Whatever your business, bring the right customers to your website by employing the right lead generation tactics. You don’t want just any leads, you need qualified leads, and we’ve compiled the best practices, tips, trends, and tactics to help you get them. With 50.8% of the global population online, your ideal customers are out there, seeking your products and services, so make it easy for them to find you by implementing a solid lead generation strategy. Don’t have the expertise on your current team to create a strategy or implement one? No problem – it’s easy to fill those skills gaps using highly trained professional freelancers to specialise in all elements of online lead generation.
Your ideal customers are out there, seeking your products and services, so make it easy for them to find you by implementing a solid lead generation strategy
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What Is Lead Generation? The Fundamentals
Lead generation is simply the process of attracting targeted traffic and converting that traffic into sales. Targeted traffic refers to the people who are most interested in your product or service. Those are the people with whom you most want to engage, letting them find your offerings and encouraging them to make a purchase. It’s essentially highly targeted, value-driven marketing.
While it’s more challenging to land a new customer than it is to resell or upsell to an existing one, the right inbound lead gen tactics greatly increase your chances of success. With cold leads, your lead generation offerings need to be strong enough to build trust and interest, to take those cold prospects and warm them up into hot ones, at which point, if you’re doing it right, a significant percentage should convert into customers.
Lead generation marketing benefits online businesses by attracting more customers, expanding awareness, increasing sales, and collecting important information on prospective customers. However, many decision-makers are making costly mistakes. Here are some main mistakes to avoid:
- Not leveraging the power of social influencers
- Not investing in SEO expertise
- Not conducting data analysis to pinpoint trends and patterns
- Not using a pro form builder to ensure your lead gen forms are optimized for maximum conversion
Key Takeaways
- Don’t try to wing it – if you do, your lead generation will ultimately fail.
- Hire freelance lead generation specialists to fill any skills gaps within your organization.
Lead Generation Strategies: Building the Foundation for Success
Significant business growth requires strong lead generation techniques. Yes, many people consider up-selling existing customers as the lifeblood of their business, but new customer acquisition is essential for growth and sustainability. But, to create truly sustainable and effective growth, your lead generation needs to be rock-solid. If you just throw money at random ideas, yes, you may get a few new customers, but your cost per acquisition will be unsustainably high, and that’ll eat into your bottom line. So, before we look at building specific B2C or B2B lead gen tactics, we need to focus on building our foundation, as without this, you’ll never experience true lead generation success.
Identifying Your Audience
Yes, you probably already have a primary customer persona within your branding and marketing collateral, but you need to revisit it specifically for lead generation. Are you targeting your whole set of buyer personas, or are you going after a more specific segment of your audience? Is your current buyer persona still relevant, or does it need updating? If you feel that you need some help to get this right, work with an expert Fiverr freelancer who specializes in buyer persona creation.
Let Customer Problems and Your Solutions Drive Your Lead Generation Campaign
As part of building your ideal customer profile, you should have identified their key pain points, and how your products or services can solve those issues. You should keep these problems and solutions at the forefront of your mind as you begin building out your lead generation strategy. Remember, finding a solution to these needs is what drives your ideal customers and should, therefore, be what directs any customer acquisition campaigns.
Creating and Implementing a Winning Lead Generation Funnel.
K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple, Stupid. People don’t want to be baffled – anything that’s unnecessarily complex is a real turnoff for your prospects. Instead, when you’re building your lead generation strategy and funnel, make it as simple and clear as possible.
Here’s how you can accomplish this in two parts:
1. Keep your plan straightforward. Make sure your plan has clear, realistic, measurable KPIs, and avoid having too many elements within a single plan.
2. Make it easy for your new prospects to become customers. Don’t confuse them with multiple choices. Want them to take a particular action? Great! Tell them. Use simple calls to action to instruct your leads to do something like click a button, sign up, go to a particular page. Make your calls to action stand out and utilize buttons, sign up forms, and similar. Create welcoming, professional-looking landing pages that make customers feel confident in your company.
Tip!
Landing pages with more content and a below-the-fold CTA generate 220% more leads than shorter pages with an above-the-fold CTA. Consider contracting with a freelance landing page specialist who can produce optimized landing pages for your business.
Social Media Marketing
When implemented correctly, social media lead generation is not only cost-effective, but it also can produce great results. According to Forbes, a quarter of social media users follow brands they would consider making a purchase from. However, it’s important to note that this element of lead generation requires its own strategy to be successful, so it may be worth seeking out the talents of a freelance social media strategist and, once you move to implementation, hiring a social media content creator and/or a social media manager. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Messenger, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Reddit – the list of social media platforms continue to grow, and all can be leveraged to increase brand awareness and secure leads. Let’s take a look at two examples of lead generation on vastly different social platforms. You can use variations of these tactics across other social platforms, too.
