Lead gen is not an easy task, particularly in today’s Economy when time is precious more than ever. You have so many things to do that’s hard to keep your focus on the few methods which work, to bring you a fresh stream of clients and profits.
So, what do you do when time is scarce and you still have to make your business thrive not just survive?
You connect with the experts and get them to share their secrets with you. That’s why we got 40+ of today’s top bloggers to reveal their top 3 ways to increase leads for one’s business.
The answers received will stimulate your mind with new ideas and ways to generate more business for your venture.
Enjoy the insights, connect with these bloggers (they’re human and they really respond to e-mails), and share the post if you like it.
Tor Refsland // TimeManagementChef.com // @Twitter
~ I help online entrepreneurs SKYROCKET their productivity and EARN MORE money in their BUSINESS ~
Way too many bloggers are talking about the importance of having traffic to your blog.
They are talking about it as some mysterious magic bullet.
Like getting more traffic to your blog will cure all your business problems.
It WON´T.
However, very few people are talking about the most important thing…
CONVERSION.
What good does 25 000 unique visitors to your blog per week do, if you only get 1 new email subscriber per week?
There are basically only two types of conversions that matter:
– conversion from traffic to subscriber
– conversion from subscriber to customer
But conversion it totally useless, if you can´t attract the right audience.
What´s the point in having an email list of 20 000 people, if they are NOT your target audience?
If your audience is not aligned with your core values and your topic, they…
will NOT open your emails…
will NOT read your emails…
will NOT click your links…
will NOT buy your products / services.
I´ve been there and I have done all the mistakes. In my first year of blogging I got featured on 85 blogs and built an email list of 3000+ subscribers.
However, it was only when I narrowed down my niche to blogger outreach, that I was truly able to attract and connect with my target audience.
When I published my blog post “How To Get Featured On 85 Blogs In 12 Months – Blogger Outreach Strategy“, I got 100 targeted subscribers in 8 hours.
Here are my 3 TOP ways to increase leads for your business:
I assume the other experts will mention guest blogging, so I´ll skip that one.
#1 – Epic roundup post
Putting together an epic roundup post is a great way to get subscribers. However, what´s even more important is the opportunity to build relationships with influencers.
Before my first roundup post…
…my blog was invisible (true story).
My average post had zero traffic, zero shares, zero comments, and it resulted in zero subscribers.
Then I put together my first roundup post, 80 Productivity Tips From Incredibly Busy Experts, and it resulted in:
– 20,231 page views in 6 days
– 1500+ social shares
– 86 comments
– 185 new email subscribers
– Won “Most Epic Blog Post” on Jon Morrow’s blog Boost Blog Traffic
I also wrote a guide on the topic on SumoMe – Getting 20,231 Views with One EPIC Roundup Post: A Step-by-Step Guide
#2 – Content Upgrades
On my most popular posts, I use something I call The Squared Net Tactic.
It consists of 4 opt-ins.
1 x Optin Feature Box from Plugmatter.
2 x Content upgrades on the post from LeadPages.
1 x Exit-popup from LeadPages.
Note: Currently, it´s the only place on my website where I have opt-ins for my free blogger outreach course. 4 opt-ins. 1 Feature box from and 3 Leadboxes.
Date range: 17.12.15-22.01.16
Total subscribers from blog post:
http://www.timemanagementchef.com/blogger-outreach-strategy/
Total subscribers: 295
Google Analytics
Date range: 17.12.15-22.01.16
1626 unique visitors.
Total Conversion rate on blog post: 295/1626 = 18,14%
Leadpages
Date range: 17.12.15-22.01.16
Here are the stats for the 3 Leadboxes.
Let´s calculate the conversion rate for the Feature box:
Total subscribers coming from 3 Leadboxes =34+100+35 = 169
Feature box subscribers = 295 – 169 = 126 subscribers.
Feature box conversion rate = 126/1626 = 7,75 % ”
#3 – Strategic Blogger Outreach (long-term strategy)
Having a blogger outreach strategy is what helped me to get featured on 85 blogs and get 3000+ email subscribers in my first year of blogging.
And that is not the best part.
I have been able to connect with some of the biggest influencers out there.
Heck, I have even gotten testimonials from the big dogs on my blogger outreach.
John Lee Dumas from EOFire said:
Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs-Journey said:
Strategic blogger outreach has even helped me to:
– get guest posts and podcasts opportunities
– great affiliate deals
– connect with a big influencer that has 306 000 people on his email list
– get 2 new $500 per month clients in two days
– partner up with some of the best minds in the industry; my sales coaches Jeffrey Gitomer andJennifer Gluckow , and my SEO coach Ryan Cruz
Blogger outreach with influencers is all about thinking long-term, and only focusing on providing awesome value first (and expect nothing in return).
Now you have 3 great ways to increase leads for your business.
However, the tips are total useless, if you don´t APPLY them.
Want more targeted leads for your business now?
Take massive action.
You can do it!”
Zac Johnson // ZacJohnson.com // @Twitter
~ Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Blogger and Super Affiliate by Day, Super Hero at Night! ~
Below is a list of three of my recommended methods for increasing leads for nearly any website, brand or business.
1.) Start a Blog: Starting a blog is dead simple and easy. However, creating a blog that provides
value, ranks high in the search results and delivers quality leads is not.
To get the most out of a blog, you will need to focus on creating better content than your competition and then building high-quality backlinks to it so your content will rank higher in the search results.
As great way to accomplish this (while also reaching new audiences) is through guest blogging. Once you have a steady flow of content being created on your site and traffic coming in from various places, you basically have a never ending supply of new leads coming in daily.
2.) Popup Subscribe Windows: Yes, popup windows may seem annoying, but they are also extremely effective. To get the most out of your popup windows, I recommend using a free solution like Welcome Mats to get started.
This will allow you to quickly test out how they convert with your audience. Once you have an idea on if this solution is right for your site, you can then upgrade to a premium version to unlock features like split testing and complete customization.
To maximize the conversions and signups from your popups, be sure to have a simple call-to-action and give away something of value.
3.) Create Infographics: Increasing your lead volume isn’t just about putting more ads in your audience’s face, it’s also about increasing your branding, links and traffic as well. All of which are something infographics can help with.
Everyone loves infographics because they are easy to read, share and makes data reports so much more interesting. You can see an example of a recent infographic we created here.
The great thing about infographics is that they are relatively easy and cheap to create through sites like Piktochart, and they are very useful when trying to increase high-quality backlinks to your site.
Implement some or all of these methods to see a continued increase in your overall site traffic and lead volume.
Aaron Wall // SeoBook.com // @Twitter
~ Online Marketer and Entrepreneur.Owner of www.seabook.com
Participate on smaller niche sites. On larger sites it can be harder to get noticed, but in smaller communities it is easier to stand out if you put in a lot of effort and frequently help people.
When you participate on larger social sites, follow the people you want to interact with for a while and get to know their likes and interests before making any pitches.
If you are just getting your name out there & are just getting started, try to guest author articles for other popular sites in your niche to get your name out there & to build awareness and a following for your site.
Adam Connell // BloggingWizard.com // @Twitter
~ Entrepreneur,Founder of @BloggingWizard. Fan of Firefly and Chinese takeaways. ~
This can depend on the type of business.
One of my businesses is service based, so I’ll talk through 3 lead generation tactics that work well for us:
The content funnel – Publish great posts that your audience actually wants to read and give them a good reason to join your email list. Don’t pitch them off the bat; you need to give them value first. Content upgrades are super effective here.
Then as you continue to deliver helpful content, you need to find ways to nudge them to a relevant service page. This could include CTA’s in emails or on the website (that only display to subscribers). We’ve had some good success with CTA’s inside lead magnets.
Ranking for transactional search terms – When someone needs a specific service, search engines like Google are usually the first port of call.
Identify the search terms people search for in the decision making process then plan a piece of content that goes above and beyond what’s already ranking. An easy shortcut would be to use Google AdWords.
Referrals – Relationships are a big deal and people are more likely to trust a recommendation from someone they know. While we don’t do as much networking as we’d like to, this is incredibly effective.
The secret to piling more leads into your funnel is finding out what works in your industry and doing more of it.
But be careful that you don’t rely too heavily on unsustainable sources. Using a wide variety of lead sources will help to minimize risk.
Adam Steele // LeanMarketing.ca // @Twitter
~ Vancouver Internet entrepreneur ~
Get social. I want you to examine two people who have wow’d me over and over again: Patrick Coombe and Joel Klette. It won’t be hard to find these guys, because they are everywhere, doing awesome stuff.
They are hanging out where marketers (their niche) are hanging out, engaging, and helping people as much as they can. They are present, and for that I guarantee you they are banking. Another truly remarkable example is Linda Buquet.
Get published. Offer your expertise on small, less-known blogs and work your way up. Start even smaller, and be consistent commenter on blogs in your niche. When you comment, you provide the blog with value, and affirm the blog writer.
