This is a continuation of this post.
Lead generation is always a huge task for business workers, salespeople, and marketers. But it’s something that companies will need to invest in—whether that means time, money, or resources.
These days, a realistic and scalable lead generation strategy uses the best online and offline practices.
We’ve gathered 15 achievable ways you can generate more sales leads, and we’ve categorized them into an actionable 3-step sales lead generation plan, HEM. Harvest, Engage, Market. (We discussed HARVEST and ENGAGE here.)
MARKET
Old school or new school, these marketing strategies can help create more awareness for your brand and attract new leads.
Photo by Lost Co on Unsplash
8. Develop quality content to generate awareness.
There’s a reason everyone is into content marketing these days. Good quality content draws people in. Having a resource section (or blog) in your website can draw traffic—and get possible leads—but it has to be informative and useful.
Take note though that blogging is just one part of content marketing. It’s not the be-all and end-all of content marketing. Videos, white papers or e-books, infographics, case studies, webinars, podcasts, email newsletters, what you share on social media, and even your website’s copy are all content that are used for marketing your brand.
9. Use email marketing.
Email marketing is another way you can directly engage with your lead. Of course, you have to do it correctly so that the your emails will actually be read.
Learn to space out your emails: strategize on a sequence of emails with varying subjects. Your email subject line and content should change each time to show that you are not merely spamming your prospect's inbox. And each one should be thoughtful and attractive enough for your lead to read. An example of an email sequence: first email can explain the value of your product or service, second email can share a case study (of a client from a similar industry), and a third can be an invite to meet one-on-one for a walk-through or presentation. Be creative and intentional with each email you send.
10. Do outbound and inbound marketing.
We don’t understand why some companies need to choose between the two (because some say outbound marketing is old-fashioned) when you can do both. We’re big believers of hybrid solutions and a combined outbound and inbound marketing strategy is a viable tool for generating more leads.
A lot of our samples here and in Part 1 of this topic are inbound marketing strategies. Some outbound marketing samples you can do: cold calling (it’s not dead!), media buys or ad placements, and brand activation (or events).
11. Use lead generation ads.
With lead generation ads, interested parties will click on your ad and fill up a form (in the ad) with their contact information. You can then follow up with them using the details provided. So you get to build brand awareness and collect information at the same time. You can opt to create lead generation ads via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. (If you have to choose, we recommend you go with the first two: Facebook and LinkedIn.)
12. Optimize social proof.
Using social proof is one way you can improve your quote-to-close ratio. But it’s also a good strategy for generating more leads. Case studies, testimonials, and product reviews are great examples of social proof, and if they’re positive, they will work very well. So make sure to have these on your site. (As an example, here’s a Lucrativ product review.)
13. Track your website visitors and turn them into leads.
Do you know how many people are visiting your site? Those people can turn into leads. Site analytics only send you demographics, but you would need a way to contact these website visitors.
Sites like Leadfeeder, LeadFuze, and Leady can track all the companies visiting your website, identify them, and report them back to you. It’s an investment on your end, but that investment can generate leads and potential business for you too.
14. Create lead magnets.
People love free stuff, your possible leads included. And that’s what a lead magnet is: it’s a free piece of content or valuable offer that your website visitors can get from your site. They will opt-in with their contact information to receive their “gift.”
Needless to say, your lead magnet has to be valuable. For this you need to know your customers, what they like, and what they need. Examples of lead magnets are reports, guides, checklists, white papers (sample above!), free trials, discounts, and more.
15. Automate your marketing.
Adding efficiency to your work system can yield great results. So why not automate the very process that helps you nurture your leads? An efficient CRM can do this for you. You can automate your calls, your emails, even your split testing. You can also automate custom workflows like your two-week sales cadence plan or your 8-step lead nurture strategy, among others.
By streamlining the process of capturing and nurturing leads, you are really bound to generate more leads that could potentially convert into deals.
Main photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash
