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How to Generate More Leads? Try These 7 Top Ideas

 
 

It takes more than just a fancy name and awesome services/products to develop the kind of lead generation required to skyrocket your brand as the next billion-dollar company. With traditional cold-calling running out of style and a push for inbound marketing on the rise for the past decade or so, it’s all come down to content capable of bringing in leads.

Not every brand has an access to the same kind of content, and even then, not all forms of content will be entirely successful. You want to be able to implement the kind of content that not only performs well, but consistently.

Today, we’ve rounded up some of the best lead generation ideas available out there that you could integrate into your marketing strategy; seven to be exact. Several of them you might be familiar with already, but there just may be a few that you might not have ever considered before.

Let’s dive right in.

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1. Newsletters

If newspapers are still in circulation today, then by golly their digital counterparts should be just as effective online. The newsletter is one of the most common ways to generate leads. Most websites today automate popups within a few seconds after stepping foot on their landing page, prompting you to subscribe to a weekly update. It’s simple, yet effective, but at the same time something that we aren’t already well-acquainted with.

If you’re looking to play it safe, offering the idea of keeping your audience updated via newsletters is a good way to grow your email list. Newsletters establish a captive audience, and there’s nothing wrong with setting up some email pathways. The intensity of how often you send out these newsletters will range from frequent (every single day at a set time) or infrequent (at least once a week on a specific day and time).

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How effective your newsletters are will be based on how valuable content you can provide and how good your headlines are. If you regularly put out brand new information every single day, keep your audience updated with frequent emails including your newsletter. If you want to round up all of the best information you’ve provided throughout a week, send a weekly newsletter to highlight all of that.

The best recipients are the ones most interested in your brand or topics your brand already covers. Relevant topics about your brand will keep your audience engaged, and your leads warm. Using plain email is fine, but most email marketers today will utilize HTML to add a little bit of flare to their automated newsletters. Consider what works best for the kind of audience that you’re catering to.

This also doesn’t mean you should restrict yourself to newsletters alone, though. It’s more than feasible to tie in newsletters with other forms of content to increase the amount of value you’re willing to provide for leads. You should make an effort to drive newsletter signups whenever possible.

2. Blog Posts

Going off the notion of pairing content together, blog posts and newsletters pretty much go hand in hand. You can easily include new articles in your newsletter. Heck, the entire newsletter could be a compilation of all blog posts published that week or month!

Blog posts are a brand’s way of relaying any and all kinds of information to the undivided attention of their audience. Of course, it would be a good idea to place an emphasis on what the brand is up to, but touching base on other trending topics keeps things fun and interesting.

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With marketing automation, increasing visibility on your articles gets even easier. If you’re looking to generate leads with your post, be sure to bring your A-game. If you deliver fresh, new content without having to rehash anything that’s already posted online, you’re sure to bring in a new crowd every time. Ask them to sign up so that they’ll be alerted every time a new post goes live. Be consistent, and the lead flow will do the same over time.

3. eBooks

So far, both ideas we’ve looked at for lead generation are related to one another, and ebooks are no exception. If you’re going to write an extremely long blog post that breaches the 5,000-word mark, go ahead and turn that into an ebook for your active audience. As with pairing content with more content, feel free to offer your ebook as an added incentive along with other content your brand is providing.

Ebooks work extremely well for B2B companies or brands that work in technical spaces. People adore reading and gaining more insights about their industry.

While it doesn’t hurt to highlight your brand, try not to promote overly your services or products. You don’t want to sell through an ebook; you want to inform through one. Try to take a neutral standpoint. The more unbiased you are in your ebook, the broader your reach will be.

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In most cases, where ebooks are offered, you’ll essentially want to set up a separate page for it. In exchange for your free ebook, ask for some basic contact information. As your audience obtains a gateway to knowledge while you acquire the leads you seek.

4. Giveaways

Who doesn’t like winning free stuff? Giveaways are an amazing way to generate leads. Not only do they require basic contact information that allows brands to get in touch with the winner, but you’re collecting the very information you’re looking for when it comes to lead generation. Opting in allows an audience to exchange their contact information for a chance to win a prize, and after agreeing to the terms and conditions, are more than happy to exchange such information for this opportunity.

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Giveaways are simple in nature. You offer a chance to enter by inputting your contact information, maybe throw in the ability to increases your chances by sharing on social media (which in turn will get others to enter your giveaway) and viola! You’ve just created an engine for generating leads until the giveaway is over.

