, e-books and guides can get you a bucketload of leads.
The data obtained goes into your funnels and can be nurtured through automated e-mail programs.
Articles and Blogs
While blogs are time-consuming, they are practically free (unless you outsource them) and their benefits outweigh their disadvantages by large.
Blogs are one of the most powerful methods to gain visitors to your website. They offer unlimited online real-estate that you can use to build backlinks and keyword-infused content to attract search engines. Regularly posting high-quality blogs gets the readers up-to-date with the company’s products and services.
This consistency is also picked up by search engines and they reward your site with better ranks, which gets you more clicks and vice-versa. Comments on these posts and their subsequent replies build a personal rapport with consumers and a combination of all these elements leads to greater domain authority.
E-mail Newsletters
Contrary to popular belief, newsletters are not just for nurturing ongoing leads and keeping current customers updated. Once integrated into an informative website or email, newsletters act as a potent magnet for obtaining new leads as well.
Another benefit they offer is direct sales – when your brand comes up with new updates, offers, and products, these regular newsletters encourage customers to visit the website. Once the customers are tuned in to your brand’s frequency, it isn’t hard for them to grow from cold to warm leads and buy from you.
Website
This is one of those things that most business owners ignore, despite it being so obvious. A website does not have to be sophisticated for it to generate leads – a good design with quality content that is easy to read can get the job done.
Most business websites are too ‘fluffy’ and repel customers elsewhere. A website where the visitors can easily understand what you are all about and the problems you can solve for them can generate leads without even trying hard.
Social Media
Facebook and Instagram have over 3 billion active users in total. With the former’s acquisition of the latter, the statistics are getting better every day. Inquiry forms, CTA buttons, and links to your website can easily be set up on social media accounts to bring in organic leads. A Facebook group is another great way of networking with your potential customers, answering FAQs, or engaging in meaningful conversation that shines a light on the industry authority of the brand.
Both these platforms are built in ways that make it super easy even for a layman to set up systems and advertisements. This presents every brand with a powerful opportunity to showcase its products to such a large number of people.
Online Seminars and Conferences
Web-based seminars aka Webinars have taken over the marketing world by storm. They are a highly engaging way of delivering information, both live and otherwise. A webinar requires a customer’s information for registration, which goes into the funnel systems of your brand.
Webinars revolve around the problems faced by the target audience and based on the presentation, can do a great job at bringing in leads.
Videos
More than 80% of the total traffic on the internet comes from videos! This statistic is large enough to consider the value of videos in today’s age. Landing pages with videos are automatically ranked better by Google than the ones without them.
With videos, there is so much to experiment with – you can have product explainer videos, demo videos, short ads, or animated videos. Videos are fun, require little effort from the viewer, and act as great tools for lead attainment and conversion.
Surveys
Surveys give you the two-fold benefit of knowing your current customers better and understanding the expectations of prospects. A little incentive like an exclusive membership, special discount code, or a club membership can propel your audience into becoming leads.
The results can give you great ideas for your upcoming blogs, ad-targeting, and changes in sales strategy.
Want to know which lead magnet would work the best for your business model? Click here for a free consultation with our marketing experts and discover how you can formulate a customized strategy to achieve leads like never before!