It feels good, and they will be tickled. When you’re ready, fire them an email and chances are they will be open to your contributions in some way.
Leverage that small publication, to get in a slightly bigger one…and it will snowball. Casey Merazcomes to mind…he’s a beast!
Interview people. Want to stroke people’s ego, all-while getting to meet super interesting characters? Offer them an interview on your budding….blog/podcast/etc.
Not only will you have an opportunity to learn, and create some fantastic content, you can piggy back on their audience, exposing yourself to a whole new group of folks. Everyone wins!
Andrew James // BrandBuilders.io/
~ Brand Builders co-founder and marketing expert ~
Our top 3 ways to get qualified leads:
Social PPC – You can reach 99% of your targeted customers on social media, especially Facebook.
FB ads have one of the most comprehensive targeting options nowadays. You can place your ad in front of anyone your want at any time.
Let’s say you’re an SEO agency, and you’d like to target dentists in Brooklyn, NYC. You can go ahead and use FB’s in-depth targeting options to present your awesome, eye-catching ad ONLY to dentists in BK, NYC by using demographic targeting.
A lot of dentists will click on your ad and land on your simple landing page where you’ll offer them your services for a free/small fee (first month) if they sign up right away.
After that, you can do what you do best.
Outreach/Guest posting – If you’re new to the game, try to connect with the other influencers in your niche that already have a pretty large following. This is easier said than done, but it can be executed flawlessly with just a little of imagination.
You can offer to write a guest post for them or offer them your expertise for free. You could even go ahead and search their site for broken links and make sure they know about it – this would be a solid introduction.
In the trenches – This is something I personally love to do. You should go ahead and find out where your target audience/leads spend most of their time (online). Forums, blogs, FB groups, Yahoo Answers, Quora, Reddit…hundreds of potential traffic sources – all up for grabs.
Once you lock them down, go ahead and create an account/register and start ontributing. If you provide enough value by presenting solutions to their problems – you’ll definitely win them over and convert them to leads in no time.
Andy Crestodina // OrbitMedia.com // @Twitter
~ Web strategist, speaker, content marketer, environmentalist and author ~
#1. Digital marketers have a saying “where there’s traffic, there’s hope.” So step one in
increasing leads is increasing traffic. Search traffic is the most likely to convert into business leads, because visitors from search have intent. They’re looking for something! Traffic from social is much less likely to become a lead.
So start by making sure that your website is indicating relevance for phrases that your target audience is looking for. Cover the SEO basics by using the main, business category and service offerings in the title tag and header of your home page.
Make sure that the title of your home page isn’t “home” That’s the worst possible title.
#2. Next, you’re not going to turn these visitors into leads unless you give them proof that you’re legitimate. Make sure that every marketing claim is backed up with evidence.
The fastest, easiest way is testimonials. But never make a testimonials page, because visitors don’t go there. Make every page a testimonials page! This is absolutely key in best practices for lead generation websites.
#3. The third steps isn’t as obvious. Not every lead is going to hire you. That’s normal. So you want to keep in touch with people so they’ll think of you next time they may need your help.
But there are many of them! So how do you keep in touch with hundreds of people? Email. As long as you have a content marketing program, producing helpful, relevant content, you have a reason to send an email weekly or monthly. This will help them keep you in mind.
So if you don’t win their business, don’t worry. Just make sure to offer politely to add them to your list. This will help you get the lead next time!
Ashley Faulkes // MadLemmings.com // @Twitter
~ Website Developer, SEO, Content & WordPress enthusiast ~
Getting new leads for any business is one of the most challenging areas of marketing. But deciding on the best way to do this for your business really depends on your situation and your type of business.
For my business, at least in the early stages I am in now, here are the best ways I currently get new leads:
Relationships with other online marketers: they key here is to understand that people I network with online are in a similar but different business.
They have my ideal client, but are not offering the same services as me. This type of lead generation is perfect for any business. Basically you are partnering, or helping each other out.
Offline meetups: metting people in person is one of the best ways of really establishing relationships in your area and industry.
I attend a variety of meetups in my area, as well as conferences, in order to expand my network. This can not only lead to amazing relationships and great friendships, but also leads.
Inbound marketing: blogging combined with email marketing is an extremely scalable way of getting leads. You can create long lasting content that attracts your ideal customer over and over again.
Then, once you get them on an email list and send them other helpful material, you can slowly turn them into a fan or future customer. Out of all these three, this one takes the longest.
Barry Feldman // FeldmanCreative.com // @Twitter
~ Focused on effective digital marketing, content marketing, consultant, copywriter ~
The top dog for generating leads—opt-ins especially—is offering a must-have lead magnet, which can be a variety of content types. My first choice tends to be an eBook or guide of some sort positioning your company as an authority in its niche.
Number two, I’m a fervent advocate of guest blogging. You can’t build an email list without traffic and most up-and-comers are challenged finding an audience.
So, target leading publishers in your field and offer them an immensely valuable post. When you land the gig, don’t make it over-the-top self-serving, but do include links to your website and compelling reasons to visit.
Finally, webinars—or any opportunity to teach, such as interviews, podcasts, video, speaking gigs, etc.—can be a goldmine for generating leads. Prepare to deliver remarkable value and present it without being salesy. Your audience will want more.
Bill Ross // LinchPinseo.com // @Twitter
~ Digital Strategist,Traveler. Golfer. Photographer. Tea Snob. ~
1. Understand What Your Users Find Valuable
This should be the first step in any marketing campaign. Spending a little money up front to better understand your users will pay off in the long term.
These insights can be used to create content, optimize your website for search, build your website’s taxonomy, and even drive media campaigns.
2. Put The User First By Going Above and Beyond
Putting your users first and going above and beyond what they would expect, is an easy want to create brand loyalty, and even get some free PR.
According to a 2015 Aspect Customer Experience Survey, 76% of consumers say they view customer service as the true test of how much a company values them.
3. Create Engaging Website Experiences That Earn Credibility
Don’t just create a website, build an experience that allow users to efficiently and effectively find information to solve their problems – this is one of our guiding web design principles.
Research from Stanford University shows that 46.1 percent of the over 2,500 people studied say a website’s design is the top criteria for deciding if a company is credible or not.
The best way to do this is to include the users throughout the creation process to get constant feedback and insights about the user journey.
Andrew Ford // SocialStar.com.au // @Twitter
~ Empowering individuals to attract opportunities by building powerful personal brands online. ~
While there are numerous methods to draw in leads such as cold calling, I highly recommend the e-ttraction marketing approach.
Why?
Through the first-hand experience from myself and my clients, it has a higher conversion rate that typically results in repeat customers.
1. LinkedIn
When people ‘google’ your name, your LinkedIn profile is likely to be top of the search result. So it gives you an evergreen channel to generate leads. I would also recommend that you share content and publish blog posts on a frequent basis.
This keeps you top of mind among your connections as the go-to person within your niche. I had prospects who messaged me out of the blue for help, and the main reason it happened was because they were following my content.
2. Networking Events
It is essential that you construct a compelling pitch. Most people head to networking events without a game plan. They talk to anyone without having a clear idea of their ideal client and how to move the interaction forward.
So the first step is to know your call to action. For instance, is the next step to schedule a strategy session where you explore their challenges? If the people are not your ideal clients, fret not.
They might have a potential to become a referral partner if they serve similar clients. Either way, you need a compelling pitch. Here is a guide to help you through the process (https://socialstar.leadpages.co/guidebook-pitch/).
3. Speaking
Presenting about a topic in front of your prospects positions you as the authority. Your audience can experience your knowledge and personality while dedicating their full attention to you for the duration of the speech.
That is rare in a busy world of distractions and shiny objects. During the speech, you can weave stories and anecdotes that relate to your product. It should also link nicely with the call to action at the end of the presentation such as booking a consultation call.
I cover more in-depth tips in this video tutorial here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJt7sb2G9ZA).
Brandon Doyle // WallaRooMedia.com // @Twitter
~ Marketing, travel, TV, wallaroos, SEO, startups, sports, & stocks. ~
There are many ways to increase leads for your business, but here are my top three:
1) SEO – Search engine optimization is still my favorite way to increase leads. It is the primary medium by which we at Wallaroo Media get our leads and clients.
It can take a handful of months to ramp up, depending on the keywords you’re targeting, but it’s very effective. Do not neglect SEO. If you do it right, it can truly transform your business.
2) Hacking Social Media – Don’t just “be” on social media. Figure out how to hack it for your industry. Are there Twitter Chats you can jump into? Is your demographic on Snapchat? If so, you should be doing that.
Are you building your Instagram following through trending hashtags? Are you using Advanced Twitter Search to find potential leads/customers in real time? Those are all key ways to connect with potential leads and build your business.
3) Influencer Outreach – One of the strategies we’ve been doing a lot lately, with a lot of success, is influencer outreach. Identify your demographic and what types of influencers they follow on social media or which blogs they follow.
Then contact those people and do whatever you need to do to get them to feature your product/service. Build up those relationships and turn those influencers into brand ambassadors. Then, profit!
Brian Lang // SmallBusinessIdeasBlog.com // @Twitter
~ Business owner since 2002 and Blogger ~
There are many ways to increase sales and there are no “best” ways, but rather many tactics that can work. The tactics that a person should select depend heavily on the type of business and the market. But here are some popular tactics.
1. Referrals
Referrals work really well because they generate warm leads from people who already have had a good experience with your product. In fact, sometimes your referrers do most of the selling for you.
2. PPC / Social Advertising
Paid advertising can be a good way to reach a lot of prospects quickly. With Facebook ads, for example, you can even target people by profession, spending behavior, interests, etc.
You can also target people that already subscribed to your email list, already visited certain pages on your website or lookalike audiences.
3. Outbound sales
A lot of your prospects will never see your marketing, so outbound sales is a good way to reach a lot of people. Cold calling and cold emailing still work and there are many businesses that have grown into multi-million dollar companies using only outbound sales.
Buckley Barlow // BeInTheKnow.co // @Twitter
~ PodcastHost/Author/Blogger. Investor ~
I’m a big believer in content marketing as it has helped me grow several ventures. Below are 3 ideas within content marketing that have a solid ROI in terms of lead generation.
1) Podcasting.
You’re probably thinking, a “podcast”? Yes, a podcast is a lead generation machine.
Truly, it has become one of the best new ways within content marketing to gain a qualified lead.
Let me give you a quick case study: I’m a host of Marketing In The Know podcast where I get to interview amazing entrepreneurs and growth marketing pros.
A CEO of an emerging growth company recently listened to my show and happened to know the guest, Eric Smith, on an episode.
The CEO reached out to the Eric and asked how the interview went. Eric told him that it was an amazing interview and that I really knew my stuff when it came to growing ventures, which lead to the CEO reached out for consulting.
Content is content, but content that really showcases you as an expert will always deliver a good pipeline of leads.
2) Infographics.
Infographics fall under visual content marketing. I happen to love design and love the way infographics can quickly tell a story. So, I set out to rank a blog post around a beautiful infographic.
3) Quick case study of success:
I wanted to rank on Googles first page for the term “Modern Marketing Funnel” and so what did I do? I built an amazing infographic around the blog post topic of Modern Marketing Funnel.
I shared that infographic on Reddit and other infographic sites and not only did we receive over 2,000 shares, we ended up ranking #1 on Google within 3 months. The result? I have received a dozen leads from that blog post/infographic asking our team to help them with their content marketing and SEO.
One of my favorite content marketing tools is Snip.ly. I usually use Snip.ly when I send out a post via social media. What’s cool about Snip.ly, is that as you have the reader’s attention on your post, you can create a very noticeable call to action as it relates to the post.
For example, I shared a recent recession post with a Snip.ly link (which shows up at the bottom of the post). The Snip.ly link simply said, “Need Help Navigating the Upcoming Recession?”
Instead of a Buy From Me call to action, I used a more subtle approach. The call to action was “Follow me on Twitter”. The result? 3 qualified leads via Twitter within 3 weeks. Not a bad ROI for the whole 60 seconds it took me to put together the Snip.ly link.
Carrie Hill // IgnitorDigital.com // @Twitter
~ Passionate about research, social media, and Schema Markup! ~
Email marketing – done correctly – can greatly increase leads and turn existing customers in leads into new sales or follow-up sales. Expressing interest by opting in makes an email list of “interested parties” much easier to convert into actual leads and sales.
You can also use existing lists/customers as an email marketing opportunity. It’s much easier to sell to a customer that’s already familiar with your brand.
If you sell a product or service that’s consumable, why not re-market that product or service to customers that have purchased from your company already.
Analytics – Mine your analytics for lost opportunities. Pages that arent creating leads can be updated, referrers who aren’t leading to prospects can be tweaked or abandoned for better channels.
Analytics is about much more than just reviewing what worked last month, it’s about taking that information and building upon it and tweaking current practices to improve outcomes to align with your KPIs.
Market Research – Many businesses have competitors that are larger or dominant in their space. Researching the markets/directories/referrers/practices that work for them can help you fine-tune your targeting and marketing scope.
If you sell green widgets, and you know there is a huge player in the green widget industry – what are they doing to be that big player?
By reverse engineering their business using link discovery tools (Moz or Majestic), crawl and keyword mining tools (ScreamingFrog or SEMRush), and pay per click intelligence tools (Spyfu or Keywordspy) you can see what’s working for them and pick the practices that make the most sense for your business.
Watch for what they DO, but also watch for what they’re NOT DOING, and take advantage of their weak spots in your market.
Chris Goward // WiderFunnel.com // @Twitter
~ Founder, author of You Should Test That!, keynote speaker ~
The best way to increase lead generation depends on each particular business context. While there is a top way for a business, there is not a top way for all businesses.
First, identify your target audience and personas. You should understand their needs, wants, motivations, and questions as well as the typical demographic and job-related data.
Your job is to deliver a powerful value proposition message with clarity and relevance, avoiding creating anxiety and distraction, and adding a sense of urgency. You can remember this formula by using the LIFT Model marketing framework.
Second, create content that answers their questions and shows them how to meet their needs, wants, and motivations.
Third, find out where they are and provide hooks to get them to your content. This could be through search marketing, social media, conferences, and even – gasp! – advertising.
Fourth, create powerful landing pages with the right content, offer, and messaging that deliver relevant content.
You may be surprised which messages and offers work best, which is why you should always test the most important elements of your pages. For example, WiderFunnel has run a lot of A/B tests on landing page for Iron Mountain.
In one of the experiments, we wanted to know whether a whitepaper download or a “request a quote” call to action would generate more leads. Surprisingly, in this case, request a quote worked better. That’s not always the case, which is why you should test that!
Finally, once you’ve generate your leads, you should qualify and triage them. The highest quality opportunities go directly to sales and the not-yet-qualified leads should go into a content-driven nurture campaign.
And, don’t forget the importance of fast lead response times. It can make or break a deal.
Chris Makara // ChrisMakara.com // @Twitter
~ Interactive Marketing & Digital Strategist. Skilled in #SEO, #SocialMedia & #InteractiveMarketing ~
This is a great question and will obviously differ depending on your industry or site, so it’s always best to test and see what works best for you.
So for this, I’m going to list the top 3 ways I recently used for a brand new site/blog. The ways that I was able to increase leads were through content marketing, content upgrades, and SEM – specifically remarketing.
1. Content Marketing
The first piece of the puzzle is to create a killer piece of content. In this case, I put together a roundup post where over 100 experts revealed their 3 favorite social media management tools.
While there are no shortage of roundup posts (because they work so well), it helps to make it stand out more by doing something different.
For this roundup, I focused on offering the users the ability to filter results based on what tools were mentioned as well as the category the tool best fit into.
Additionally, I created a custom template just for this post that would catch your eye because it is so different from just listing out each person and their answers.
Once published, I promoted this piece of content pretty well on social media. To date, it has over 2,000 social shares. Not too bad for a brand new site.
Because the piece of content offered value to the reader, it easily helped drive leads to the page who ultimately gave up their email address through the use of an exit overlay.
2. Content Upgrades
What would any great piece of content be without something enticing, like a content upgrade?
For those unfamiliar with this term, it is basically a way for you to offer up something related to the blog post for the reader in exchange for their email address.
For this blog post, I packaged up all of the social media tools mentioned into a downloadable PDF.
This content upgrade was added towards the beginning of the blog post as well as the end. It is also part of the exit overlay.
Since the content upgrade directly related to the blog post the visitor was reading, it has been very successful in generating leads/email addresses.
3. Remarketing
The third successful way I was able to generate leads was through the use of remarketing. Since I had a good feeling that this post was going to get a decent amount of social love, I set up a remarketing script for this page. For this post, I used Facebook remarketing ads.
I set it up like any other remarketing campaign. It tagged people who had visited the blog URL but who did not visit the thank you page visitors are sent to after a form submission. I only targeted these users with the ad and ended up getting subscribers/leads at a pretty good price.
By stacking these 3 things together, I was able to generate a considerable amount of leads for a brand new website.
Christopher Gimmer // Snappa.io // @Twitter
~ Co-founder of @SnappaIO – Graphic Designer ~
Here are 3 great ways to increase leads for one’s business:
1) Guest posting on relevant blogs
Guest posting is a tried and true method that works extremely well if you line up the right opportunities. Essentially, you want to make sure that the blogs you’re guest posting on have aligned interests with your own products or services.
When you guest post on another blog, make sure to give a clear call to action with an offer in your author bio.
To find blogs to guest post on, try search strings like “Keyword” + “Write for us” or “Keyword” + “Guest post”.
2) Create a lead magnet
Getting people to your website is only half the battle. The other challenge is converting visitors into subscribers.
A lead magnet is simply an extra incentive for opting-in to your list. This can be an eBook, a whitepaper, a PDF guide, a toolkit, whatever makes sense.
If you want to really boost your opt-in rates, then create lead magnets for specific blog posts (also known as a content upgrade). The more relevant the offer, the higher your opt-ins will be.
Lead magnet ideas: https://blog.snappa.io/lead-magnet-ideas/
3) Get featured on podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to get exposure for both your product and your brand. I like them especially because you’re given the green light to be promotional and talk about yourself and your products.
Additionally, podcasts don’t require any writing. Just show up and be yourself for 30-60 minutes.
And believe it or not, they convert relatively well.
How to get featured on podcasts: https://blog.snappa.io/how-to-get-featured-on-podcasts/
Corey Northcutt // NorthCutt.com // @Twitter
~ CEO @northcuttHQ, Internet Marketer ~
The top three ways to generate leads for a business are organic search, content marketing, and strong, crisp calls to action that are closely married to the theme of the content and desires of the audience.
Long term, nothing beats organic online marketing because the results are cumulative and is attention that you own, not rent. That puts organic at ends with paid media, that while faster, is an expense rather than an investment.
With organic search, be thorough. Everybody knows a little SEO these days, but few bother to consider everything. My team embraces this through our the research in our 270+ Google ranking factors fact check, and a related 1,200 step audit.
With content, know the data behind your audience. Few realize that a lot of top publications are generating topics using algorithms now; but it can be as simple as following your Twitter engagement and Google Analytics, then putting your best foot forward with content resembling what does best.
And with calls to action, ask for little and give a lot. Getting nothing more than an e-mail address is usually enough, and the most effective places to be doing it right now are in-line with your content or in an exit intent pop-up. Entice with more content on the exact topic that interested them.
Daniel Thompson // MyLocalSeo.ca // @Twitter
~ SEO, Paid Media Specialist. Marketing Enthusiast. Helping local businesses drive profitable traffic ~
The first is seminars. We hold events which teach local businesses owners how to show up in the search engines. What we’ve discovered is
a) 95% of business owners are lost when it comes to their online presence
b) Many of these same business owners will realize that they don’t want to do the work.
This creates a room full of people who are interested in our service (in this case local SEO) and the majority of them will quickly realize they’re too busy to actually do the work which drives sales for us.
We fill these up by being active in the local business community and by partnering with larger agencies.
Develop partnerships. The number one way we’ve found clients is by leveraging the reach of larger agencies. Most marketing and PR agencies don’t really know what they’re doing for local search. They also charge a fortune and have the resources to net big clients.
This is true across the board, agencies are usually good at one or two things and are awful at the rest (or in some cases they don’t even offer it). So if you’re a paid search specialist, SEO specialist, content marketing expert, web designer etc.
There are agencies who have massive holes in their full service agency that you could fill.
My third example is Local SEO. While it’s not a major driver for our business we’ve had plenty of success stories. A trainer who works in a small market ramped up his business by 500% in a little over a year (word of mouth and SEO is the only marketing he’s done).
If you operate in an uncompetitive SEO environment leverage it (anything tech related is competitive). One of our dog daycares sees over 60 dogs per day. It’s important to remember, it’s not just initial sale.
If your organic traffic grows, your leads will grow, which will turn into sales and finally those sales bring in referrals.
Dave Schneider // NinjaOutReach.com // @Twitter
~ Co-Founder of blogger outreach software. Businessman, marketing, and travel ~
Content Marketing
Content marketing drives our business. We sell software at an average of $40/month and when you sell to customers at such a low amount, traditional sales just doesn’t work, economically.
We knew from the start that we would need to build traffic through content marketing, and therefore launched a blog straight away. 18 months later and we have increased our traffic over 10x through a combination of content marketing and influencer marketing.
This means writing great content, connecting with influencers to promote it, and then optimizing it to generate leads via emails, who eventually turn into customers.
We’ve learned that people rarely convert straight from the blog itself. They have to be nurture over time.
They follow a few blog posts, sign up fr the email, then eventually sign up for a trial, maybe hop on a call with us, and finally they turn into a customer. By then it’s like they “know” us. A real winner for example has been our ultimate guide on traffic generation case studies.
We’ve made a ton of mistakes and continue to do so such as not promoting our content, or not writing content for our target audience.
Content marketing is an evolving channel, so you have to stay on the cutting edge.
Blogger Outreach
One thing to remember is what goes around comes around.
If you are diligent promoting other bloggers and their products and services, most people will return the favor.
Assuming you have bloggers in mind you who will eventually want to connect with, take the time to sign up for their newsletter. Eventually there will come a time when they will ask for help, like needing your vote for an award or a share for something they’re launching.
Do it, and subtly let them know about it by responding to the email.
Down the line, when you need something, respond to that same email, and you will greatly increase your chances of a return favor.
Email Marketing
We use Drip to fuel our marketing automation and keep us on top of leads, sign ups, and other interested subscribers. If you aren’t building a newsletter it’s probably the lowest hanging fruit!
David Jenyns // MelbourneSeoServices.com // @Twitter
~ Founder of MelbourneSEOservices.com , MelbourneVideoProduction.com.au , AuthorityContent.com and SystemHUB.com ~
The top 3 ways I know to increase leads:
#1. Authority Content
Our strongest and best performing strategy is one we call Authority Content. In short it’s a combination of content marketing and smart SEO. It’s a 3 stage process: Present, Product, Promote.
Stage 1. Present.
This stage is about batching your content creation, capturing as much quality, in-depth, rich content as you can in the shortest possible time and in the most efficient manner. This is achieved by running and videoing a mini one-day “workshop” and can can create 25+ videos.
Here are a couple of examples of the type of content created by such an event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPK7Nh04XGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3avW_sDdc8
Stage 2. Product.
This stage is about packaging the content together into something valuable that people can easily access. The content is broken into logical chunks, transcribed and SEO optimized. Typically speaking, this will take the form of a highly optimized helpful resource guide on your website. Not only will this increase your current conversion rate but it will also act as an SEO goldmine Google will love.
Here’s an example of how the finished product can look:
http://www.compasspools.com.au/faq/
The individual video pages look like this:
http://www.compasspools.com.au/videos/swimming-pool-cost/
Stage 3. Promote.
The final stage is about further sharing your content around the web with the goal to have it seen by as many prospects as possible. This involves optimizing and uploading videos to YouTube, sharing the transcripts on PDF sharing sites, creating press releases, sharing the content via social media and boosting your best performing content.
This stage becomes the secret sauce by creating the perfect combination of SEO and content marketing. Authority Content lives in the sweet spot between the two. To find out more specifically about his strategy check out: www.authoritycontent.com
#2. Boosted content to build a remarketing list
In short, we identify some of our best forming content as shared by the previous strategy – this is then promoted through a paid Facebook campaign. We will boost content through dark posts aimed directly to the target market. We cookie anyone who views or engages with the content, building our remarketing list.
This remarketing list is then hit with specific lead magnet offers through 3 networks – Facebook, Adwords Display Network and YouTube. We have found this process to be very cost effective competitive markets.
#3. Rewarding referrals
Perhaps our best lead source of all is referral traffic. Time spent to first and foremost deliver a great product makes it easier for others to talk about you. You can super charge this with personal ‘thank you’ gifts to those who do refer leads. It’s a simple yet effective strategy to treat your raving fans like gold.
Like more tips like these? Download our 20 point Authority Website Checklist:
www.melbourneseoservices.com/authority-checklist/
Dom Wells // HumanProofDesigns.com // @Twitter
~ Teaching people how to succeed with niche marketing sites; websites for sale ~
1.) It might be niche dependent, but based on my own experiences, networking with others in your niche is the best way to get more leads.
2.) When other people in your niche know about you and like you, they’ll link to your site, they’ll refer email leads to you, they’ll let you guest post on their site, and they’ll mention you in Facebook groups.
For most of 2015, the traffic source that got me the most leads was referral traffic, which was great. Once you’ve done the initial hustling and making friends with people, it repays itself over and over again.
Of course, to do it successfully you have to be sincere and you have to really want to get to know these people. Don’t just expect to become their “friends” and then take, take take.
3.) Being active in Facebook groups has been great for me too. When you share your insights with people, they end up asking for your help and trusting you. This is similar to the point above, but you’re interacting directly with your target audience/customers rather than with your peers.
4.) Create free content, answers, and resources. Nobody wants to buy from somebody who hasn’t demonstrated their expertise, and the days of content-locking are soon to be very extinct.
5.) Everybody who comes to my site and buys something from me either did it because of point 1 above, point 2 above, or because they loved my honest, helpful, content.
Doug Brown // DougBrownDesign.com // @Twitter
~ Specialize in web design, graphic design, print, logo design, marketing, package design ~
Here are my top 3 ways to increase leads that work for me:
1. Talk to people to see if they have any marketing needs for their business. People still like to connect a face or voice with a service to make them feel comfortable with a service purchase.
2. If they don’t have a need at that time, ask them to keep you in mind for future needs, but more importantly ask them to refer you to anyone they believe could use your services.
3. Never burn bridges. Even if a client relationship doesn’t go as planned, don’t let it overwhelm you and say something you may regret. You never know who knows who and if you remain on a former client’s good side, they may recommend you to someone else that could use your services.
Gael Breton // AuthorityHacker.com // @Twitter
~ Teaching how to grow authority sites ethically yet efficiently ~
When you are looking at lead generation for a business, the formula is essentially :
# of leads = traffic * conversion rate
That means that in order to increase the number of leads a business generates with their website, they need to work both on their traffic and their conversion rate.
It is important to note as well that since they multiply with each other, if one of these 2 factors performs really poorly, then inevitably, no matter how good the other is, the results will be bad.
For example:
100,000 visitors with a 0.1% conversion rate will generate 100 leads (high traffic low conversion)
500 visitors with a 10% conversion rate you will generate 50 leads (low traffic high conversion)
In both cases that’s terrible. But if you achieve a middle ground in both you land with:
50,000 visitors with a conversion rate of 5%, you will generate 2,500 leads. (mid traffic mid conversion)
That is why you need to work on both at the same time and can’t go all in on just one.
Now let’s look at ways to both improve traffic and conversions to achieve these great figures.
1 – How to increase traffic.
- Start playing content marketing and grow search engine and social media traffic
- Advertise your services on Facebook and Adwords
- Retarget your website visitors to bring them back and convert them to leads
2 – How to increase conversions
Create multiple lead magnets and content upgrades that are relevant to the page where the user lands
Implement opt in pop ups with opt in bribes
Run regular contests and giveaways to your audience to give them a reason to join your email list
I can’t exactly develop 5000 words on each topic here but these are the broad lines you should follow if you want to generate a lot more leads with your site!
Ian Pribyl // Ownyourpage.com
~ (Director of Operations) has run several successful international websites, consulted for multi-billion dollar corporations, and multiplied many local business owners’ revenues by helping them establish a dominant internet presence ~
We’re all familiar with the various lead generation techniques: SEO, PPC, social media, direct mail, networking events, cold calling…
*cringe*
Yup, cold calling. I’ve always dreaded it too, but only recently decided to “eat that frog” and start dialing for dollars. And I’m seeing great results just three weeks in.
We’re focusing extensively on SEO as well, and will pump a lot of money into PPC by the end of the year, but nothing is more approachable for a business owner than cold calling.
It’s free, puts you in front of handpicked, targeted prospects, and will fill your pipeline faster than any other early-stage lead gen technique you could use.
Want to set 1-3 appointments per day with highly-targeted prospects? Cold calling is the way to do it.
But for most of us, it’s not as simple as flipping a switch and starting to dial prospects. If it were, we’d all be doing it by now.
So all three of my tips are centered around getting out of your comfort zone and building your pipeline using “old fashioned” sales methods that a ton of gurus claim are dead.
Rise and Grind – Wake up early, get your blood flowing and your brain working, and knock out an hour or two of cold calling first thing in the morning.
My best hours are between 8:30a and 10:30a local time. People aren’t so close to lunch that they’re grouchy, but it’s not late enough in the day that they’ve “checked out” mentally.
Biting the bullet early gives you a massive feeling of accomplishment, even if you’re not setting any appointments yet.
Then you can ride that wave of productivity through the rest of the day and experience a lot of “trickle down” benefits that none of us think about when starting to cold call.
Done is Better than Perfect – My biggest mistake the first half-dozen times I tried to settle into cold calling was trying to get everything just right.
I’d rigorously research each prospect, write my scripts, mine prospects, make one call, tweak my script, research my next prospect a bit more, etc. So much time was wasted when I should have just picked up the phone and dialed.
Will you miss out on the occasional prospect that you might have set a meeting with if you’d done more research beforehand? Absolutely. But in the end, you’ll come out WAY ahead going for quantity over highly-researched prospects prior to a single call being made.
Set the first meeting, and THEN research your prospect thoroughly. Anything else is just wasting time you could be using to land your next meeting.
Mix It Up with In-Person Drop-Bys – After I’ve called/emailed for 3-4 weeks, I’ll drop by my prospect’s office (if they have one and are local) to see if I can get some face-time.
Let them see your smiling face, and help them help you by showing that you’re a kind, caring person that just wants to help their business.
If they’re not available, I’ll ask to leave a “note” and hand them a card with an actual music note on it.
It almost always gives the gatekeeper a laugh and a smile, which opens the door just a little bit more for the next time you call.
A few weeks after that, if I still haven’t gotten the initial 10-minute appointment I’m trying to set, I’ll drop by early in the morning with 1-2 dozen donuts for the staff.
I’ll leave a note with those as well – something the prospect is sure to see.
Use every opportunity to plant another seed for your company’s brand. The more they hear/see it, the more likely you are to finally get that “yes” – particularly if each one of your interactions has been pleasant and helpful.
There’s so much more you can do to stand out and win your prospect’s attention. Mail a handwritten thank you card to standout gatekeepers. Send the prospect a helpful article related to their industry.
The list goes on and on. Check out Jeb Blount’s book “Fanatical Prospecting” if you’re as anti-cold-calling as I was. You might end up a convert, just like me.
As long as you stick with it and commit to busting your butt, these are some of the few actions you can take TODAY to make huge strides toward your loftiest income goals.
Or, of course, you could just hire us for SEO 😉
Jacques Van Heerden // JacquesVH.com // @Twitter
~ Entrepreneur, business man, show host, and husband to @thecarlivh ~
Time and time again I’ve seen businesses crumble because they don’t have enough leads in their pipeline. The only way to scale your business is to get down to the roots of selling your products or services and having qualified leads help you go just that much further.
My top three tips to increase leads would be:
1. Make sure that you qualify your leads before interacting with them. Look into your respective market and identify your ideal customer, create a targeted campaign towards that customer and provide them with something valuable that only you would be able to provide.
2. (Free trial, free software, free product) and swap their contact information for the opportunity to receive your gift. Now you have a potential customer on the books.
3. Serve your employees. Now Jacques, that doesn’t make sense. Let me simplify it for you once more, “Serve your employees who serve your customers who reward your business with revenue.”
4. Set a good example for your team members, help them develop their skill sets and harness their ambition for growth towards scaling your business. Quantify their rewards by offering commissions on top of their current salaries.
5. Give them credit where it’s due. Not only will they innovate to find more leads, but even their personal networks would be up for grabs.
6. Ask your customers for referrals. Word of mouth is still the biggest motivator when it comes to selling products. Word of something good on the street spreads like wildfire, especially because of the ample amount of social platform we have.
7. Make sure your customer service is exceptional, make sure your service does what it says it does. Make sure your product delivers the results you promise it does and lastly, remember that customers are gold, treat them that way.
Now my methods might sound simple or repetitive, but if you can read through the lines of what I wrote above, you’ll see exactly what you need to do in order to always keep your pipeline full.
James Blews // JamesBlews.com // @Twitter
~ Digital Marketer, Entrepreneur, Blogger ~
The first way to increase leads for business is simply fix PPC advertising campaigns. Negative keywords, not using geolocation and neglecting the correlation between the ad copy and the landing pages ALL destroy your conversions – which means your leads drop.
Understand that negative keywords gives you the focus on your primary keywords. Set the targets for your campaigns to target by the region to target those people.
Create ad copy, your 3 second sales pitch, and correlate it with the destination of your ad to get the most strength and best opportunity for lead acquisition from ads.
The second way to increase leads for business involves traffic already coming into your website. A lot of businesses have long, lengthy, crazy book-size forms for potential customers to fill out.
When business stop caring about ‘why’ a lead is contacting you (you know they want more info to buy from you), and starts caring about moving them to the next step, conversions and lead gathering increase.
Instead, businesses should focus on two things when it comes to lead generation: a phone number or an email. You want a name with each of these, but getting an email means you have a warm lead.
Getting a phone number from them means a really warm lead (not to mention an SMS marketing point). Whenever you mention your phone number, make it a link or a button that links to your phone number. Getting leads calling, means getting leads converting.
The last method for business to increase leads encompasses both of these previous tips. Businesses can increase their leads from day one by using Google AdWords’ “Call Only” ad types.
For no more CPC value than a traditional AdWords ad, you can have a user when searching on Google’s platform click to call you directly. Currently, there is some public data suggesting that this isn’t an ‘end all, be all’ form of advertising.
James Reynolds // SeoSherpa.com // @Twitter
~ Dubai based entrepreneur. Marketer,SEO – Contributor to @Entrepreneur and @GulfBusiness ~
I’ll make this easy for you…
There are really only 2 ways to increase your leads
1. Increase traffic
2. Increase conversions
And here’s the deal: traffic is the easy part.
There are literally a thousand ways you can acquire traffic; social media, SEO, print, email, media buys, radio…the list goes on.
The issue that most marketers have is that they don’t have an offer that converts. Without a converting offer you can generate all the traffic you want and you’ll still have no leads.
You should always start with conversions.
To begin, I suggest you test different “lead magnets.” These could be white papers, consumer guides, tutorials or free consultations etc. Once you find one that converts above the rest you should work on improving it’s conversion rate by testing different messaging, design and call-to-actions.
Hopefully through this process you’ll find your high converting offer. Once you have that, you can then ramp up your traffic.
Jayson DeMers // AudienceBloom.com // @Twitter
~ Founder & CEO of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based content marketing & social marketing agency, writer for Forbes, HuffPo, and more ~
The top 3 ways to increase leads for one’s business are what I call the “3 pillars” of SEO: Content, links, and social media.
Content consists of all the information (including meta information) on your website, including its level of optimization from an organic search perspective.
Links refer to inbound links to your website from other websites, which act as votes of authority, trust, and relevance for your website, in the eyes of search engines. Social media plays a number of roles in SEO, while largely serving as a content amplifier.
Focus on these 3 areas, and your business leads will increase organically — that is, without paying directly for them (as with PPC or SEM). I covered these in-depth in my eBook, The Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Business Online.
Jon Dykstra // FatStacksBlog.com // @Twitter
~ Entrepreneur, Marketer, SEO and Blogger ~
The answer depends on the type of business.
My answer is split up across 2 types of businesses.
Local Business:
I’ve owned a local brick and mortar service business and without a doubt the best way to generate leads is getting website visitors to call on the telephone.
By speaking to prospective clients on the phone, you get their contact info, help them out immediately and have a really good chance to invite them for a consultation or visit your place of business.
Online business:
Unless you sell on the phone, the best way (best referring to balancing cost and return) is attracting website visitors to an email newsletter. Aside from the cost to get people to sign up, there’s no ongoing cost except nominal auto responder costs.
Once subscribe, there’s no cost to communicate with email subscribers. Moreover, emails can be sent almost instantaneously.
Now to the specifics.
What’s the best sign up form?
This has varied over time as new technologies develop.
However, for me right now, the Welcome mat is performing better than anything I’ve used in 12 months. Yes, it’s still novel, which helps, but it’s also unavoidable.
I’m currently using SumoMe’s Welcome mat. I pay for the pro version so I can customize it, which I believe helps conversions quite a bit.
To recap, my 3 tips for increasing leads are:
The telephone for local business leads and perhaps high-end digital product sales.
Email marketing for online businesses
SumeMe’s pro Welcome Mat for best email sign up conversion rate.
See the SumoMe welcome mat in action – visit Fat Stacks Entrepreneur here.
Johan Hedin // MarketingIgnite.com // @Twitter
~ Businessman, Marketer, have passion for helping others. ~
Having run marketing campaigns for lead generation businesses since 1998, the ones that have worked really well for our clients are targeted search campaigns in Adwords and SEO.
The third most effective way would be Bing/Yahoo PPC or Social Media campaigns using Facebook/Linkedin in depending on the client’s needs. Here you can see one of the many adwords campaign that worked really well. 907 sign ups in one month.
John Chow // JohnChow.com // @Twitter
~ Blogger, speaker and entrepreneur ~
From my experience, the top three ways to increase leads to a business are:
1 – referrals from current customers
2 – offer a lead magnet
3 – buy them
Jon Haver // AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com // @Twitter
~ After paying off $23.5k in student loans over 3 years I have become inspired to help others pay off their debt ~
The top 3 ways to increase leads for a business are…
1. Guest Posts/JV’s/Mentions/Outreach – By whatever name you call it, the number one way to increase leads is to identify an audience that would be interested in what your service is and get whomever the leader of that community is to share your solution to their problem with them!
2. Content Marketing – If you need a consistent flow of traffic there is almost no option in my opinion that is better than reliably producing quality content that helps your target audience. In whatever form that takes is less important than the usefulness and consistency of the content.
3. Build an Email List – Depending on what you are offering your target audience may not all be ready for the service/product right away. However, by capturing their email you have the opportunity to build a longer term relationship with them so that when they do need your service they will “put their hand up” and you will be able to reach out to them!
John Paul Aguiar // JohnPaulAguiar.com // @Twitter
~ Help Bloggers, Entrepreneurs To Use Blog Marketing, Twitter Marketing, Social Media. Kidney Transplant Rec. #6 Forbes Top Social Media Influencers 2013,14 ~
My tops 3 ways to build leads for a business is Social Media “Twitter, Webinars, Videos.
Social media, mainly Twitter still has power, Twitter let’s you be active, you can actively get in front of 100 – 500 new people every day for Free. For me, this would be the first place I go to start grabbing leads.
Webinars are powerful too, because you get to show and prove your “expert” in a helping way. By hosting a webinar and being SUPER helpful with the content you share is a very powerful way to get more leads.
Video, if done right can be a great place to let people see you and hear from you making it easier for them to trust you. Once you gain trust, it will be MUCH easier to then bring those people in as new leads.
Laura Waage // LauraWaage.com // @Twitter
~ AUTHOR | SPEAKER | CONSULTANT helping businesses and entrepreneurs to find, keep and generate more online profits ~
Leads can be generated in a myriad of ways, but here’s three of my favorites that garner the best results:
1. Fish in a well stocked pond. The best place to find a lead is to visit the places where your ideal client is already hanging out. As an example, if you sell in the sports niche, then run Facebook Ads that only appear in the feeds of those who already “Like” ESPN, Bleacher Reports, etc.
This exposes you to your ideal prospect while simultaneously allowing you to maximize your advertising spend.
2. Seek to be guilty by association. Third party validation expands your list by giving you visibility to a wider audience. Find shining stars in your niche who already have a large following and collaborate with them.
Whether you interview them and publish the interview, write an article for them to share on their blog, or reference them in an article that they then share with their audience – any and all of these tactics will help you expose your brand, product, or offering to a larger audience that’s already brimming with your ideal client.
3. Go old school. Face to face isn’t always the go-to method in our digitally-connected world, which makes it a fantastically overlooked means for finding qualified leads. Meetup.com is an example of a phenomenal outlet for identifying and connecting with your target market in your own backyard.
Connect with groups that either are your target audience, or work directly with your target audience, and then network with them in person. I recently helped a client who sells physical products in the arts and crafts space to increase their sales by 17% over a two month period.
How? We researched all the crafting groups in their geographical area and had the owners attend relevant, local MeetUp’s.
In doing so, they connected with multiple mainstream crafters who had large, established, online followings. They gave each crafter a gift basket filled with their crafting products and then asked them to share their honest opinions socially.
Their products are great, so the opinions were equally great, and the face to face meetings translated into sales-generating, social sharing gold.
The important thing to always remember is you don’t know who you don’t know. If you always work to cast a wider net, you’ll easily and naturally attract more leads.
Marko Saric // HowToMakeMyBlog.com // @Twitter
~ Advisor and blogger. I write about content marketing, social media and blogging ~
These are three ways I would go in order to increase the traffic to a website and the number of leads I am getting for a business:
1. Have great content to attract people to your website. You need to publish content of value. Something that’s thrilling, makes their lives easier and answers their questions.
2. Something that’s easier-to-understand and/or more entertaining than everything else that is out there. Here’s the example of how I create content.
3. Have a marketing strategy to get the word out about your quality content to relevant people through social media, popular blogs and websites, and influencers in your field.
4. Without this you will be losing out on the potential of getting large traffic. Here are examples of places where I go to promote my content.
5. Have a great and relevant offer within your content to entice visitors to signup for your mailing list, take a trial of your software, or buy your product or services.
6. No reason to have any flashy banners, pop-ups and ads like that. Just include a simple, text-based call-to-action within the content itself for something that’s very relevant and valuable in regards to the topic of the post.
Matthew Barby // MatthewBarby.com // @Twitter
~ Global Head of Growth & SEO @HubSpot, award winning blogger, industry speaker and lecturer @DMIgroup. ~
I’ve been focusing a lot of my time on website optimization projects. Determining ways to grow leads to your business is very dependant on the situation but here are three ways that I’ve found to be places to start looking:
1. Optimise your conversion funnel by aligning relevant offers to individual content pieces to drive new leads.
2. Test different methods for building your email list through different CTAs. For example, exit popups, inline CTAs, scroll boxes, etc.
3. Focus on driving more organic traffic to individual lead capture landing pages by optimizing them against relevant keywords and improving internal linking to them.
Nathan Gotch // GotchSeo.com // @Twitter
~ Helping entrepreneurs create wealth through SEO strategies that actually work. ~
Geo-Targeted Landing Pages
The first lead generation technique I ever used was creating geo-targeted landing pages. I still use it to this day.
An example is ” SEO company”.
The first thing you need to do is create a strong piece of content targeting the keyword.
Example: “7 Scams Atlanta SEO Companies Will Try to Sell You”
Then you need to get geo-relevant backlinks to the page (geo-targeted directories, geo-targeted blogs).
