The Simple Guide to Lead Generation

• Agnes Gradzwicz (Smarty Software)
• Thursday 20 October 2016

Leads are the beginning of what makes any business large or small remain in existence.

What exactly are Leads?

A lead is a person or organisation who has shown an interest in your business offering. This is either by signing up to your newsletters, taking online surveys or requesting a quote that you have offered. Once a business or individual has made this transaction, you will now have access to contact information from that individual or business either through a phone number or e-mail.

This is good news as once you have built a solid relationship with your clients the chance to provide your leads with your services, and potentially turning them into prospects arises.

However, the question arises on how to make strangers aware that your business exists? This is called Lead generation.

What is Lead generation?

Lead generation is the course of getting the attention of individuals or other businesses and turning them into leads.

Methods of Lead generation?

So let's get into it. Here is a list of 5 effective lead generation strategies that can be implemented for your business.

Facebook Ads

Facebook is a platform where you can build a relationship with your customers. You can engage with your customers by creating a Facebook ad with the end goal of receiving their email.

Why should I bother to get their email, shouldn't I just sell my product instead?

Getting an email is cheaper and easier than diving in and selling your product to someone right away. From there you have a chance to engage with your customers and provide them with information that is catered specifically for them and interests them for free.

What should my Facebook Ad consist of?

This depends on what sector your business operates in. You could run an ad on Facebook providing free or discounted ebooks, video tutorial, or discounts.

For instance, imagine you are an interior designer. A relevant ad could look like this: "Sign up for 5 daily videos on how to design for your small home".

You will need to create a landing page to capture the users' contact information once they have clicked the ad. Having a landing page is crucial as it gives you a chance to request personal information from a contact that you can later use to get a profile of what a customer prefers. At Smarty, we have a range of beautifully made landing page designs. It is easy to set up yourself and you don't have to pay someone else to create one for you.

Once this is done, you have a chance to engage with your customers and provide them with information that interests them for free.

Blogging

Blogs are a great way to increase digital presence and make your business more visible on Google, Bing and Yahoo (Entrepreneur 2011). If you are finding it difficult on what to blog about, have a look at the FAQ section on your website. More than likely, you could find a question that needs answering which can be turned into an informative blog post. Make sure to include a link to a landing page at the end of your blog post that solves the problem that you are blogging about.

For instance, imagine you develop and make your own makeup foundations. You have written a quirky and informative post titled "How to make your makeup last longer". To obtain leads from this article, include a Call-to-action button on your landing page with the option for the reader to actually purchase your own makeup. Make sure not to be pushy and include a discounted price if possible.

Smarty software can help you design your own landing pages with a simple 'drag' and 'drop' method making data capture seamlessly easy.

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn is a wonderful platform where you can connect with individuals and businesses and most importantly use this as an advantage to generate leads for your business.

Before starting make sure that you have thoroughly completed your LinkedIn profile with the exact explanation of what business sector you operate it. It is also fundamental that you have a profile picture. You won't be taken seriously without one.

The key to lead generation on LinkedIn is all about communication.

Join a LinkedIn Group

It is more beneficial for your business to join a LinkedIn group that does not necessarily operate in the same industry as you. The aim is that you are connecting with people that may need your services in time. It is not advised that you dive in with a sales pitch immediately instead try to build conversation and post interesting information concerning the industry in the group.

What type of Lead Generation can I use with LinkedIn groups?

Groups aim to solve a problem. When there is a discussion flowing get involved! Don't jump in right away with an ebook or a link with your landing page that solves the problem but weigh in the discussion with comments. To generate a lead, make private messages to those who seem interested in what you are saying by sharing relevant content as mentioned before. Ideally this content should allow the capturing of an e-mail address.

Pinterest contests

This is not the first social media platform that comes to mind right away to obtain leads from. However, considering that this platform has around 110 million monthly active users (2016 User Interest for Pinterest) lead generation can be a potential goldmine depending on the business area you operate in.

What kind of Lead Generation strategies can I use with Pinterest?

Create a contest where users have to pin images of the products that you sell or products that are similar to the one you sell onto their boards. Perhaps make it interesting by getting customers to come up with a few artistic words to describe the product. Ask those who are participating to submit their entry boards as well as their emails. This is the lead generation we are talking about! The prize could be a picture of a product that they've pinned (if it's possible) or something related to that.

But it doesn't stop there. Once you have their e-mails you can use this to promote new offers by marketing campaigns. Smarty allows you to create landing pages in conjunction with these email marketing campaigns so that making a potential purchase is made easier for a user.

Conducting a Webinar

This can be an excellent and useful way to obtain leads. Nowadays, people love to be educated, especially through an interactive webinar video.

Here are a few tips. Don't bore your viewers, as in, keep the video between 30-45 minutes. I would personally switch off if a webinar video is any longer.

Practise before hand. On the day of the webinar you don't want to be fluffing about worrying about sound and video. Practising beforehand will ensure smooth running.

How can a webinar provide me with leads?

Promote your webinar on platforms such as Twitter. Make a landing page which features information about your webinar where the individual has to put in their email address and name to be able to view it.

Remember that some landing pages can generate more leads than other. At Smarty we provide the ability to do A/B Test splitting with your landing pages. This way you can see which page gives more conversions.

What should my webinar be about?

Anything that solves a problem! Imagine you run a food start up business delivering plant based meals. You could run a webinar on "How to Grow and Plant your own food in your back garden". Promote it on social media platforms days before, with a link to your landing page to sign up and voila! Watch the leads roll in.

So there you go! 5 effective ways to generate leads.

What methods have you used?

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