Lead generation is the means by which your company identifies and nurtures potential customers. Think of it as the point at which a lead enters the purchase funnel.
If your business is going to grow, it must constantly generate new leads and contacts. In an increasingly marketing-savvy business climate, it’s getting harder and harder to impress prospective clients.
In order to stay ahead of your competitors, your marketing department needs to find ever more creative ways to attract business.
Here are 16 unorthodox ways to keep leads coming:
According to Unbounce, a landing page video can boost your conversion rate by 80%.
Create a promo video and showcase what you do best, or invite clients (even competitors) to join you and discuss issues relating to your field of business. Alternatively, film an in-depth piece with an industry leader, put the preview on your webpage (and YouTube) and invite visitors to opt-in in order to view the full version.
Put together a weekly review of the week’s best content - a regular digest of tweets, social media posts and news stories (with a good chunk of your own material mixed in) and share it online.
Around 100 million users visit Quora every month, and the site is still growing. Quora is a free questions and answer website that allows academics, businesses and professionals to answer crowdsourced questions. The site is a great way of engaging in conversation. For best results, lay off the hard sell, and concentrate instead on becoming a valuable member of the community, allowing team members to answer questions according to their fields of expertise (skilfully inserting references to your business where applicable).
Quizzes are enormously popular, but tricky to pull off. Keep quizzes simple, and make sure the material is relevant to your line of business. Reward the user for sticking around to the end and opting in – perhaps connect your quiz to a giveaway, or at least some great content.
Join with another business and produce an advertorial. For the best results, approach a larger company in your field and ask them to share co-sponsorship duties. Make sure you have full input on how the content turns out before agreeing to publish it on the partner site.
If any section of a website is under-utilised, it’s the thank you page. If a user has reached your ‘thank you’ page, you can be sure that they like what you do. This is a golden chance to sign them up to your newsletter, or point them to additional content or resources.
The “404 is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested”. It’s where a user is sent when they hit a dead link.
Why not customise your 404? Apologise for not being able to offer the content your user was looking for, but explain that if they sign-up for your mailing list they’re guaranteed to receive a host of great content.
Ebooks are a great B2B lead magnet. Writing (or compiling) an ebook isn’t easy, but the potential rewards are enormous. Ebooks are a fantastic opportunity to relate your company’s expertise to a given issue in business. Plus, by keeping a record of all who purchase your ebook, you can offer targeted follow ups, perhaps free access to a relevant email course in return for an opt-in.
An email course is an autoresponder – a series of emailed scheduled to be sent to users over a period of time. The course offers subscribers an opportunity to gain some learning in a relevant subject. This approach tends to work best for big topics that can be taught in depth. Done well, an email course offers a great alternative to signing up for an expensive business course. Plus, an email course gives you the opportunity to really showcase the depth of your company’s expertise.
Companies like Barclays and Euromonitor are constantly churning out industry reports. These reports are complicated (not to mention massive) but are packed with invaluable business insight. Take an industry report and transform it into something more exciting than a pile of text and charts.
Running an industry workshop is a great way to discuss marketing goals with potential clients. Not only will this give you a chance to meet leads face to face, you can be sure that attendees will discuss you with their own contacts afterwards.
Who doesn’t love a freebie? Giveaways are one of the most popular forms of lead generation, but make sure that what you’re giving away is targeted at the leads you’re trying to nurture. Too many giveaways attract freeloaders enticed by the promise of something for nothing.
Everyone expects you to talk about how great you are. A recommendation carries more weight when it comes from a third party. Find a client you love working with and invite them to tell the world how great you are. Free advertising for them, and a glowing reference for you.
Be careful. Don’t be too forthcoming. Approach it as you would approach the ‘what are your weaknesses?’ question in a job interview. This is a chance to show that you are self-aware and capable of learning from your experiences, and a chance to connect with clients who are struggling with similar problems.
Break from convention and get your message across in a fun, approachable format. Comic books are readable and easily shared via social media.
Worried that a comic might seem a little too frivolous? Showcase your logical side with a flowchart, or impress prospective clients with a host of facts and figures.
No matter how innovative your lead generators are, without a coherent strategy and efficient metrics, you’ll be unable to determine the effectiveness of your marketing. Use a combination of generators, and adopt a flexible approach, never becoming too reliant on one method.
Lead generation is the means by which your company identifies and nurtures potential customers. Think of it as the point at which a lead enters the purchase funnel.
