Top Lead Generation Secrets
In the digital age, you don’t need a lot to start generating leads. That said, you’re still competing with every other brand you share an audience with. On top of that, you’re competing with social media for attention and thousands of websites for a high ranking on your preferred search engine.
The good news is that lead generation works, whether you’re starting out or looking to take an established brand to the next level. It takes some planning and innovation, but so do the most effective strategies anywhere in business. Luckily, we’re also in the business of sharing that exact information. So here are 6 top lead generation secrets you need to know.
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Lead magnets get people through the door
A lead magnet is like the value proposition in a sales pitch. It’s what you offer your audience – completely for free – in exchange for their attention, engagement, and, eventually, their contact information. The “free” part is important. A lead magnet is not a product – it’s not even a product you’ve made temporarily free or discounted. Lead magnets are about fostering goodwill by offering something of value to your audience.
A lead magnet can be an e-book, access to exclusive content, a questionnaire, or even a video. It just needs to satisfy the following criteria:
- Relevant to your brand and your audience’s needs
- Valuable to the consumer
- Offered in exchange for contact details
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You need data to make good decisions on leads
Not all leads are equally valuable, and that’s perfectly fine. After all, you aren’t trying to attract as many people as possible – that just leads to a bloated pipeline that makes lead conversion that much harder.
The best lead is one who has enough information on your brand or product to be reasonably interested in it. From the perspective of your marketing team, a strong lead is also one that you have a sufficient amount of data on. The more you know about your leads, the easier it is to assess how qualified they are. If they turn out to be a good lead based on the data, then it’s even easier to tailor the right message to them.
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A content strategy is your friend
Content marketing is one of the most effective tools you have at your disposal. That’s thanks in part to the information age we live in – the internet is a literal hub of information, and people get on it daily to find answers to their most pressing questions. As far as your target audience is concerned, you’re the solution. What you need to do, then, is help them find you.
Content, like a lead magnet, is free and valuable information that draws traffic to your platform or website. A content strategy is built around the type of content you’ll need to deliver. To work this out, you and your team need to answer the following questions:
- What are my audience’s most pressing questions?
- Where does my audience go to find the answers?
- Who are the market leaders my audience turns to, and what does their content look like?
These three questions should hopefully uncover a few important things. For one, they tell you who your competitors are. They show you the standard of quality that your audience is used to when it comes to content – you’ll want to either match that or improve on it. These questions also put the focus back on your audience’s main problems, and those are the topics lead-generating content is built around.
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Navigation is the foundation of your website
It’s not enough to get a person to your website – at least, that’s not what optimized lead generation looks like. Once people get on your site, there needs to be clear navigation that allows them to move through your space in ways that maintain the momentum.
This is something to keep in mind during the web design process. If you already have a website up, don’t worry, you can still run an audit on it to see if there’s anything that needs to be improved on. Examples of good website navigation include;
- Consistent design across all pages
- Navigation menu is in the same place on every page
- “One-click” rule for the home page (i.e. visitors should only need to click on one button to get to the homepage, wherever they are on your site)
- Links are all formatted the same way
- Website logo also functions as a “home” button
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An email list is a gold star organizer
So if your lead magnet is effective, you’re going to end up with quite a few email addresses. But now that you’ve generated all these addresses, you need to organize them in a way that helps you market directly to each lead.
An email list is a great way to keep track of potential customers. It also opens up new tools like automation in the form of email sequences. You can set up an automatic email response that gets sent to each lead when they enter their details. You can even chain multiple emails and space them out (e.g. initial contact followed by survey followed by product offer).
- Headlines get people to your content
For every ten people who read a headline, only two go on to read the actual article. People use headlines as a filter to find out which links are worth clicking. So to make the most of yours, you’ll want to craft emotive and informative headlines.
Certain headlines work better than others. Even in 20021, “listicles” remain one of the most popular styles (e.g. 5 Ways to Boost Your Email Open Rate with Headlines). You can find more examples of lead-generating headlines here.
End with a call to action
A headline invites your ideal audience in and gets people reading your content. Your content showcases your brand’s relevance and gives leads the information they need to generate interest. The end of the content piece is where you’ll need to place a call to action.
A call to action is the final instruction you give to leads when they’re ready to convert into customers. Even before that, a call to action can be as simple as directing readers to other relevant content or email signup. Whatever yours says, remember to make it actionable and get your leads moving through the sales pipeline.