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Do you wanna know how lead generation can help your business? An average business generates more than 1800 leads per month. Almost half of marketers in the world consider lead generation as their priority in marketing campaigns. If you want to know more about how to generate more and better leads then this article might be helpful for you.

What is lead generation?

In simple language, a lead is someone who expresses his/her interest in your products or services. Hotter leads are those people who are highly interested in your products/services. So what is lead generation? Finding and making people interested in your products/services is a process. 

Nowadays, consumers are brilliant, they do a lot of research before making any big purchase. They want high-quality products and services with minimum cost of buying and maintenance. There are numerous ways to generate high-quality leads, so it’s important to find the more suitable method that will suit your business. 

It’s all about finding potential consumers for your products/services. So, before moving to our next part. We need to understand two terms Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing, it can help us to understand lead generation better.

Inbound Marketing: It is a technique that attracts people to your business online such as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), SMM (Social Media Marketing) and Content Marketing. So, with inbound marketing, you don’t find your leads instead your leads will find you. For example, you watched a video on Instagram about dogs, found some cool pet stuff and bought some dog stuff with his referral link. The major benefit of inbound marketing is that your potential customers are already looking you only have to get in the right place. Use your Social Media, blog, website and search engine to utilise this technique.

Outbound Marketing: In outbound marketing, you will have to show your business through some traditional techniques such as paid advertisements, cold calls or arranging and promoting events. When you are travelling and see some billboards or watch an ad before watching a video on YouTube, is an example of outbound marketing. It’s vital for some businesses and you can’t ignore especially if your business is in its early stages. Email marketing, PPC, Cold calls and almost every kind of display ad fall under the category of outbound marketing.

Why do you need lead generation?

Lead generation is the need for any business to succeed in the market. Sometimes you need data to develop a better lead strategy but it’s not the universal rule. You can’t rely on customers’ instincts, you must use effective strategies to attract quality leads. Sometimes you do need a consultant for lead generation.

A new business must be focused on its branding and lead generation, without a strategy it will be difficult to compete in the market with other businesses. If your marketing strategy is ineffective, it doesn’t matter how good your products or services are. 

To make sure that your business will grow and expand, you need to find more potential customers. Nowadays attention spans are very limited and people are getting distracted very easily. Attracting and finding potential customers is getting hard and expensive. It is important to put effort into generating the right kind of leads. 

You can double the revenue with the right lead generation strategies. According to Marketo’s study, businesses with effective lead generation strategies have more than 133% more revenue than others. Most of the businesses consider lead generation as their biggest challenge. You can either hire a consultant or build your specialised team. 

A good strategy will enable customer relationships to build trust in your business. It seems very unnatural and strange to reach out to a stranger and try to sell your product and services. That’s one of the biggest problems in the outbound marketing. 

With lead generation, you invite people to connect with you. Engage with your content and will develop interest if they find your products/services useful. 

Cashflow is another important factor to your business’ success. Lead generation is an excellent method to maintain a consistent cash flow in your organisation with better ROI. It will also help you by ensuring your website converts visitors into customers. More qualified leads mean the more sources your business can operate better. Never put all eggs in one basket. You will need both quality as well as quantity.

you can use various methods to generate leads including content marketing, direct messaging, SEO, Webinars, podcasts, giveaways and many more. We can’t cover all in one post. But will definitely talk about the important ones.

There’s never one optimal answer to what works best for your business, but some options include Google ads, email marketing, and SEO campaigns focused on keyword optimisation.

Lead Generation doesn’t always have to mean you are selling something – there is more than just selling which includes lead nurturing i.e. developing and maintaining relationships with customers. You should focus on your efforts on converting your visitors into customers who will buy your products/Services

How to Generate Leads?

Do you remember the last time you filled out any form online in exchange for some free stuff such as a pdf or a slot for a webinar? It’s one of the most effective ways to generate leads. There are some rough estimates that more than 60% of marketers feel generating traffic and leads is their biggest challenge.

There are many lead generation strategies, it depends on your business and requirements which strategy will work for you. 

