Marketers and salesmen get a nightmare when this word pops up in meetings; the management gets a sigh of relief only when they hear good numbers, about their pipeline. Yes, it’s the word “Leads”. Finding the people interested in your products or services, and then convincing them to buy, making them as loyal customers is the underlying customer journey that any company would have.

As the proverb goes “A good beginning makes a good ending”, likewise the only way to get sales is to have good lead generation strategy.  It is a critical step, and there is no first-rate or terrible strategy label to any of the strategies, based on the business few strategies and channels work like a magic.

Here are 24 lead generation strategies,

Before that understand the buyer’s journey with content below

 1 LinkedIn to Rescue

Throwing the net, where fishes are really present, make sense. As of March 2018, there are over 467 million members worldwide, and is wiser to extract industry relevant leads in LinkedIn. Also a research by HubSpot has revealed that LinkedIn is 277% more efficient than Facebook and Twitter for lead generation. LinkedIn Advanced Search for people and groups, LinkedIn Company Page, Showcase Pages, Messaging are helpful for the business. Tools may come handy, for LinkedIn lead extraction; have a look on RedScraper’s free trial LinkedIn Extractor. LinkedIn specific advanced strategies and tips are listed here, give a further read.

2 Domain Search

Business E-mails are listed in every website, cold emails with relevant content can be done for those email IDs thereby obtaining leads and nurturing them with E-mail marketing. Redscraper Lead Prospector tool has Domain Search feature packaged, which can scrape websites with advanced filters and offer quality leads.

3 Lead Generation Ads

Google Search and display Advertising, with specific landing page and a form to collect details can help in lead generation. Also the Facebook Lead Ads are trending, with sign-up pre-populated forms to collect leads.

4 E-mail Marketing

Cold Emails has been very effective strategy in B2B arena. Customized mails according to recipient interest and background, will work, also a clear Call to action to website’s landing page should be present. The trickiest part is avoiding E-mail spam and making the customers read E-mails and increase response rates, and here are certain tips.

Designing an E-mail signature is also an important task, but is often forgotten. A simple, logical design with social media, call to action buttons and links to website can be embedded in a commonsensical way in the small space allocated. Tips and tricks can be further read here.

5 Sponsorships and Associations

Sponsorships are considered as Cindrella of marketing, and also considered as fastest growing form of marketing in US, by Susan Friedman. Cause marketing and Sponsorships can be highly targeted and is the next Lead Gen Hack.

6 Interviews

Purchase decision makers can be interviewed or asked to guest-blog, thereby the time deprived prospects can quickly learn about business. This tactic is helpful in building relationships and lead generation. If interview is aimed at Subject matter experts, and they happen to endorse the brand then that also is quite helpful.

7 Leverage Website visitors

Finding the website visitors is an imperative technique for every business to generate leads, they are more qualified and web analytics tools are available in marketplace.

8 Vlogs and Demo videos

Creating brand awareness, and thereby collecting leads is a valuable lead generation tactic. Product videos are advantageous for business as 90% of users find it helpful in purchasing decision process, reveals HubSpot study.

9 Lead Magnets

Small piece of downloadable or printable content can act as lead magnets in B2B context.  They should be easily readable, designed well, industry-specific, sharable, and accessible. This will bring the business an authority over their competitors in the industry. Similar types of content which is helpful in marketing are listed, give a further read, may be its true, Content is the King nowadays.

  • Blogs,
  • Whitepapers,
  • Articles on site,
  • Illustration,
  • Animations,
  • Presentations,
  • Infographics,
  • Templates ,
  • Checklists ,
  • Toolkits,
  • Web Apps and Chrome Extensions,
  • Calendars and plans,
  • Printable,
  • Calculators,
  • Research reports,
  • Case studies.

10 Referrals – customer/partner/employee

Qualified leads are obtained as a referral often, and thereby incentivizing the referee can be a cool way to get more E-mail lists and leads.

 11 Utilize someone else’s audience

Influencer and Affiliate marketing can be beneficial to businesses in generating more traffic, creating brand trust, social interactions and also generating more leads. Tools like Klear, Deep Social can be used to find relevant influencers for your business.