Instagram Lead Generation Tactics
There are over 25,000,000 business profiles on Instagram, according to OptIn Monster, and 200,000 Instagram users who visit at least one business profile on the platform every single day. If this is where your target customers hang out, you need an active presence here. Instagram is an image-rich and video-friendly platform, so this is where your attention should be focused, alongside building Instagram stories designed to resonate with your audience. Make use of all of Instagram’s marketing tools, including Highlights, Action buttons, and Shopping.
- Instagram is built around visual storytelling, so keep this in mind when strategizing
- Create a Facebook Page and an Instagram Business profile to use Instagram lead generation ads
- Engage with your audience – do the “social” side of social media
- Share user-generated content
- Use teasers and the promise of more value to drive people to your website
- Run contests and offer freebies
- Use calls to action
- Make use of Instagram Live and Instagram Stories
LinkedIn Lead Generation Ad Campaigns
If you’re in a B2B sector, LinkedIn is one of the most important social platforms to target. as it’s built for business professionals. Neil Patel’s data insights indicate that LinkedIn is responsible for 80% of social media leads for B2B companies – and that’s huge! So, if you offer B2B products or services and your lead generation and marketing strategies don’t include LinkedIn, you’re really missing out. You can make use of LinkedIn Ads and Sponsored Posts, but you should work on optimizing your LinkedIn presence, too. Don’t throw money at ad campaigns if you’re driving prospects to an incomplete or uninspiring business page.
- Think as your LinkedIn company page as a lead-generating landing page
- Fill out your company page in its entirety
- Include a compelling pitch
- Apply the same brand standards to your LinkedIn page that you use on your website
- Use Showcase pages
- Create and publish relevant, industry-focused content
Once that’s done, you can start using ads and sponsored posts to maximize your inbound lead gen effectiveness. You can also use Advanced Search for outbound lead generation, which, while still challenging, is made somewhat easier when you do it through a professional network like LinkedIn.
(Live) Video Lead Generation
With live video increasing in popularly, businesses continue to increase their spend on video marketing for their Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube platforms. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, or iab, found that 74% of us, aged 13+, stream online video content at least once a week, and 41% access streaming services or watch videos online daily.
Whatever platform you’re using, there are numerous tactics you can employ to maximize your lead generation success with live video.
- Draw people to your video with a catchy title and a teaser that promises they’ll regret not watching
- Make sure you have a stable internet connection and that your equipment has been fully tested before you go live. You do not want any technical hiccups to ruin your brand authority
- Make sure you have a comprehensive script, but leave time for engaging with your prospects
- Make sure your video content delivers real value
- Plan your video so that it naturally directs people into your sales funnel
- You want people to stick around to the end so you can put them in your funnel, so early on, promise them something extra, like a discount, or free content, if they watch to the end.
- Give live demonstrations of your products or services
- Consider offering your video recordings to people who couldn’t make the live event – that way, the videos will continue to generate leads over the long term.
Key Takeaways
- Identify which social media networks you want to target, based on your customer persona
- Create and implement a social media strategy for each social channel you plan to use and incorporate these into your wider lead generation campaign.
Tip!
Don’t waste time and money trying to wrap your head around the ins and outs of a particular social network. Instead, optimize your ROI by engaging with a freelance social media expert. You can even find freelancers who specialize in specific social networks.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still the most effective marketing and lead generation channel, in spite of the rise of video, AI, and other cutting-edge channels, according to SmartInsights. A relevant, engaged email list generates better ROI than any other channel when it comes to lead generation. Conducting email lead generation with an established email list sets you up for success – if you do it right. If people have given you their email address, they are already a warm prospect – they’re interested in what you have to say, and you can build a relationship with them. But you’ve got to have a solid email marketing strategy and the skills to implement it. If you’re unsure, work with an email marketing freelancer to optimize and implement your strategy.
Key Takeaways
- Don’t spam your email list with sales pitches
- Provide valuable content that builds trust
- Only pitch products or services that are relevant, and only do it after you’ve established a relationship
- Use analytics to track the success of your campaigns
- Use an autoresponder series for welcoming new subscribers, delivering their freebies, and for any email sales funnels
- Segment your list to target specific sub-sections of your audience
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising has been a mainstay of online lead generation for many years, and it’s not going away. PPC can be a great lead generation tool, but if you don’t have the right strategy in place or you don’t implement it well, it’ll be a costly but completely ineffective experiment. You can’t just focus on text or video PPC anymore, either. Experts predict that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches, so you also need to optimize your pay-per-click lead generation campaigns for voice search. While search engine optimization and content marketing eventually provide better ROI, many businesses opt to use PPC campaigns for lead generation because, if implemented correctly, they provide solid, warm prospects, and almost immediate results. And the data tell us that 64.4% of US adults do click on paid search ads. To help fill skills gaps in PPC advertising, you can find freelancers on the Fiverr marketplace that specialize in all elements of pay-per-click advertising.
Key Takeaways
- Don’t attempt this without a comprehensive strategy in place
- Only target super-niche, highly-relevant keywords/key-phrases
- Set your budget and study the data to make sure you can afford to target your desired keywords
- Do competitor research
- Write outstanding ad copy
- Create a strong call to action
SEO Lead Generation
No lead generation strategy is complete without SEO and content marketing. Offering keyword-focused, highly valuable content to your readers gets you solid rankings in the search engines, which increases your discoverability and drives organic traffic. It also builds brand trust and authority and builds a positive relationship with readers. If you deliver poorly written content that doesn’t offer any value, you’ll drive prospects away as they doubt your authority, trustworthiness, and value. Therefore, it pays to really spend time delivering the valuable content your target customers want. But for this, you’ll likely need to hire top-quality freelance writers, and maybe an SEO expert, too. SEO-optimized content should already play a significant role in your overall inbound marketing strategy and naturally provides opportunities for lead acquisition.
Don’t be afraid to invest in creating long-form content. Search engines and readers get smarter every day, and they’re both looking for in-depth, trustworthy answers to specific problems or questions. Data from Neil Patel shows that Google favors long-form content. In addition, relevant, meaningful long-form content garners backlinks, drives traffic, and generates leads over the long-term. Long-form content is also sustainable and reusable – down the line, you can turn a single long-form piece of useful, evergreen content into a lead-generating email course, for example.
Key Takeaways
- If your content provides value, you stand a good chance of converting that reader into a warm prospect.
- Note that SEO and content marketing take time to show results, but continue delivering for longer than paid campaigns and usually offer better ROI.
- Impress readers with your blog and web content, then offer a free additional resource, such as a case study, white-paper, report, webinar, or ebook, in exchange for their email address. Add them to your email list and appropriate funnels
- Make sure you do adequate keyword research and target relevant long-tail phrases that your consumers search for
- Create a lead magnet that turns blog readers into email subscribers
Forum Marketing
Forum marketing is great for online lead generation and is something often overlooked. Forums like Reddit allow people with shared interests to virtually congregate and share knowledge. You can generate leads on forums by being super-helpful, answering questions, and making insightful, thought-provoking threads and comments. Additionally, you can use niche forums or groups to get an idea of trending topics that you could incorporate into your current marketing strategy.
Key Takeaways
- Don’t spam forums with sales pitches
- Don’t just leap into a forum and make random, valueless comments just to get your landing page link included in your signature
- Start slow and set yourself up as an authority
- Offer insightful comments, be helpful, and answer questions – this is the best strategy for lead generation in forums
- Consider hiring a freelancer to manage your forum engagement
Influencer Marketing
A whopping 70% of professionals are currently working with influencers, and 40% plan to increase influencer budgets. Consumers get savvier by the minute and quickly spot a lack of authenticity, so finding the right influencer for your brand is critical. Additionally, if you partner with the wrong influencer, you won’t generate any leads – or you won’t generate the right leads. Use Fiverr’s marketplace to find the right influencer for your business. Influencers may give you a shoutout, review your product, blog about your business, promote you on their social channels, or mention you on their podcasts.
Key Takeaways
- Research the right social influencer who has the same target audience as you
- Consider offering their followers an incentive like free content or a discount on a purchase if they signup via an exclusive code or link
- When choosing an influencer, opt for one who will promote you on the channel or social network where your target audience is most likely to be found
Q&A Websites
Similar to forums, Q&A websites are a great resource in helping you find new customers. These sites, like Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Fluther, revolve around solving people’s problems and gives users the opportunity to ask a community of people a question.
Creating a profile on a Q&A website allows you to not only answer questions your target audience has, but also backlink to your website. Reach out to freelancers, like those on the Fiverr marketplace, to implement this for you.
Key Takeaways
Follow the same rules as for forum lead generation
- Don’t spam the platform with useless comments
- Don’t overzealously promote or pitch your website
- Always be professional and respectful
- Answer questions that are relevant to your product or service
- Work to build a reputation as an authority in your niche
Final Takeaway
You’ve got lots of choices when it comes to lead generation. The most successful lead generation strategies are those that utilize a multi-channel approach. However, the channels you choose to pursue should be dictated by your buyer persona, so getting the foundation right, before you strategize, is essential. You should also have a simple, well-defined lead generation funnel before you implement your strategy.
Once that’s done, you can pick your lead generation channels and build your campaign. Remember to set measurable goals so you know whether the project is a success. Because there are so many elements to a successful lead generation strategy, it’s likely you don’t have all of the necessary expertise within your existing team. Thankfully, you don’t have to make new hires or try to go it alone. Instead, use Fiverr freelancers to fill those skills gaps and rocket your lead gen campaign to success.
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