Are you making the most of your key digital marketing channels? Honestly, it’s never been easier to generate high-value, actionable leads for your sales team, but many companies continue to settle for tried and true even as older lead generation ideas grow inefficient. To generate the most effective, efficient leads for your team requires a thorough understanding of how customers research, buy and discuss the products and services they require.
Lead Generation Ideas to try
We’ve all been there. Call it writers’ block, burnout or just plain overwhelmed. We’ve all hit a point where we’re out of ideas. No worries! I’ve got you! So I’ve put together a list of 10 lead generation ideas that I’ll be trying for you to steal! So let’s take a look at the lead generation tactics that you should try as well:
1: Build high-value courses as a lead generation tactic
Offering a multi-part course in a subject relevant to your business is one of the easiest lead generation ideas to bring in new visitors and convert them into customers. This sort of educational multi-part content gives visitors a reason to come back repeatedly, gives you an opportunity to develop a narrative which generates leads, and, when done well, encourages readers to spread word-of-mouth and pull in even more prospects.
Quick Tip: Don’t be afraid to produce content like this in different mediums; prospects who would never sit through an entire video will read in rapt attention through dozens of blog posts, for example.
2: Use video guides as a lead generation tactic
In-depth video courses aren’t the only way to generate leads but a well-designed video guide to a single common problem your customers or clients may suffer is definitely one of lead generation ideas I’m going to try, and you should too—especially if you can position your product or service as an easy answer to a related problem.
Think about the little problems you won’t find in a company FAQ or a normal usage guide, the questions that can be answered instantly with a video explanation if someone would only take the time to make such a guide. If you’re the one who made that guide, you may be shocked how much attention it gets online—and how many leads that can translate into!
3: Manage your reviews for SEO to increase leads
Customer reviews have a lot of pull with search engines. I’m focusing hard on this as one of my lead generation ideas, and you should too, so make sure you’re paying attention to what people say about you and your brand and control the narrative accordingly. This doesn’t mean manipulating your reviews with fakes, but rather taking advantage of the tools available for fair engagement.
Take any opportunity to respond to negative reviews; if you did nothing wrong, explain why. If a negative review or complaint has merit, address it honestly and remedy the situation publicly.
Quick Tip: figure out which review sites are most important to your SEO and general lead generation and guide happy customers to engage there. Incentives for positive reviews—discounts, for example—can work wonders.
4: Work with influencers as a lead generation tactic
Leveraging big names and thought leaders in your industry is one of my lead generation ideas that is just too powerful to ignore. An exclusive interview with someone your prospects would care to hear from can be a great lead generation idea, and get a lot of people paying attention to your business; combine that with effective web design and a killer call to action, and you’ll have more leads than you know what to do with.
Just make sure you’re choosing the right people for your product and your target audience—a figure with controversial politics, for example, could cause you serious problems by association despite any value they may have as an industry figure. Of course, those same politics may be a boon depending on your prospect demographics, brand image, etc. The point is to carefully consider all implications of working with a high-profile individual.
Quick Tip: Often going perpendicular to your product or service will serve you better than finding someone whose body of work and normal audience is too close to your own specialties. You may already have the attention of the latter group without the influencer’s help, while someone who is somewhat related to your product type may offer completely untapped prospect bases.
5: Go deep on tough problems as a lead generation tactic
There are millions of sites out there giving shallow solutions to common problems. There are far, far fewer taking the time to go in-depth on complex problems or tasks, getting into the finer details of resolving complicated challenges.
I’m including this on my list of lead generation ideas for two reasons. First, the simple draw of unique content not found elsewhere online or off; even if other companies have in-depth guides, two in-depth guides will have far more unique content than two shallow guides would.
Second, this is a great way to establish your brand’s authority on a subject. All the more so if you can make the subject something highly unique and related to your overall company narrative. Think carefully on what unique perspectives you can offer or what problems your company is uniquely equipped to resolve, and you’ll get far better content and far more valuable leads.
6: Generate leads by simplifying your prospects tasks
Making your site a go-to location for some tool, spreadsheet, checklist, or app that makes life easier is one of those lead generation ideas that you have to try. Not only does content of this type get shared rapidly across dozens or hundreds of communities full of prospects, they establish your brand authority, they offer an opportunity to collect data for an ongoing drip marketing campaign and they get prospects accustomed to engaging with your website.
7: Put together a relevant giveaway as a lead generation tactic
This is definitely not one of my more complex lead generation ideas, but not all things need to be—even now. Many things about the way marketing works may have changed in recent years, but a well-designed giveaway still has the same lead-generating potential today than it ever has.
Quick Tip: Aim for useful, relevant, and enduring to get the most out of giveaway marketing.
8: Create fun or useful activities that engage new leads
When a prospect commits time or effort to doing something on your site, they’re far more likely to invest additional time into your site. This can mean fun, funny, or useful quizzes, for example. This is also the sort of content that spreads like wildfire across social media if done well, which makes it an excellent way to identify communities you could engage for more leads.
9: Cross-promote across channels to generate more leads
Don’t forget to treat your various marketing channels as components in a greater whole. You can seriously undermine your lead generation strategies if you isolate social media, blog posts, and video posts, instead of using them together to create a memorable, valuable, interesting whole.
Quick Tip: keep in mind that most people have preferred mediums for engaging different types of content—catching someone who barely cares about their Twitter account with a link to your app or blog may be your only chance of a lead from that user.
10: Optimize lead generation with automation tools
Effective generation of leads also means making the most of the latest and greatest toolsets. Modern automation tools and CRM can help turn a confusing slurry of visitors sourced from a dozen different channels into personally engaged leads ready to buy with the slightest nudge.
Prospects who would eventually fade off of a generic email chain can become your best customers, advocating for your product to the whole world—if you use the tools available today to produce a custom stream of content. It’s like having a member of your marketing team personally curate the articles, videos, and follow ups sent to each person on your mailing list—without the expense in time or resources.
Coming up With Your Own Lead Generation Ideas
This list is far from comprehensive. There are endless ways for you to generate leads. But the best lead generation ideas and tactics are usually pretty similar—figure out what your audience wants, and find a way to deliver it to them. Think about your ideal customer or client. Understand how they are searching, buying, and discussing the products and services they require, the products and services you can deliver and go for it!
The methods may differ, but the fundamentals of leads remain the same. Think of what the prospect is looking for at the moment they reach you and give them that and a bit more. The happier your customer is when they reach the end of the funnel and complete a sale, the healthier your business is going to be moving forward.
Leveraging These Lead Generation Ideas
The bottomline is lead generation requires a familiarity with not only your customers but the complexities involved in formulating a full-fledged inbound marketing strategy in order to be successful. There are dozens of specific skills – content writing, search engine optimization, social media, website design, conversion rate optimization, email marketing, etc. that must be considered, and implemented. You can take these ideas as they are and run with them to develop your lead generation strategy, or you can look for help.
Social Vernacular specializes in the creation, execution, and optimization of results-driven lead generation strategies for growth-focused companies. We know how to prioritize, what to do, what not to do, what works best for your specific business model and how to implement the proper infrastructure to facilitate inbound lead generation.
Integrating These Lead Generation Ideas Into Your Larger Inbound Marketing Strategy
If you’re interested in accelerating and amplifying your lead generation efforts into a larger inbound marketing strategy we created a FREE, 16 page downloadable guide to give you clarity and confidence as you develop your company’s inbound marketing initiatives and overall strategy.
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