 12 Run Contest, Sweepstakes and generate Qualified Leads

 Proliferation of lead database can happen when the business runs a contest, and awards an incentive like lifetime subscription of products to its customers, which is more relevant. Strategy should be very specific, and the promotion for the same should be done to grab attention of prospects (Source:SEONick).

13 Chat /live messaging

According to studies, 62% of customers are inclined to buy products online, if the business has live customer chat service embedded to their website. Furthermore, contact information of audience can also be collected for generating leads and the questions can be answered in a personalized manner.

 14 Twitter

Twitter has revealed that 66% of people have discovered a new business on Twitter. Relevance of twitter is questioned as the usage rates are declining, but in B2B landscape it still creates a buzz, and tactics like using relevant hashtags, live videos, pinning important tweets, creating convincing bio, running twitter contests, chats can work for a business.

15 Mobile marketing

51% of people search for products online using mobiles and the users are undeniably increasing over years. Sending SMS campaigns, push notifications, Mobile specific Ads, proximity based Ads can be quick ways to capture target audience.

16 SEO

Search engine Optimization of website can also help in lead generation, if business appears in top 10 results of desired keywords for the website, there are more chances for the users to visit the website and thereby buy products. Organic leads can be obtained; here are certain tips that can be valuable.

 17 Conversations can help

Business can happen over a cup of coffee, pint of beer, small airport waits, and so on.  Try and make conversations as real as possible, but do pitch about business, ask them for a call or a meeting, connect on social media, build the relationship. Human elements also help in lead generation, and here’s a short read on its importance.

18 Website elements

Creative elements either inviting the visitors to chat/E-mail/call or leave their information for the businesses to contact, is as state-of-art lead hack method.

  • Floating bar in websites
  • Contact Page and well designed form
  • Pop-Up lead capture
  • Full Screen CTA
  • Slide in Scroll Box
  • Testimonials

19 Answer in Quora

As of March 2018, there are around 190 million monthly Quora users and by answering in Quora like the subject matter experts and then recommending the usage of products or services that business is offering can be effective way to generate leads. Top Quora Writer of 2017, Josh Feshter  reveals the tactics for getting thousands of leads in Quora here, worth a read.

20 Reviews and Ratings

Power of reviews should not be under-estimated, they are helpful for customer in purchasing decision process. Word of mouth and electronic WOM can be very helpful for building brand’s trust, sources reveal that 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review(G2 Crowd and Heinz Marketing).

 21 Directory Listings

B2B Online directory listings are a good way to generate inbound traffic and knowledgeable audience. SaaS(Software as a solution-online/cloud tools) tool review sites like Capterra, Toolgyud can also be a clever option to list the site.

 22 Landing Page

Strategic landing pages are used by 68% of B2B businesses to acquire leads (Marketo). They are first page, that prospects land on business website with a well-defined purpose. Using own server, having clear Call to action, well-designed form can be helpful for a business to increase sales.

23 Webinars – Demo and Workshops

Webinars are powerful tool at different phases of sales cycle, including Lead generation (51%), reveals Forrester.  User may attend 57 minutes of webinar, on an average (Watch Infographics).

24 Traditional methods

Sometimes old is gold, and proven tactics may work like a bomb for your business, give a thought about the following offline and traditional methods also, may be once? Why not?

  • Business Events Networking
  • PR
  • Telemarketing
  • Radio
  • TV Ads
  • Direct Mail
  • Kiosks
  • QR codes
  • Transit Ads
  • Brochures, Leaflet Drops and Visiting Cards

 

Conclusion:

Generating leads online has the power to transform your marketing. Using great offers, calls-to-action, landing pages and forms – while promoting them in multi-channel environments – can reduce your cost-per lead while delivering higher quality prospects to your sales team. The basics herein are just the beginning. This tips contains many best practices for every aspects of lead generation to help strengthen your conversion rates, but these tactics are only the tip of the iceberg. Continue to tweak and test each step of your lead generation process in an effort to improve lead quality and increase revenue.

Especially in a connected, content-rich world, is a multi-step process. While prospects may be 60% or more of the way through the process before they contact you, don’t expect them to buy from you immediately. Be prepared to coax prospects through the purchase process by providing them with the 5 basic content types they need, giving them the ability to gather more information and to get their questions answered, and allowing them to purchase when, where and how they wish to do so.