Forget about your product for a second.
You can jazz it up, tie it in a pretty little bow and offer it at the best price – But none of this matters.
Even with the best product in the world, your business is doomed to fail if no one knows about it.
Doomed to join the growing number of startups that crash and burn in their first 5 years.
Those with the most leads win. Simple.
If you generate more leads, but have an average product – you still win.
Because leads means more revenue. And revenue means more profit (most of the time).
Let’s unpack 20 smart ways you can generate more leads for your business right now.
1. Directly engage with leads
Direct customer engagement should one of your top priorities.
Most businesses choose to go with in-direct engagement – such as FAQs. This is not the most effective way to engage.
Direct engagement, on the other hand, makes use of live chat, forums and help centers – where customer service representatives are present all the time to make sure every query is handled properly.
More engaged customers results in better word-of-mouth and more leads.
2. Deploy outbound & inbound marketing
According to the stats, outbound marketing is still more effective than inbound marketing. But, it doesn’t mean that you forget about inbound marketing. Look to deploy both approaches in a balanced manner as this will be helpful in generating leads and eventually your business.
From an inbound perspective – personalize your email communication and get active in online communities by regularly sharing informative content, as well as solving common customer problems. This will help you establish healthy relationships with your customers and build more leads.
3. Invest in new technology
New technology sets the trend in the market. For example, smartphones are trending all over the world. Subsequently, most people access their mail or browse websites through smartphones or tablets; this shows that the you should invest in making your marketing efforts compatible with these devices, allowing you to reach the maximum amount of customers.
In a nutshell, you should keep an eye on emerging technology and channels through which you can get more leads for your business.
4. Find leads on Twitter
Twitter is not only a social networking website, but also a source of potential leads for your company. With the help of Followerwonk, you can analyze aspects such as; information about followers, at what time your followers tweet, etc., so that you can reach the audience that is associated with your niche.
Followerwonk helps you find influencers and connect with them. It also has a great interface.
5. Develop & optimize informative content
It is undeniable that content can be a great source of the web traffic – which will result in more leads. But it needs to be informative.
High quality content can be an asset for you as it attracts traffic to your website well beyond its publish date. Try to include images, video and infographics to increase share counts and engagement.
6. Make your Tweets sing
If possible, include images with your Tweets, they have a way of making things more interesting and engaging to your customers.
Plus, use hashtags so your content is easier to find. The more often you are found, the more leads you will get.
7. Tap into databases
Data.Com is a huge database where you can find potential leads for your business. It maintains a list of companies with accurate contact information, so that in minimum time you can identify relevant leads.
As Data.com provides an extensive set of data instantly, it can contribute around a 25% increase in sales.
8. Market through LinkedIn
As we all know, LinkedIn is a business-centric social networking website. It can prove to be a great platform for bringing new clients to your business too. LinkedIn also allows users to publish content to an already engaged audience.
9. Automate your marketing
What about a tool for getting more leads?
Drip is an application that offers marketing automation through the form of a well-designed popup, email marketing and more. You can collect the information of your prospective customers and turn them into genuine leads on auto pilot.
10. Answer a question on Quora
Quora is a Question & Answer based social networking site with millions of people from different demographics posting daily questions. If you answer enough questions of users, they will spot your profile and most likely check out your website.
11. Comment on other blogs
Writing comments on blogs can be helpful in getting your name out there and eventually generating leads. Be helpful and generous with your comments and people will want to see what you have to offer.
12. Start to guest blog
Guest blogging can be helpful for lead generation but only when the following aspects are properly implemented:
- Articles have relevant information for the audience.
- You send people back to an appropriate landing page on your site
- The post possesses unique information
- You actively promote the post to leverage social proof
- The site you choose to blog for is well respected by your audience
13. Use email marketing
Email marketing features the concept of direct engagement. While developing email content to generate leads, you need to take into the account the following:
- Subject line: The subject line must be enticing so that it makes the recipient want to read the content. The subject line should address the problems that your potential leads are generally facing.
- Concise: The content of the email should be concise, brief and engaging.
- Incorporate social media: Integrate social media links in your emails, so that the readers can easily be redirected to your social media page.
- Embed images: An image can speak more than 1000 words; thus, it is a good idea to embed images as well as text in your emails. (Hint: Try to include lightweight images, so that email content loads faster)
- Integrate a call-to-action button: CTAs are most effective at the top half of the email.
14. Don’t forget your signature
Make your email signature effective by embedding a link that redirects the reader to relevant content. With the help of link integration, the chance of maximum web traffic flow towards your content will be higher.
If you implement HTML coding in your emails, make sure to test it on all the platforms to make sure that everything is working fine.
15. Create a game app
Depending on your audience, but many statistics suggest that people spend more time on game apps rather than reading blogs. Seeing people are active, it may be possible to use a game app to bring leads to your business. But, it can only be possible, if you build a creative game that can directly shift the web traffic towards your business.
This can be quite an expensive adventure especially if you are offering the app for free – but it will definitely add a unique element to your marketing efforts.
16. Participate in forums
Forums are the perfect place to get to know your customers more intimately. The better you know your customers, the easier it is to contact them with a potential offer.
Be active on forums, share your views with the members and answer their questions.
17. Interview influencers
Reach out to influencers who your customers respect and interview them for your blog or social channels.
Keep it as simple as possible by asking short/sharp questions, and then ask them to share the final product.
Your potential customers will see this as proof of your credibility and increase your chance of attracting new leads.
18. Share videos on YouTube
YouTube is not just a video hosting service, it’s a massive search engine. It is more popular than any other social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.
As compared to other social networking platforms, all the posts remain there for a very long time. Thus, this is the best channel for sending referral web traffic in the long-term.
This platform enables the you to create and maintain your own channel where you can share videos regarding particular events, imperative tutorials and other things. This will help you standout from your competitors and attract more leads to your business.
19. Offer a free software tool on your site
If you can offer an easy-to-use software tool on your site, for free, it will build trust with your audience. An example is the website analyzer available on Neil Patel’s blog Quick Sprout.
More trust inevitably means more leads.
20. Add a Quiz to your blog
Posting a quiz to your blog can make your content engaging and draw more attention from an online audience. In fact, it can easily entice the readers to share their feedback about your blog and article. This will also help you establish a stronger relationship with your audience and get more leads in the long term.
There is a free tool called QuickBox that helps you create a quiz in a few easy steps and publish it on your blog.
Guest Author: Ritu Singh is a online marketing specialist at Better Graph. Her contribution to informative blog and article articulating seamless strategy in terms of deploying effective SEO, bringing leads and managing online reputation is being praised by various SEO experts and marketer from all around the world.