These pages will rank well if you wrote a strong piece of content and you get enough backlinks. It’s also important that you continue to build the authority of your site. To build your site’s authority you need to produce high value content. Bringing me to my next point…
Create User-Centric Content
Every company should focus on creating content around a specific keyword. But, you should also try to create content that solves your prospective customer’s problems. You have to think about how to solve your prospects problems at all stages of the sales funnel.
For example, let’s say you want your traffic to convert into direct sales. If that’s the case, then you need to focus more effort on transactional queries. You may want to use 80/20 for transactional queries (80%) vs informational queries (20%).
To find keywords and content ideas begin by using the Google Keyword Planner. Once you have tapped into that, start investigating niche-relevant forums and Q&A sites. If you have funds, I recommend investing in SEMRush to gather competitor keyword data.
Authority Building / Hustling
If you are serious about driving a sickening amount of leads to your site, then you need to hustle. That means you need to build your authority on Q&A sites like Quora and get guest posts published. At the same time, you need promote your content like a savage.
Establishing yourself/your brand as an authority in your space should be a priority.
You should also hustle on Craigslist.
Some of the first leads I got my SEO agency were through Craigslist. First, scope out the “Gigs” section. Then, reach out and give incredible value in your emails.
There is good news.
You won’t have to use outbound lead generation tactics for long.
Leads will start pouring in once:
- your geo-targeted landing pages are ranking
- and your content is getting long-tail search traffic
Nathan Thomas // IncomeBully.com // @Twitter
~ Marketing Addict. Political Junkie. Sharing my experience in #Marketing and #business. ~
Wow, top 3 ways to generate leads, it’s tough to answer. There’s so many different forms of lead generation a business can successfully implement, but I’ll go ahead and list my top 3 that I regularly recommend to companies.
1.) Strong Focus on Local SEO
If you’re a local business, you have to place importance on local SEO. That being said, you have to make sure you’re well positioned to handle the traffic.
That means optimizing your website for more than just search engines, but for conversions. Mobile search numbers are steadily increasing so you also need to make sure to have a mobile responsive website, otherwise you’re missing out on a lot of potential traffic as well as customers.
2.) Retention and Nurturing
For some reason, a lot of marketers ignore this. A lot of business owners are missing out on one of the most powerful and highest converting source of leads. Your existing client/customer base.
With a strong retention program, your company increases the average customer value because you increase the average time your customer remains a customer!
BiznessApps.com is an easy way to stay in front of your customer base on the long term with push notifications, reminders, and loyalty programs for your own customized mobile app.
If you’re in need of additional leads to your funnel, asking your existing customer base is a great way to get them. You just need to make sure you have a strong retention program in place.
Lead nurturing is goes hand in hand with retention, same concept but targeted at different areas of your sales funnel.
Ideas for retention and lead nurturing:
· Email Marketing with Helpful Content
· Mobile App
· Monthly newsletters in print or online
3.) Paid Traffic/Ads
More and more companies are getting online and fighting for their share of the market. While SEO and content marketing can be phenomenal tools you can use, sometimes it takes a bit longer than you’d like. That’s why paid ads can be enticing.
There’s a lot of different sources you can use paid ads or pay-per-click campaigns. Google Adwords is probably the most prestigious and definitely most common among business owners but can end up being very expensive! Facebook ads, Bing ads, and other sources often are cheaper and provide a much better return on investment.
If you have strong on-the-phone sales skills, then you may want to invest in Pay-Per-Call campaigns with Google Ads. Just make sure to limit your campaign to show only during the hours you can answer, otherwise it is money down the drain!
While these are 3 things I can confidently recommend to everyone in business, never underestimate the power of traditional offline methods.
As more people switch their marketing budgets to reflect more of a presence with digital marketing, there will still be opportunities offline.
Nisa Amoils // NewyorkAngels.com // @Twitter
~ Tech investor, entrepreneur, marketer, recovering lawyer ~
For consumer oriented businesses:
1. Solicit feedback on social media. Getting people engaged is a great lead generator. For instance, “I’m launching my app on Apple – you can leave a review there or tell us directly.” Thus can be tied to sweepstakes and prizes as well.
2. Hold demo sessions. For instance, if you are a consumer products company, you can have these at retail and trade shows.
3. Referral programs. ” Tell your friends and you will be rewarded when they sign up.” An old one but effective.
For Enterprise businesses:
Buy lists or use tools like salesforce.com to get access to your target customers and try to find a warm introduction. You can also partner with organizations that might already have affiliations with the targets.
Nora Dunn // TheProfessionalHobo.com // @Twitter
~ The Professional Hobo. Writer. Traveler. Been traveling the world full-time since 2007 in a financially sustainable way. Now a Shaman-in-training in Peru ~
1) Engage (online). Engaging with others increases your sphere of influence, and conversely introduces new potential customers to your service. Engaging online can take the form of the following:
a) Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. But be aware that there is an efficiency curve in social media; past a certain point, you’re spinning your wheels for a relatively low ROI if you’re working social media channels all the time.
b) Blogging. Having a website with regular updates and fresh content keeps new people coming in and increases your searchability.
Again though, beware of how much time you spend blogging if it’s not the core function of your business; I actually sometimes advise prospective travelers NOT to blog about their trip – here are 17 reasons why.
c) Commenting on other websites/blogs. Again this can be very effective in developing relationships as well as increasing your web presence. But it also takes a lot of time to read other websites and provide thoughtful comments, so should be approached judiciously.
2) Engage (offline). It’s too easy to hide behind your computer screen in the name of building a business or building relationships.
But in my experience, the strongest (online) relationships have stemmed from offline connections.
You are more apt to remember somebody – and be remembered – when you’ve connected with them in person. In my business, whether it is meeting with editors or colleagues, my in-person connections have fostered the most and best business leads.
3) Ask People to Share. Self-promotion is one of the toughest aspects of being an entrepreneur, and while it’s possible to overbearingly promote yourself, the reality is that you need to get “out there” and toot your own horn a bit.
One of the easiest ways to get leads is by referral, since people will be more willing to become a customer if they know somebody who is already a happy customer.
So ask your customers to share your business with other people who might be in need of your services. A happy customer will gladly do this, but not always of their own accord; sometimes they need a little nudge.
Filip Duszczak // Instream.io // @Twitter
~ CEO & Founder. Sales Advisor. Teaching how to generate free B2B Leads ~
The whole (Outbound Sales) process is about establishing relationships with potential customers, that show initial interest in your product. No calling, no database buying and paying for telemarketing.
You generate a customer base by yourself, then you contact the customers and build relationships with those who are worth your time and attention.
STEP 1. Prospects generation
For us a prospect means a detailed description of a potential customer. Each time we launched new sales campaign with a new target audience, we gathered with our team to conduct an in-depth analysis of our potential customer.
Today we know who he/she is, but at the beginning we were testing a lot and were looking for a perfect candidate.
Step 2 – Lead Generation – no Cold Calling!
Every day when you generate a sufficient numer of prospects, your task at the end of the day will be to launch a Cold Mail campaign aimed at generating as many leads as possible.
This way replaces the method of Cold Calling which is mainly about calling different companies and trying to reach out to a person in charge.
Luckily you know who a decision-maker is and what’s more – you have his/her email address!
The best Cold Mailing tool I’ve come across so far is the application Woodpecker.co.
For more details about my strategy, click here.
Dr. Paul Johnson // ALuxuryTravelBlog.com // @Twitter
~ Blogging on all things luxury travel at ALuxuryTravelBlog.com ~
Attend industry events
Attending industry events is a great way to meet people and put faces to names. Meeting in person puts an entirely different complexion on any relationship you previously had with the person in question, and puts you in a much stronger position to do business with them.
Pick up the phone
In this online world we find ourselves in, we forget that sometimes the most effective way to do business is to simply pick up the phone and speak to someone.
It makes for a more human connection and you can much more quickly ascertain whether the other person is truly interested in doing business with you.
Work hard!
Whatever you do, keep perservering and work hard. Whatever methods you use, leads don’t just come to you – you have to get out there and work for them!
Peter Attia // CucumberNebula.com // @Twitter
~ Online marketing professional specializing in inbound marketing. ~
While it’s impossible to say “these are the three top ways”. I can at least give examples of what works for one of my projects, Dicey Goblin, which is a game related ecommerce site:
1. One of our best sources of sales is very out of the box, however works wonders for our space – hosting gaming tournaments. There’s a gaming cafe here in town and we partnered with them to host game tournaments at their shop.
This let’s us get connected locally with our target audience. Having that face to face time with them, gives them a connection to us personally, which also makes them more likely to purchase from us and talk about us.
This also helps the cafe, as we’re bringing in customers from them that may not have come their on their own.
2. Giveaways typically do well for ecommerce sites, however our audience tends to be more frugal than normal. They’re constantly comparison shopping, which means our giveaways always get a lot of attention.
We made an email opt-in a requirement to enter the giveaway, which allowed us to build our lists for email campaigns as well, so it was a win win.
