What are the best ways for online lead generation?

Are you generating enough leads for your business? Is your sales team converting those leads?

For all of us handling businesses, there is one simple truth: no prospects mean no business.

Generating leads is vital for any business. With businesses increasing their presence online, online lead generation has become a necessity. Generating leads online is an essential element for any digital marketer’s sales funnels. However, if you are struggling to generate leads, you are not alone. Most of the digital marketers complain of difficulty in generating quality leads for their companies.

By now, many of you must be wondering: What is lead generation? It is a process of filling your sales funnel pipeline with people or businesses interested in your products. It is about collecting their information to enable communication, cultivate a positive relationship, stimulate their interest in your product and turn them into loyal customers. In short, anything that permits you to connect with them as a probable customer is a lead generation tactic.

Similarly, Online lead generation or lead generation in digital marketing is the process of finding and engaging leads in an online world. You will need your prospective clients to find your product or content, follow you on social media and maybe sign-up for your email subscriber list.

Are you ready to take action and improve on your online lead generation efforts? We are listing seven ways to just do that.

1. Analyze your competitors

You would have heard interviews of many sports person spending a lot of time watching videos of their competitors. Initially, you would have thought wouldn’t it be better if he/she simply starts practising her drills more to improve, become better and defeat the opposition?

The answer will be a big NO. Unless they spend time understanding which drills they should practice more to beat their competition, it will be like trying blind-folded.

On similar lines, as a digital marketer, it is equally important for you to study and understand your competition. It helps you find out what your rivals are doing and once you know what they are doing, you can work out a plan, implement and beat them.

Once you know your competitors and their marketing strategy, it will help you figure out how you can easily pull in new leads.

2. Providing a lot of opt-in opportunities by offering value for prospects

Whenever you get to interact with your prospect, either through emails, webinars, Instagram, try adding valuable resource which they cannot resist and opt-in voluntarily. You may provide some useful insights in the form of a PDF of your interactions or blog posts, worksheets on how you do things or even resource guides.

You may also try switching from a subscriber opt-in box placed on the sidebar to a call-to-action sidebar. In this way, we may ask users to decide if they want it or not.

These changes may see a substantial spike in conversions.

3. Making landing pages neat and actionable

Though all pages of your website need equal attention, special care must be taken while creating the landing pages of your website. The landing page must remain neat and clean wherein users are provided with clear information with a necessary call-to-action button.

Moreover, understanding the user behaviour through the use of heat maps, confetti maps, scroll maps and overlay maps plays a vital role in generating online leads.

Though there has to be a Call-To-Action (CTA) button, everything on the page, from the headline to the body to the image used shall be complementing the CTA button.

In short, you must prepare your prospective client to convert. Anticipating what users require and giving them a way to get it will provide plenty of quality leads.

4. Creating a sequential Email Marketing funnel

Email marketing has been a preferred way of targeting the audience and generating leads. If you have an email list of your audience, you have already covered half the distance. If someone has allowed you to email them, it shows he is curious to know about what you do. All that is needed now is a strong call-to-action that shall convert the lead into a client through well optimized and custom email.

However, easier said than done, a strong call-to-action may not come straight away. You may need to create email marketing sequences to follow up on prospective customers for better conversions.

For example, the first mail may be used just to introduce your brand and make them aware of your products and services. Educate your leads to nurture them through the funnel and follow it up with an invitation to webinars or with coupon codes with discounts or provide them with other incentives to purchase.

5. Offer unique content

We all know content plays a vital role in getting leads. Unique and customized content has high chances of conversion than redundant content. You shall also ensure the content should be in-depth, engaging and thought-provoking.

Moreover, don’t be afraid of using long-tail keywords that target only a small segment of your total audience. These articles may convert prospects into leads and eventually, loyal customers.

6. Establish healthy relationships with your prospective clients

If you follow a brand, let us say your favourite sports team. What draws you to them? Why do you follow them on Facebook or Instagram?

You are part of your favourite team’s community. You feel associated and that gets you involved in their social media community.

That is precisely what you want from your leads. Invite your prospects to connect with you at every opportunity, whether you are sharing funny videos on Twitter, or offering free videos on YouTube. Give them reasons to check your business every time you publish a new post and to allow them to comment on their own experiences.

Your job is not yet done. You must respond to them. If you get an email, shoot off a reply. If you get a comment on Facebook or Instagram, acknowledge it with an answer or even with an emoji.

In other words, you must tell your prospects that they are valuable and you appreciate their contributions to your brand.

7. Starting a guest post strategy 

Guest posting is one of the most powerful sources of online lead generation. It allows the users on other platforms to know about your brand and it is for you to convince them to visit them on your platform, eventually. Of course, you have to convince them to convert, but you need to get hold of them there first through attractive and engaging content.

You should keep an eye on blogs of your segment who allow for guest posting. You must plan ways to pitch your request for a guest post to blog owners through emails, LinkedIn contacts, Facebook messages or Instagram messages.

Most blogs allow you to include at least one or two links to your website in your post which shall get you running.

Conclusion

We have recommended lots of strategies above. If you want to get quality leads in quick time, you need to prioritize your lead generation strategies and get as many quality prospects as possible into your marketing funnel.