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12 Effective Lead Generation Strategies (+ Examples), 7 Lead Generation…
12 Effective Lead Generation Strategies (+ Examples)
What Is a Lead Generation Strategy?
Leverage Chatbot Conversations
Create Gated Content
Create a Value-Packed Newsletter
Host an Event
Offer a Coupon or Discount
Provide a Freemium Product or Free Trial
Optimize Your Website to Promote Your Lead Magnet
Optimize Your Social Profiles to Promote Your Lead Magnet
Pay to Promote Your Business on Social Media
Target Top-of-Funnel Keywords
Retarget People Who Have Engaged With Your Brand
Create a Referral Rewards System
7 Lead Generation Strategies that Work for Startups
What is lead generation?
Create a LOT of opt-in opportunities and make them irresistible
Always be testing, but test the right way
Make landing pages clear and easy to take action on
Write better ads!
Give better offers
Go nuts with remarketing
Use Gmail ads to target competitors’ customers
Target Top-of-Funnel Keywords
To attract interested prospects and drive them toward your lead magnets, create a plan to target the terms they search for. Do keyword research to discover phrases your ideal prospects search for at the top of the purchase funnel.
Then, target those keywords in multiple ways.
Create evergreen content optimized for the target terms.
Develop an on-site blog strategy around the target keywords.
Target the terms in pay-per-click marketing.
Guest blog on sites that have a high share of voice for the target terms.
Be sure to follow best practices for SEO to boost your chances of showing up on page one. The more visible you are in search, the more interest and traffic you’ll generate from potential leads.
Example: SmartAsset, a personal finance tech company, targeted a top-of-funnel term they knew their target audience was searching for. They created useful, valuable content around the topic, which helped them rank for the term.
7 Lead Generation Strategies that Work for Startups
LeadPages is a dynamic software company headquartered in Minneapolis—and they’re growing fast. They launched in 2012 and drive millions in revenue from tens of thousands of customers.
Tim and I got together to share the lead gen ideas and demand generation strategies we’ve used to build our companies far quicker than most are able to achieve.
My own company, WordStream, is now over a decade old and continues to grow at a rapid pace, generating millions of dollars in annual revenue.
Have a look at how these two successful startups generation leads, based on what LeadPages learned from processing over 4 million opt-ins a month and how WordStream used PPC to increase revenue and clients ten-fold over the years!
What is lead generation?
A lead is simply someone who’s demonstrated interest in your business in some way. Basically, you can think of anyone who’s given you their contact information—to attend a webinar, to download a free guide, to sign up for your newsletter, etc.—as a lead.
Because this person has engaged your business’ website and given you permission to contact them (typically through email, but sometimes over the phone), they’re now inside your sales funnel.
ad generation—often shortened to “lead gen”—is simply the process of filling your sales funnel with people who are interested in your business. Anything that gets someone to give you permission to contact them or remarket to them is a lead generation tactic.
let’s say you’re the in-house digital marketer for a company that builds backyard decks. One way you can generate leads is by creating a free, downloadable PDF guide to deck maintenance. Because the people who want to read the guide are required to submit their contact information, this piece of content serves as a lead generation mechanism.
Write better ads!
I’ve been saying this for a long time and it’s still true – most ads just suck. They’re boring, they’re all the same, and one isn’t any more compelling than another.
If you’re the searcher, you really have no reason other than price to choose one over the other. This is what I call an AdWords Jackpot for an advertiser.
When everything looks the same, there’s a huge opportunity to come in with something different and blow the competition away!
Writing better ads can raise your CTR above the expected average, giving your Quality Score a boost. Learn more about writing killer ads and how doing so can lower your costs per click in Going Unicorn Hunting: The Secrets Behind Ads with 3x the Average CTR.
Give better offers
One creative way is to give better offers. This is far more meaningful than your typical, run of the mill optimizations – changing button color, font type, spacing, etc.
Every software company offers a free trial. Every plastic surgeon offers a free consultation. What do you have to offer that is unique, compelling, and offers real value to the visitor?
Conversions went through the roof! We had found something non-committal that people could actually use and weren’t asking them to take all the steps of downloading, installing, and then actually using our software.
If your conversions are 2% or lower, you need to try something drastic like changing up your offer big time. Small optimizations will beget small results. The top 25% of advertisers have an average 5.31% conversion rate and the top 10% are hitting over 11%, on average! You have a ton of room to grow.
Use Gmail ads to target competitors’ customers
Gmail Ads are powerful tools for getting right in front of your target audience.
For a SaaS startup, no audience is more valuable than your competitors’ customers. With Gmail Ads, you can target your AdWords campaign to only ever reach people who receive emails from your competitors, giving you direct access to people that already use similar products.
There are several ways to do this. One is to target keywords that your competitors are likely to use. Sign up for your competitors’ email lists and take note of any words and phrases that they use frequently, then add them as target keywords.
A more accurate solution is to target your competitors’ domains. Below is an example of a Gmail Ad from DigitalOcean, a cloud infrastructure provider. I receive emails from other cloud storage companies, which DigitalOcean are clearly targeting using domain placements.
