The way customers purchase has changed drastically. Customer’s already have all the information they need available online. They like to do their own research first, before they purchase or inquire about a product or service. With information being just a click away, they know what they are looking for, where they want to buy it from, and how much they want to pay. Hence, they don’t feel the need to take help from a sales rep often. So how do you reach such an audience? The answer is through lead generation. In this article, we will discuss some effective lead generation techniques that you can adopt for your business.
Leads are people who are interested in purchasing the type of products or services you sell. And lead generation enables you to reach these audiences at the beginning of their purchase journey. This way you can influence their decisions, persuade them to convert and build a long-term relationship with them.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting individuals who have shown an interest in your brand’s products or services. Earlier, it was done through cold calls. But now marketers and sales reps can utilize many strategies to nurture and convert a lead. For example, you can attract and nurture customers through content like blogs.
Let’s take a look at some effective lead generation techniques that can help you attract and convert leads.
Content
Customers are always looking for quality content that will help them solve their problems. They might need this content for knowledge about products or services, educational purposes and more. You can create content to provide your audience with the information they are looking for. This content can be in any form as long as it is relevant, useful and free for your target audience. Content marketing not only attracts your customers, but also helps you nurture, convert and retain them.
Blog Posts
One of the best ways to attract leads is by creating insightful blog posts. These posts can also be shared on various social media platforms to reach a wider audience. Blog posts can be optimized so that they can bring visitors to your website. This gives you an opportunity to further engage them. Write on topics that addresses the interests or problems of your target audience. You can provide tips or strategies, information on industry related topics, or talk about your products.
Blogs should be optimized with banner or text-based CTAs that encourages users to engage and convert. Use keywords in your blogs that are relevant to your user’s search queries. This will help your blog be more visible on SERP. Along with reaching out to your leads, blogs help you build trust and credibility with your audience.
Emails
Emails help you reach people who have shown interest in your products or services. It is easier to reach people through email any time. Since, users have already given you the permission to send them emails, they are most likely to engage with it. You can send them informative vlog topics, product information, discount or promotional offers via email. It is important to have appealing CTAs in your emails to grab the user’s attention.
Lead Magnets
Lead magnets can help you get contact information of tour visitors. Visitors can leave your website without taking any action or converting into leads. Lead magnets can allow you to get a visitor’s contact information so that you can get a chance to convert them. Lead magnets should be valuable to the visitors so that they agree to give you their details in exchange. Businesses use lead magnets like email opt-ins, eBooks or subscriptions to see if these visitors are interested.
It is important that these lead magnets are something that your audience find valuable and useful. Here are the different types of lead magnets you can use.
- Free Trial
- eBooks
- Webinars
- Templates
- Whitepapers
- Newsletters
Lead magnets should be free-of-charge. They should offer solutions to some problems your visitors might face. It should elevate the curiosity of your visitors so that they agree to give you their contact details.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are an important part of your website as they help you drive conversions. This is where your users land after they click on any of your online marketing campaigns or advertisements. Your aim should be to provide a good user experience through your landing pages. These pages are responsible for engaging the users who land on your website. Take a look at the bounce rate of your landing pages. Bounce rates shows you the number of users who left without taking any action. The higher the bounce rate, the higher number of visitors who leave your website without engaging.
There are many ways to reduce bounce rate and make sure that your visitors stick around. Ensure that your landing page has a good layout, color scheme and content structure. Pay attention to small details. Use CTA that is relevant to the action you want your users to take. Do not include multiple CTAs that will confuse your users. Improve your site speed so that users don’t leave without engaging. Landing pages help you gain leads and get them interested in your brand before they become customers. Main purpose here is to educate your visitors with enough information they need about your products or service.
PPC Campaigns
Pay-per-click or PPC campaigns are the ads that appear on the search engine results page. These ads are a great way to reach a wide range of audiences that are looking for the type of products or services your company offers. You can target your potential customers by using keywords that are relevant to their search queries. These ads should be created in a way that grabs the attention of your target audience. Use relevant keywords in your headline, title and ad text. If the keywords you use are not relevant to your ad copy or landing page, you might get a low-quality score. A low-quality score keyword does not trigger your ads. Hence, when creating your ad campaigns make sure you use keywords that are relevant to your ads, products and landing pages.
Your budget also plays an important role to help you rank better than your competitors. You may lose rankings due to a low budget. Make sure to set your budget that is not too low or high. PPC campaigns are a great way to generate more leads and send them to your website.
Social Media
Social media can allow you to reach a wide audience with interest in the type of product or services you offer. Use social media ads that will help you target users who have shown interest in your products. You can also pay and boost your posts so that will allow you to reach more audiences. Social media has targeting options based on the interests, demographics and psychographics of a user. Leverage these insights to help you reach your target audience.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring technique allows you to assign a value to qualify your leads. You can assign a numerical value to determine at what stage they are in a sales process. It is a good way to track the interactions your leads have with your business and give it a score. For example, if a lead downloads an ebook you can assign 5 points or if they fill an opt in form you can assign 8 points. It depends on how you want to use it and what scores you want to assign for a certain action.
Lead scoring can help you identify the potential opportunities that you might have. It is like a feedback to know how your leads are responding to your marketing efforts. This will help you gauge which leads are ready to communicate with your sales team or close to investing in your business. If you see that a certain lead has scored a high score, it would mean that this lead is close to becoming a customer and can bring your profit.
Getting your customer’s attention in this day and age can be challenging. Consumers have many options and a ton of information online. When people are looking for something, they have a short attention span and would easily give up on things that do not serve their needs. Hence, the purpose of your lead generation strategy should be to provide the consumers with relevant and useful information they are looking for. All the techniques we discussed above can help you get traffic on your website and allow you to convert them into leads.
Found this helpful? Check out more interesting articles from our blog.