If your business is going to grow, it must constantly generate new leads and contacts. In an increasingly marketing-savvy business climate, it’s getting harder and harder to impress prospective clients.
In order to stay ahead of your competitors, your marketing department needs to find ever more creative ways to attract business.
Here are 16 unorthodox ways to keep leads coming:
According to Unbounce, a landing page video can boost your conversion rate by 80%.
Create a promo video and showcase what you do best, or invite clients (even competitors) to join you and discuss issues relating to your field of business. Alternatively, film an in-depth piece with an industry leader, put the preview on your webpage (and YouTube) and invite visitors to opt-in in order to view the full version.
Put together a weekly review of the week’s best content - a regular digest of tweets, social media posts and news stories (with a good chunk of your own material mixed in) and share it online.
Around 100 million users visit Quora every month, and the site is still growing. Quora is a free questions and answer website that allows academics, businesses and professionals to answer crowdsourced questions. The site is a great way of engaging in conversation. For best results, lay off the hard sell, and concentrate instead on becoming a valuable member of the community, allowing team members to answer questions according to their fields of expertise (skilfully inserting references to your business where applicable).
Quizzes are enormously popular, but tricky to pull off. Keep quizzes simple, and make sure the material is relevant to your line of business. Reward the user for sticking around to the end and opting in – perhaps connect your quiz to a giveaway, or at least some great content.
Join with another business and produce an advertorial. For the best results, approach a larger company in your field and ask them to share co-sponsorship duties. Make sure you have full input on how the content turns out before agreeing to publish it on the partner site.
If any section of a website is under-utilised, it’s the thank you page. If a user has reached your ‘thank you’ page, you can be sure that they like what you do. This is a golden chance to sign them up to your newsletter, or point them to additional content or resources.
The “404 is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested”. It’s where a user is sent when they hit a dead link.
Why not customise your 404? Apologise for not being able to offer the content your user was looking for, but explain that if they sign-up for your mailing list they’re guaranteed to receive a host of great content.
Ebooks are a great B2B lead magnet. Writing (or compiling) an ebook isn’t easy, but the potential rewards are enormous. Ebooks are a fantastic opportunity to relate your company’s expertise to a given issue in business. Plus, by keeping a record of all who purchase your ebook, you can offer targeted follow ups, perhaps free access to a relevant email course in return for an opt-in.
An email course is an autoresponder – a series of emailed scheduled to be sent to users over a period of time. The course offers subscribers an opportunity to gain some learning in a relevant subject. This approach tends to work best for big topics that can be taught in depth. Done well, an email course offers a great alternative to signing up for an expensive business course. Plus, an email course gives you the opportunity to really showcase the depth of your company’s expertise.
Companies like Barclays and Euromonitor are constantly churning out industry reports. These reports are complicated (not to mention massive) but are packed with invaluable business insight. Take an industry report and transform it into something more exciting than a pile of text and charts.
Running an industry workshop is a great way to discuss marketing goals with potential clients. Not only will this give you a chance to meet leads face to face, you can be sure that attendees will discuss you with their own contacts afterwards.
Who doesn’t love a freebie? Giveaways are one of the most popular forms of lead generation, but make sure that what you’re giving away is targeted at the leads you’re trying to nurture. Too many giveaways attract freeloaders enticed by the promise of something for nothing.
Everyone expects you to talk about how great you are. A recommendation carries more weight when it comes from a third party. Find a client you love working with and invite them to tell the world how great you are. Free advertising for them, and a glowing reference for you.
Be careful. Don’t be too forthcoming. Approach it as you would approach the ‘what are your weaknesses?’ question in a job interview. This is a chance to show that you are self-aware and capable of learning from your experiences, and a chance to connect with clients who are struggling with similar problems.
Break from convention and get your message across in a fun, approachable format. Comic books are readable and easily shared via social media.
Worried that a comic might seem a little too frivolous? Showcase your logical side with a flowchart, or impress prospective clients with a host of facts and figures.
No matter how innovative your lead generators are, without a coherent strategy and efficient metrics, you’ll be unable to determine the effectiveness of your marketing. Use a combination of generators, and adopt a flexible approach, never becoming too reliant on one method.
Lead generation is important for your business because the traditional buying process has dramatically changed and therefore, requires your business to stimulate interest in your products or services across the customer pipeline.
Nurtured leads produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities and businesses who nurture leads make 50% more sales at a cost 33% less than non-nurtured prospects. Find out more about how businesses are generating leads, what's working and what's not.
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