12 Effective Lead Generation Strategies (+ Examples)
Lead generation is incredibly important for marketers and the businesses they want to grow. Increasing leads means increasing brand awareness and interest in your products or services, nurturing curious prospects through the marketing funnel and into your sales pipeline.
If done well, lead generation strategies create strong relationships with qualified customers who invest in your business for a long time.
“How can we increase lead generation?” This post breaks down highly effective lead generation strategies so you can optimize your efforts to attract and convert qualified prospects. You’ll also get 12 reliable lead generation examples to help guide you
What is lead generation strategy
A lead generation strategy includes tactics that attract interested prospects and convert them into leads. A lead is a potential customer who has shown interest in your brand by taking some action.
Both B2C and B2B lead generation strategies include four components.
Lead capture: A way to collect information from a lead. Information may include the lead’s name and contact information as well as relevant qualifying details about them or their organization (e.g., business name, position, number of employees).
Lead magnets: An incentive that drives prospects to become new leads.
Lead qualification: A process that uses the lead’s information to determine how likely they are to buy.
Lead segmentation: The process of segmenting leads based on their information, habits, and activities (e.g., job title, lead magnet that attracted them, pages they visited on your website).
To fulfill each of these components, consider using our 12 reliable lead generation strategies below. For each tactic, we’ve also included a real-life lead generation example to illustrate how they might look like in practice.
A lead magnet is one fine resource that is given to the visitors for free in exchange for their information like, name, email id, and sometimes phone number based on the needs of the company.
Leverage Chatbot Conversations
Chatbots can be a great lead generation tool. The technology is excellent for building rapport with prospects since chatbots are available 24/7. Set them up to match your brand personality so they function as automated extensions of your marketing and sales team.
Example: Want to see an effective lead generation chatbot in action? Check out the bot created by The Bot Lab.
The user begins by interacting with the The Bot Lab chatbot to get more information about what chatbots actually do. Only after the chatbot has provided the user value (via information) do they ask to set up a meeting to talk further.
Once The Bot Lab chatbot has completed its assignment, the chat then switches over to a Bot Lab employee.
Create Gated Content
Gated content assets often include:
White papers
E-books
Guides
Reports
Courses
Worksheets
Online tools
Gated content is online material only accessible to users once they fill out a form. Unlike normal blog posts or landing pages, the content is “locked.” Audiences must complete a lead capture form to access the content.
This lead generation strategy is effective because it gives the audience something of value for free while attracting high-quality leads interested in topics related to your brand or offerings.
Created a value-packed newsletter
Another way to use content as a lead magnet is by creating a must-read newsletter that encourages interested prospects to connect and stay in touch with your brand.
This lets you stay top of mind with customers as well as share promotions for your products and services that can drive prospects further down the purchase funnel.
Content for your newsletter might include:
New blog posts
Updates about your products or services
Special offers
Upcoming events
Recommended reading from other thought leaders
Host an Event
A few event options to consider are:
Webinar
Workshop
Seminar
Meetup
Conference
Lead generation strategies can happen online and off. Host an in-person or online event to attract and serve your target market while capturing their contact information via event registration.
Also, use live events as opportunities to connect with customers in real time so that you can answer questions, respond to objections, learn about your audience, and actively guide prospects through the sales funnel.
Offer a Coupon or Discount
Convert prospects who are interested in your products and services by offering a coupon or discount as your lead magnet.
This attracts valuable long-term and short-term leads. In the long term, you’ve attracted someone interested in buying from your brand.
In the short term, you can quickly convert bottom-of-funnel prospects who are ready to buy into customers.
Provide a Freemium Product or Free Trial
Capture leads from interested and qualified prospects by offering a free trial or freemium product. Free trials and freemium products attract qualified, interested prospects who aren’t ready to buy.
Once free trial users sign up, you can convert them into paying customers later by teasing paid features and delivering drip email campaigns that promote the benefits of upgraded accounts.
Example: Trello, project management software, offers a free version of their tool (with stripped-down features) to generate leads and drive free users toward paid plans.
Optimize Your Website to Promote Your Lead Magnet
To generate more leads, make sure website visitors can easily find your lead magnet. Design on-site funnels that segment your audience and drive them toward the lead magnet most likely to resonate with their needs and interests.
Accomplish this by promoting lead magnets around your site.
Highlight it as the primary homepage call to action.
Promote relevant lead magnets at the end of blog posts and pages.
Use a lead generation pop-up.
Create a resource library filled with gated content.
Add a lead gen hello bar (that sits at the top or bottom of your site).
Promote your lead magnet in the sidebar.
Example: Podio, a project management tool, doesn’t waste time trying to guide website visitors to their lead magnet. They immediately drive users into their free trial using the primary hero section of their homepage.
Optimize Your Social Profiles to Promote Your Lead Magnet
When you have a valuable lead magnet, make sure your social followers know about it. Highlight it on social networks so that when users engage with you, they see your offer and the clear next step toward working with you.
