Are you still trying to capture leads with free e-books and ultimate guides?
Today’s customers easily catch that brands are trying to trap them with “Ultimate Guides” and “Top 10 lists”. As a result, they are wary of handing over their email IDs.
Content creation and freebies are not enough to convert visitors into customers.
With millions of lead magnets competing for attention, it’s time to invent new lead generation formulas that exceed content.
With the help of in-depth research, I have identified the top 10 lead generation ideas that take minimal time to implement but deliver long-term results.
Without further ado, let’s spill the beans:
1. Automate personalized emails
It’s likely you are already automating emails for customers who subscribe to your newsletter, download your e-book, or buy your product.
According to OptinMonster, approximately 51% of companies use email automation to save time and money.
So how can you gain the upper hand?
The answer is: personalize your email automation process.
This means ditching the one email you’ve created to knock on the doors of all subscribers, regardless of whether they like the content. Instead, embrace personalized emails to ensure customers receive what they actually want.
For example, a customer who reaches your cart is looking for a different email than a visitor who downloaded your freebies.
Image Source: Bronto
The best part is that you only have to create it once.
Make a list of the different customer stages, create an email for each stage, and apply the automation.
For example, here’s the list of potential customers at different stages with the type of email they should receive:
- Those who downloaded the e-book = email with in-depth product and company information to upgrade their knowledge.
- Those who subscribed to the website = email with additional content and product recommendations.
- Those who abandoned their carts = email with deals and discounts.
- Those who visited the price page but left = email with limited-time deals and offers.
Automating personalized emails helps you successfully engage with visitors, win their trust, build relationships, and finally, turn them into leads.
2. Help users save money via a mobile app
If somebody tells me I can save 30% or more by downloading a particular app, I am on board.
Any mobile app that helps users save money is welcomed with open arms.
“How do I generate leads other than by sending push-notifications via a mobile app,” you ask?
I’m getting to that.
The founder of 360 Degree Technosoft, Pratik Kanada, shares a case study involving an in-development app where passionate travelers can swap their homes, earn money, and save money from high-priced hotels.
Travelers can choose their country and city of travel choice and then search for like-minded people who are interested in visiting their country or city. In exchange for helping travelers to save money, the app charges a minimal fee starting at $19.99.
Image Source: 360 Degree Technosoft
A passionate traveler like me would love to pay a few bucks instead of spending a fortune.
Long story short, if you develop a mobile app, you can help your users save money by offering tips or allowing them to stay connected via a built-in feature. Customers love staying connected to apps and you can promote your premium features without being pushy.
3. Leverage the power of artificial intelligence
Current customers pave the way for potential customers via reviews, social sharing, word-of-mouth, and …. artificial intelligence (AI).
Did you know that AI-powered tools can help you find leads based on your current customers’ existing data?
Using its ability to decipher large databases, AI weighs your current customers’ information with other stored databases to find the more alike potential buyers.
For example, if a current customer runs a marketing agency, the AI tool finds similar customers with marketing agencies and provides you with verified email addresses for these prospects so you can start your personalized email automation journey.
Hiretual, SellHack, ContactOut, etc., are some of the best email-finding AI tools for generating leads in as little time as possible.
4. Upload promotional voice messages
Do you operate a customer call center?
If yes, then it’s time to leverage it by replacing your normal ring with a short and sweet promotional message.
Imagine customers calling to inquire about your products or services. Their call is already a sign of their interest. When they call, they are required to wait until their call is received, so why not upgrade their knowledge of your products or services during their wait time?
A short, promotional message will let them know more about you. By the time you receive the call, those callers are on the edge of becoming customers.
In VoIP language, it is called an IVR system – an auto-attendant greeter notifies your customers about on-going and specific promotions.
Image Source: Cebod Telecom
5. Share your small victories
Small wins are common in the business world, but they can become the drivers of big leads.
Let me share with you my own experience of landing a big client.
One of my articles received a spot on Google’s featured snippet. Being a freelance writer, I was overjoyed and shared my experience on LinkedIn.
