Lead generation continues to be one of the biggest challenges faced by digital marketers. Why do I say this? Ask any digital marketer and they’ll tell you exactly why.
Marketing guru Zig Ziglar put the challenges faced by marketers in a very succinct manner, He said:
Every sale has five basic obstacles: No need, no money, no hurry, no desire, not trust.
What if you had strategies to overcome these problems right on your fingertips? And each of those strategies was almost certain to help you increase conversion, close more deals, and increase your subscriptions? I’ll be doing exactly that in this post. Here are 10 strategies that you can use to increase your lead generation.
1. Email marketing and communication
Email marketing still remains one of the most popular methods of marketing used by digital marketers, and there is very solid reasoning behind it too. Emails help provide a platform for personal communication with customers, this is often lost in other forms of marketing.
Customers are still prompted to subscribe to newsletters when they visit blogs and other landing pages. But there’s a lot more that you can accomplish through email marketing. Just sending monthly newsletters to your subscribers is not a guarantee of lead generation and cultivation.
Use emails as a channel to send other useful information to your customers such as training courses relevant to their industry, questionnaire forms to learn more about them, and other resources that they would find helpful. A good online survey software and a training maker tool would accomplish both of these tasks for you with relative ease.
You can look up the training course, survey question examples, and other tools to make the most out of your email marketing and communication.
2. Facebook Messenger marketing
Facebook Messenger marketing has quickly emerged as a serious competition to email marketing, and with good reason too. Email marketing faces the limitation of having to collect user information before you can initiate a conversation with them. This is not the case when it comes to Facebook messenger marketing.
Facebook Messenger has over 1.3 billion active users, and the information regarding all of these users is already with Facebook. All of this user information is accessible to you if you have a Facebook chatbot or through your own personal account. With this information already there, all a customer has to do is click on a button to sign-up. Leverage this to your benefit by connecting to your customers through Facebook Messenger.
3. Use exit-intent popups on your website
Often a point of annoyance to customers, exit-intent pop-ups are special deals which you can offer to the customers when they are about to leave your website. They can either further annoy your customers or save the transaction.
The main point here being that exit-intent popups are a saving grace in dire situations. Use them as just that, exit-intent popups should not be your primary source of lead generation. If they are, then there is a serious problem with your website design.
Save your usage of exit-intent popups for your most important pages. Use exit-intent popups at sales pages and such to prompt the user to stay rather than making them the only reason to stay.
4. Get in touch with thought leaders
Thought leadership is an excellent channel to direct conversations in the direction you want them to flow. Get in touch with an industry leader in your domain and ask them for their insights on different issues that your industry faces. This helps you prove that your business cares about customers and is focused on solving the problems they face.
For example, here’s what the Research Geek, Jake Pryszlak had to say about social media becoming the key to unlocking engagement, “Absolutely! Social media and social listening to be precise has become a huge area of development. Brands can now understand what products and services are important to consumers in advance of them being released in a shop.” This example gives you an idea of how to structure your expert interviews to cater to your audience. Find out who are the leading intellectuals in your field are and ask for their opinions.
5. Use Fomo to your advantage
Fomo or the “Fear of Missing Out” is an excellent lead generation and conversion tactic that feeds on scarcity. The idea is to make the customer feel that they are missing out on an opportunity that will not come across again. The human psyche is wired to want the things they can’t have. Leverage this to the maximum benefit.
The trick here though isn’t to make every deal you have a limited period offering. If everything is a limited time offer, nothing is considered special. Use such offers only when you actually have a limited offer or if the product is running out of stock. These cases are genuine and will gain more traction among customers. Another scenario where you can use this to your advantage is when you’re hosting an event or a webinar/seminar.
6. Youtube channels and podcasts – Provide solutions to problems
Videos are another highly effective form of engagement. Want an idea of how effective a platform video is? The average Youtube session is 40 minutes long. This high rate of user retention is the primary reason why even Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter have started pushing videos to the top of a user’s feed. Podcasts are on a similar level when it comes to drawing users, as now more and more users now tune-in to listen to their favourite podcasts.
Create a broadcast channel that teaches people how to solve a problem that they face in their daily operations; you now have access to reach over four additional channels apart from your own website. More the number of channels you spread out to, the higher the chances of lead generation and conversion.
7. Lead magnets
Have you ever come across a subscription form while trying to read a whitepaper? If your answer is yes, then you have come across a lead magnet. A lead magnet is an incentive that marketers offer to customers in exchange for their contact information or their email address. It isn’t just applicable for whitepapers. In case you are looking for a survey template, the site may ask for your details or prompt you to sign up with the brand first. The same is true in the case of instant support. While initiating a chat online, you may come across a pre-chat form that asks for details like name, email, and phone number.
8. Use heat maps and data-driven marketing
Very few visitors actually reach the bottom of the page when they visit a website. It’s not necessarily an issue with your personal web page design; it is a problem that is consistent across all websites. With all the information available to people easily, they now have a much shorter attention span, so very few actually want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see a call to action.
You can use screen monitoring tools to develop heat maps to study where your customers lose interest in the page and place your call to action accordingly. Ideally, you can add web forms at around the halfway mark of the page to collect leads. Keep testimonials and other such information that doesn’t directly influence the customer towards the bottom of the page to ensure the customers view the important data first.
9. Make use of quizzes
Like chatbots, quizzes are one of the latest trends in lead generation. Quizzes are an excellent method to collect intent data from potential customers and leads. They collect data in a unique and interactive way. The best part of it is that they are not mainstream yet and so it’s best to make use of this channel before everyone takes it up.
10. Host seminars/webinars
One of the best ways to increase your leads and conversions is to host seminars and webinars. Be it about addressing industry-based issues or a product-related event, meeting your prospects is one of the best methods to convert leads into customers. Seminars and webinars provide you with an excellent platform to have meaningful interactions with your customers.