1. By offering something valuable: Your prospects must find your business valuable. People will hesitate to provide information such as credit cards or even their phone numbers. You first have to build trust and reputation by asking for personal information. But you can offer valuable information including free pdf, online tools, free consultations, informative live webinars or tutorials.
2. By creating interactive and informative landing pages and forms: Even if you have full working websites. You can build a dedicated landing page, it can help your visitors to understand what they are investing in. Your landing page must contain all the utility and benefits of your products/services. If possible, hire a professional copywriter and web designer who will write a more optimised and persuasive landing page. Keep form fields to a minimum and don’t ask for information such as credit cards until you establish your reputation in the market. 
3. By offering live chat functionality: Sometimes people don’t want to explore all your web pages or landing pages. Your dedicated chatbot can help your visitors and make it easy for people to ask questions about your products and services. Live chat can also help you capture your lead data.
4. By posting informative articles: Writing some valuable content with a little bit of SEO can help you reach a wider and more relevant audience. You can use keyword research tools to select the right topics. AI can help you in this but still, you are dealing with humans at the end of the day. 
5. By building backlinks: There are almost 6 million searches on Google every minute and if your keyword ranks on top of the first page, CTA can be more than 22%! Well-optimised content will get your posts found on the first page of search engines but it’s not as easy as it sounds. You will need someone who is specialised in SEO and if you want to build your team then you will require 2-3 people to operate and maintain it.
6. By utilising local SEO: By building local citations and well-optimised listing, your business can get tons of high-quality leads in specific regions. You can utilise Google Business Profile for getting started with local SEO.
7. Posting relevant and engaging content on Social Media: Social media is still the king for getting leads. Platforms like LinkedIn, X( formerly Twitter), Instagram and YouTube can help you build your online presence as well as get high-quality leads for your business if you know how to use social media the right way. You can also work with social media influencers to promote your brand.
8. By sending emails: You can start a newsletter, build your email list and send interesting and informative emails that can help you find high-quality leads. Many people buy email lists, we don’t recommend you choose this way. Building a genuine email list can be a hectic task but it comes with huge rewards.
9. By paid online campaigns: You can use social media, search engines and ad networks to drive paid traffic to your sites. If you know how to prepare an effective ad campaign then its returns are higher and quicker. 

Some lead generation tips for your business

Now you understand what lead generation is and what important strategies you can try. It will be better if you hire a professional, it will save you both time and effort but if you want to do it yourself or want to learn more. We have some tips for you.

1. Lead form ads: In social media and search engines, almost every platform comes with lead form ads i.e. your target user will directed to your lead form instead of the landing page when the ad is clicked. This approach can help generate higher volumes of leads but it can affect the quality of leads.
2.  Giveaways and contests: Ever heard of James Stephen “Jimmy” Donaldson aka Mr. Beast? Giving away stuff for free always works better than any other marketing strategy. Just ensure that stuff is useful for others and relevant to your business.
3. Run affiliate/referral programs: By running referral programs your existing customers will get benefits and they promote your products/services but with an affiliate program, the marketer will promote your products and services for commission per sale. Both are effective and work better if applied the right way.
4. Sponsor/host any local event: If your business is dependent on a specific region then you can sponsor a local event in that specific region. People will come, interact and connect with your brand there. You can also host an event, it will work much better.
5. Attend some industry events: By attending industry events, you can increase your network and people who are in the same business and interests. Building relationships can also help you in your lead generation. Make sure you build a network for the sake of mutual growth.
6. Track leads: You can use CRM to track leads so you can understand what factors are driving your lead generation strategy and what aren’t. You should track conversion from lead to customer. Find out what offers are generating the most leads for your business. Follow up with your lead, send them customised offers and keep experimenting with what works for you.

That’s not the end here. There are still left lot of things which we can’t discuss in one post. You can create a lot of opt-in opportunities and make your offers irresistible for your visitors. You also can use an A/B split test, beautiful infographics and illustrations, engaging and informative videos or partner with a professional like It’s Solved.

Bonus: Concept of Sales Funnels

If you understand lead generation better then we have another informative concept for you, it sales funnel. Without making it boring for you, we will understand it quickly and briefly.

There are 6 stages in a sales funnel but it can vary from business to business.

1. Awareness: It’s the top of the sales funnel and populated by the largest audience base. They don’t know much about your business, your products, your services and the value you can provide them. But they are aware that your business exists.
2. Interest: Some people with interact, will be interested and want to know about your business and offers. So, the instructions will draw them deeper into the sales funnel and they will spend more time to know about what you are doing and how it can benefit them via your website, blogs, and reviews.
3. Evaluation: Now they know a lot about your business and they will start evaluating your offers and their benefit. In simple language, they will start judging your business. They may try to reach out to the contact page, FAQs, customer service team or client testimonials. So, you need to make it easier for them.
4. Negotiation and decision: Now they have almost made their decision whether they like your offer or not. Some will directly buy and some will try to negotiate, it depends on the nature of your business and your prospects. But if someone reaches that level of sales funnel it’s right to assume that they are interested in your offers.
5. Sale: In this stage, the buyer and seller negotiate and transactions occur between them.
6. Renewal and Repurchase: It’s the most important and most ignored stage in the sales funnel. You should focus on retaining your existing customers by offering them better deals and providing them better customer experience.

Conclusion

We learnt what is lead and what is lead generation. Why it’s important for your business and its strategies with some tips. Also, we understand how the sales funnel works. This simple post is crafted for you, to ensure that your business will grow and expand, your business will reach more customers and help you establish a steady inflow of prospects. 

Lead generation will boost revenue and on top of that, it will establish your brand in the market. There is no single approach, strategy or technique for all businesses. It’s a continuous effort to find out what works.

I know this is not an easy task that’s why you need to build a team of professional marketers or you can hire or partner with a marketing firm. We also collaborate with businesses and help them to reach, analyse and retain their customers. If you want any help just contact us!