Image Source: LinkedIn
Within a day or two, I received between 20-25 LinkedIn connection requests and 3 requests from companies who wanted to hire me as a writer. In the end, I secured one high-paying lead as we settled on common terms.
The takeaway here is that it took me 5 minutes to share my achievement and gain a long-term project.
It was worth it.
6. Share irrelevant close-to-your-heart matters
Sometimes, the best leads come from unexpected places having little or nothing at all to do with your business.
If you dig deeper, you will find that many business owners share stories completely irrelevant to their business. Still, these stories earn good exposure for their brands and secure long-term leads.
One of my best examples of this is Gary Vaynerchuk. He initially had a wine business but later became a motivational speaker, author, and popular internet personality. While motivation has nothing to do with the wine business, I often notice people buying Gary’s wines and then posting it to Twitter.
Image Source: Twitter
7. Conduct an easy-to-answer quiz
Quizzes are powerful tools for generating leads. They are highly-relevant and immediately tap into a user’s emotion, dragging them into becoming part of a bigger discussion.
I’m sure you’ve seen all those quizzes and surveys floating around on Twitter:
“Who’s your favorite Harry Potter character?”
“What’s your favorite documentary?”
Not only do they successfully get answers from users, but they also spark a discussion.
People answer these quizzes, read what others have to say, reply to others’ answers, and the discussion continues indefinitely.
Image Source: Twitter
You can leverage quizzes to entice people into signing up for your email form. To do this, you have to create a quiz that relates to your targeted audience. Then you ask for their email only once you get their answer.
Let’s say you have an eCommerce business with a celebrity clothes collection. You can ask people, “Who is your soulmate celebrity?”
Once they provide their answer, you can ask for their email address with a promise to send them a collection relevant to their favorite celebrity. In this way, you promise to fulfill their deepest desire to look like a celebrity while securing a lead for future promotions.
8. Embed relevant lead magnets in the content
Being a freelance writer, I come across thousands of articles each day. What I enjoy the most are those relevant lead magnets that you find between the content, rather than the generic pop-up boxes that bombard first-time visitors.
Relevancy and time-specific lead magnets always remind me of the Search Engine Journal. I read a Google article titled, “Paid Links Don’t Work”. When I reached the middle of the article, I found a lead magnet promising improvements within 60 seconds using Google Ads Reports – a perfect combination of time and relevancy which felt undeniable based on the context.
Image Source: Search Engine Journal
Your amazing content is just sitting on a website, waiting for visitors to become customers. By embedding relevant lead generation forms or lead magnets into your best content, you offer visitors a free ticket toward valuable content and an entry into your brand.
9. Put chatbots in charge of leads
You may have a large team to connect with prospects at any point, but you can’t be assured that you are not missing a single deal. Maybe an overseas customer wants to connect with you in the middle of the night, but executives are not awake to attend to them. Maybe a prospect calls during lunchtime when no one is available to answer questions.
You have no idea how many leads you may lose.
With technology offering customers quick solutions, they have become impatient. They like brands that provide easy access for connecting with executives, even something as easy as live chat.
Nothing can play the role of sales assistant better than a chatbot.
Chatbots easily engage with visitors in seconds, offering them content they might be interested in, upgrading their knowledge on your products or services, and eventually, taking them down the last step of the marketing funnel.
Image Source: WordStream
10. Reward ‘til-the-end content readers
If you have blogs experiencing lower bounce rates and higher engagements, these blogs can be your way into leads.
If visitors are reading your blogs through to the end, then that is the moment to reward them with freebies; or should I say, the right moment to strike a deal with your discounts, lead magnets, or any lead generating formulas to take visitors further with your brand.
Set your business up with these lead generation ideas
Generating leads is becoming more difficult than ever. There is fierce market competition and too much noise to be heard in the crowd.
But there’s also a flipside. It’s a great time to generate leads because of instantly-applicable tools, productivity tips, and your creativity to bear the fruit much faster than ever.
Guest author: Manisha Sukhyani is a regular contributor of Business2Community, Jeffbullas, and more, as well as the founder of LittleTicks, where she collects little nuggets of content. Reach her at LinkedIn or find her on @msukhyani.