Most brands have some leeway regarding what they can offer as a prize, but on the off-chance that you don’t have that much room to give, you always have your ebook as an extra prize.

You can also implement giveaways with the other types of content we’ve mentioned in this list. Anytime you request your audience’s contact information, feel free to let people know that they’ll instantly be entered in a giveaway. It’s a nice little incentive to get people to sign up to your email list.

5. Quizzes

Who would’ve thought you could use a quiz to generate leads? They’re already incredibly popular on social media, so why not use them? Quizzes are fun and engaging. You could set up a quiz to revolve around your brand. You could even turn that quiz into an assessment test and see how much your audience knows about your brand or its products. If you wanted to, you could cover any of today’s trending topics, but personality quizzes seem to be the best since that’s what’s common on social media.

As far as a formula is concerned, typical knowledge tests that assess how much someone knows about certain things are fine and dandy, but most audiences experience the most amount of fun and engagement when taking a personality quiz. Why? Because of something called the self-serving bias, people typically like to hear good things about themselves. Personality quizzes aim to stroke the egos of various audiences based on the results that they get. Of course, if they’re happy with their result, they’re more than likely to share it with family and friends.

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Regardless of the type of quiz you choose, its questions, any images involved and the results will entice your audience. 96% of people complete quizzes, so you’re looking at a relatively high chance of generating leads through them.

So how do quizzes generate leads? The lead capture form that gates it towards the end is your ticket. You might’ve seen it before, but have you ever come across a quiz that requested your contact information in exchange for your results? Rather ingenious if you ask me. Most lead capture forms express a brand’s marketing strategy and what they’ll do with someone’s information through a “privacy policy” of sorts. You don’t want to spam someone with emails without their consent now do you?

Now then, let’s get to the fun part. You could easily pair any of the other forms of content we’ve mentioned so far with a quiz to make the most out of your lead capture. Here’s how you do it:

Newsletters – This one’s a given. As soon as someone opts in (with their consent of course), you most certainly want to sign him up for your newsletter.

Blog Posts – When you’ve acquired your audience’s email address, consider sending them updates. For instance, if you have a new article up, send them a friendly reminder.

eBooks – Remember that eBook you wrote? Why not give it away as an incentive for opting in? It’s a nice little gift for anyone that exchanges their information with you.

Giveaways – Just like the ebook, use giveaways as an incentive for opting in. When someone gives you their contact information to access their quiz results, enter them into a giveaway for a chance to win something.

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6. Videos

As interactive as quizzes can be, videos are another great way to engage your audience. First thing’s first, do not, I repeat, do NOT create a commercial. There’s enough of that on TV and major sites like YouTube.

People want entertainment. They want something they can get a lot of value from, so you want to create videos based on great ideas that promote your brand and engages your audience. A good example would be those one-minute tutorials on social media networks on how you can cook certain recipes. They’re fun, engaging, and there’s a relatively actionable takeaway that goes along with it. That’s what your video has to achieve.

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Spend time formulating something people would watch. Vlogs are always popular. While your audience can read articles on your blog, why not engage with them through a video blog?

The ball starts rolling once your video is live, so be sure to promote it to the rest of the content you’re pushing out. Don’t be afraid to include a call-to-action in the annotations in the video, or even down in the video description. This is what will direct people back to you for your business.

7. Webinars

If you have a rather firm grasp on the concept of making videos, let’s take that step further by setting up a webinar. Webinars are an inexpensive solution that gets your message out there to the public. If you have customers who are on the fence about your product or your services, use a webinar to inform them how you could be a good fit for what they’re trying to do. Below is a great example of Positionly SEO webinar about backlinks:

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The most important part of a webinar is the end. At this point, you have an opportunity to talk with your audience. Ask anyone that showed up to your webinar to go ahead and download your ebook, take a quiz to enter for a chance to win a fabulous prize in a giveaway, or to sign up to your newsletter. As we’ve mentioned several times already, all of these types of content can be harmoniously sewn together for greater effect.

image02Let’s Wrap Things Up

So today we took a rather extensive look at some of the most clever ideas when it comes to generating leads for your online marketing campaign. You have several options available to you, and a handful of them are capable of being paired with one another. If you’re in the market for generating leads, highly consider these methods for your brand’s strategy.

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