Lastly, we also checked the domains of their email handles to see if they owned any blogs. This made it easier to request a guest posting opportunity with them, since they were already familiar with our brand.
3. One final thing that worked better for us than expected, is just having a good design. Other sites in our space are very traditional (crappy). Their design is poor, their navigation is sloppy, their product descriptions are scraped, they have no customer service, etc.
We took advantage of these weak points and did the opposite, which has gotten us repeat customers, quickly. We get constant praise from our customers saying they’re ecstatic to see a site that has an updated/modern look and feel.
We also ask our customers how they hear about us and one of our top sources is word of mouth from their friends.
Chad Halvorson // WhenIWork.com // @Twitter
~ Founder & CEO of @wheniwork, the easiest way for businesses to schedule, communicate and track time with their employees ~
When it comes to driving more leads, we focus on a few areas:
1. Demand Generation — boosting brand awareness and product exposure through paid channels, SEO, and inbound marketing tactics.
2. Customer Advocacy — maintaining a strong brand reputation, delighting customers, providing value and establishing ourselves as a reliable resource for business owners, and leveraging loyal brand advocates to drive more organic referrals.
Example: We send handwritten thank you cards to every new customer that signs up to use our app to schedule and communicate with their employees:
3. Product Development — constantly listening to customers, growing our development team, and making improvements to our products in an effort to continue positioning ourselves as the top solution in our industry and best solution available to our target audience.
Example: We regularly add new features to the product that help our users save even more time on scheduling and communicating with their teams.
4. Testing & Measuring — committing to running a certain amount of tests on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis in order to determine the most effective ways to connect with and convert website visitors.
Example: We regularly make small tweaks to sections and pages on our website in an effort to drive more conversions.
Sandi Krakowski // ARealChange.com // @Twitter
~ Small biz consultant. Facebook Ad Expert @Entrepreneur columnist. @Forbes Top 20 Social Media Marketer Faith at work influencer, Built a $20 million dollar biz. ~
Top 3 Things To Increase Leads (And HOW I got 1.2 million people engaging and buying on my Facebook Page in 3 years!)
1. IDENTIFY your ideal client and the problem YOU KNOW you can solve. Without fixing a problem, you’re really not in business.
2. Go where MOST PEOPLE are engaging, talking and interacting. In this generation that’s on Facebook. Build your page and create content that YOUR ideal client likes.
BIG TIP: Don’t be a billboard. Don’t talk about that product or service all day long. Create CULTURE: That’s what old fashioned store fronts that people were loyal to for years built. Find out the culture of your business and what your ideal clients will be drawn like a magnet to and then put your product and service in the middle of that.
3. Do HIGHLY TARGETED Facebook ads. Use direct response marketing methods, not what most people teach. Get really good at copy.
We’ve helped over 200k small business owners use a $10 per day system to do this and it’s built on direct response marketing, not social media madness. When I wrote my first PPC ad on Overture 20 years ago, (that was before Google!) it was the same thing.
If you can do ads to ATTRACT your ideal client to your CULTURE and offer and FIX their big problem and do that every single day, adding new people to that funnel, you’ll make a lot of money.
Sadly most people throw money in the toilet with their Facebook ads because there’s no direct response marketing behind it, their targeting is way off and they don’t have a great CTA: Call To Action to draw their ideal client. Add highly targeted people to your page everyday.
Tell the story, of your culture, your product, and you! Build a digital business just like you’d build a brick and mortar: Built around loving your customers and providing excellent service.
BTW this works with any business. Advertising built around your ideal client done on the most engaged platform of that given generation building culture and service always wins
Tim Soulo // BloggerJet.com // @Twitter
~ Head of marketing at Ahrefs; blogs at BloggerJet ~
The advice that you’ll find below is purely based on my experience with growing Ahrefs throughout 2015.
#1 Build a great product that solves the problem of your audience
Here at Ahrefs “great product” is the single biggest driver of new leads.
We don’t buy any PPC ads, we don’t announce discounts or promotions, we don’t have any referral program with incentives in place.
It’s just people loving our service so much that they naturally advice it to everyone around them.
That is why my primary responsibility as head of marketing at Ahrefs is to make sure I understand our customers and improve our service with tools and features that they are asking for.
Product is our main focus. And it pays off!
#2 Create great content that will attract your best customers
It’s otherwise called “inbound marketing”.
Every day people are facing dozens of different problems that they are looking to solve.
Creating a software that will address their pain points is one thing.
But writing articles that answer the questions of your potential customers and making sure these articles rank well in Google – that’s a completely different story.
“Quality content + Google” is a massive source of new leads that will never die off.
For example this article https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-tips/ ranks on the first page of Google for the keyword “seo tips“, that has approximately 8100 searches per month. So it drives new leads our way pretty consistently.
#3 Optimise your funnel
The chances are that you’re getting enough leads to consistently grow your business.
It’s just most of these leads never become your paying customers.
The best thing you can do about it?
Pick up your phone and ask these people what kept them from signing up.
The leads that didn’t convert into paying customers are your best advisors. You don’t need to read dozens of business books to make your business grow, just listen to what your customers say and act on it.
Tim Bourquin // AfterOffers.com // @Twitter
~ Entrepreneur and Angels Baseball Fan ~
Lead generation should be done with a single goal in mind – get more
customers who will pay for your products.
I often see businesses, both online and “brick and mortar” take a wide approach to lead generation, without much thought for how well they are targeting the people most likely to buy.
With that in mind, here are three ways to find the right prospects for your business and reach out to them:
1) Utilize LinkedIn to the Fullest Most people think of LinkedIn as the place you go to find a job or do business-to-business (B2B) networking. But that’s a narrow view of how you can use LinkedIn to reach out to customers.
The first thing to do is develop a complete profile for yourself as an individual and business owner. Complete every section of your LinkedIn profile – no detail is too mundane to include.
And for heaven’s sake, upload a good profile picture of your face – NOT your company logo. A complete profile builds trust for you as a business owner, something that is just as important as building trust in your brand as a company.
Second, add your business as a company on LinkedIn and encourage any employees to link to that business in their own profiles. Be sure to add relevant keywords in the description of your company and add detailed contact information and business hours if that’s relevant.
Most people don’t know that LinkedIn has a “timeline” much like Facebook. You can post links to articles and even full articles like a blog. Be sure to post relevant content and links to helpful articles you find.
It will show up in your connection’s timeline and remind them that your business is there to serve them. Even if your business is not B2B, your customers likely use LinkedIn and it’s a terrific way to get in front of them regularly. Share interesting and personal information about yourself so that people get a feel for who you are.
One note: DON’T make the rookie mistake of connecting with another user and immediately send them a “pitch” email to do business with them.
It’s annoying and considered “bad form” on LinkedIn. Provide value FIRST with links to helpful information and it will have the secondary effect of letting them know you are the person to reach when they are ready to buy in your industry.
2) Create a Facebook GROUP
You may already have a facebook page for your business. A group is something different. Unlike facebook pages, when you join a group facebook puts new posts and notifications in the users other notifications.
Rather than creating a forum on your own site to interact with customers and prospects, simply create a Group and get nearly the same functionality where your customers and prospects already have an account!
Be sure to post links to helpful articles and ask questions with facebook polls to get your members to participate and engage.
One note: Don’t name the facebook group simply, “ABC Widget Company.” Who would want to join that? Instead, base your group on the topic of your industry that is of interest to your customers and prospects.
If you try to get too “salesy” right off the bat, you will kill the engagement. Offer value FIRST and you will build the group as a place people can ask questions and get advice – some of which will inevitably lead to your products as the solution.
3) Build Your Email List
Every single business in this world can utilize an email list. Dry cleaners? You bet? Mechanics? Absolutely. Your customers can use advice about the purchases they make, even if it is something like cleaning their clothes or maintaining their vehicles.
The best way to build your list is ensure that every visitor to your website is offered your newsletter through a sign up form on the sidebar, or, better yet, a lightbox that pops up after 10 seconds.
If you aren’t comfortable with that timeframe, most lightbox pop-ups can be set to appear when the visitor exits. In my opinion, that’s not the best time to ask them to join your list, but it’s better than no pop-up at all.
Building the list isn’t the hard part though. Emailing your list regularly (at minimum, once per week) is something that takes effort. You don’t need to send long emails though. In fact, don’t.
A few paragraphs and links to helpful content is all you need to stay in touch and provide value.
You can even simply list the links you’ve been putting on LinkedIn and your Facebook Group (see #1 and #2) with a short explanation of why it is worth their time to read.
Creating a steady flow of leads for your business is easy and doesn’t have to take a lot of your time. Getting started is the hardest part so make it happen and it will get easier as time goes by and you begin to see the “fruits” of your efforts – more paying customers.
~~~
Lead gen is easy when you know what you have to do it, and how. Today’s post reveals to you the possibilities and the methods which pros are using to bring new clients in the door. Take these tips to the bank and don’t forget to connect with us and share your feedback.
I appreciate your social shares too!