Promote your lead magnet in hero images on profile pages. Also, leverage call-to-action buttons by adding links to your lead magnet instead of driving users to your homepage.
Example: Leadership coach and author Michael Hyatt uses his Facebook page for lead generation marketing. His cover image promotes his lead magnet and drives page visitors directly toward his free offer.
Pay to Promote Your Business on Social Media
Use paid social ads as one of your lead generation strategies. Leverage Facebook’s and Instagram’s powerful targeting options to show ads to the people most likely to be interested in your products or services.
You can target people on macro levels (using demographic segmentation) or micro levels (using behavior and psychographic segmentation), allowing you to connect with a very specific audience.
Example: Conversocial, a social media customer care tool, uses paid Instagram ads to drive target prospects to their gated, in-depth social media guides and reports.
Retarget People Who Have Engaged With Your Brand
Retarget People Who Have Engaged With Your Brand keep the faith. Use retargeting to reconnect with audiences who have engaged with your brand but failed to take the next step.
Retargeting allows you to show ads (through Google display or social ads) to people who engage with your brand’s website or social pages. Because customers may need to see your brand a few times before they convert, retargeting is a strategic way to continue guiding customers down the purchase funnel.
Example: You’ve seen retargeting in action if you’ve ever visited a website and then saw an ad for the same brand a few hours later. Here’s an example from Shopify on Facebook. Retargeted ads look just like normal ads, but they only target audiences who have already engaged the brand in some way.
Create a Referral Rewards System
Create a referral rewards system where your customers bring leads to you in exchange for a benefit or discount.
Customers value and trust recommendations from their friends, so encouraging existing customers to spread the word about your brand can be a powerful way to fill your lead funnel.
Example: Sunglasses company Shady Rays gets their current customers to generate leads by asking them to provide an email address of someone they think will like their brand. In exchange, Shady Rays gives the existing customer $15 if the lead makes a purchase.
Create a LOT of opt-in opportunities and make them irresistible
Webinars, free reports, live demos… don’t stop at just one or two opt-ins. Turn every blog post into an opt-in page. You can give away recipes, PDFs of your blog posts, worksheets, resource guides and more
Get the opt-in box out of the sidebar and make a pop-up. Force users to make a decision. Do you want this or not? It’s easier to say no when the option is just sitting there in the sidebar and saying no is as easy as ignoring it.
You can’t make them say yes, but you don’t have to make it so easy for people to say no.
Always be testing, but test the right way
Getting great advice is a good thing, but it’s dangerous to think that because it worked for someone else, it’ll work equally well for you. That doesn’t mean you should ignore great advice, but that you need to test, test, test – and do it right.
Split test even where you think you don’t need to. Sometimes the results amongst your audience will seem counterintuitive, but this is why testing is critical. In this test, for example, you might think the use of “my” or “your” would have little effect.
Other aspects you’ll want to test for are immediacy, concreteness, images, and more. Split test your headline, your button copy, and your background image. The results might surprise you, but you’ll be making better, more informed optimizations.
Make landing pages clear and easy to take action on
Why is this so effective? Tim explained that it doesn’t require the user to process very much information, like a 3-minute video or a whole page of copy would. It outperforms a free report because a lot of people are feeling information overload and don’t want to download something even longer to read.
Video lead magnets have suffered an image problem lately, in part because of the proliferation of launches and lack of time. For these reasons, this landing page was a hot performer. It also helped that people genuinely want to know which tools other people are using and this fulfills that desire.
Anyone can do this – dentists, plumbers, architects, whoever. This type of lead gen landing page can be set up in under a half hour and is definitely worth trying out.
Go nuts with remarketing
Remarketing enables you to tag site visitors and get back in front of them as they go about their business around the web, checking their email, watching YouTube, searching Google and even hanging out on Facebook.
It helps turns abandoners into leads, which is huge considering that 97% of people will leave your landing page without converting. Remarketing amplifies the effect of all of your other startup marketing activities – content marketing, social media marketing, etc. – by positioning you in front of your audience again.
Remarketing using the Google Display Network gives you 92% reach in the U.S., across millions of websites, videos, and devices. We’ve found that remarketing ads fatigue is about half the rate of regular ads, so be aggressive! Use our Remarketing Cheat Sheet to get started.
7 lead generation strategies for your startup
Disclaimer: You absolutely do NOT need to try all of these. In fact, doing so would probably be a bad idea. Why? Because no two startups are the same. Although these seven lead generation strategies have worked wonders for our companies, that won’t necessarily be the case for yours.
You may only find success with one or two of these strategies. That’s OK. Evaluate each one carefully in the context of your revenue, your resources, your marketing goals, and your competitive landscape. As much as we believe in the effectiveness of these lead generation strategies, there’s no universal formula for growth.
Rapid growth needs serious lead generation strategies
If you want to grow and grow fast, you need to prioritize your lead generation strategies and use tactics like the ones we’ve recommended above to get as many qualified prospects as possible into your funnel.
7 lead generation strategies for startups and 12 strategies for any business