In the 2017 edition of the State of Inbound report, Hubspot revealed that lead generation is still the top challenge for marketers. Why? Could be that marketers are looking for leads at all the wrong places, and also approaching them the wrong way?
The modern day buyer isn’t relying on reviews or your sales team to make a purchase decision. They no longer want their attention bought - they want it earned.
This means buyers are getting smarter and competent by the day. They want value, not pitches. What does a marketer do in this case to engage users and compel them to leave behind their contact info?
70+ Lead Generation Tips to boost your Marketing in 2019
In the 2017 edition of the State of Inbound report, Hubspot revealed that lead generation is still the top challenge for marketers. Why? Could be that marketers are looking for leads at all the wrong places, and also approaching them the wrong way?
The modern day buyer isn’t relying on reviews or your sales team to make a purchase decision. They no longer want their attention bought - they want it earned.
This means buyers are getting smarter and competent by the day. They want value, not pitches. What does a marketer do in this case to engage users and compel them to leave behind their contact info?
Create a Customer-First, Value-Driven Lead Generation Strategy
The answer lies in revamping the lead generation strategy to meet the evolving needs of the target market. The idea is to reach out to the customers where, and how, they want to be met.
A marketing strategy that’s centered around the customer and the value we can provide to them answers three simple questions:
- What problems does your business solve?
- Who is facing these problems?
- How will customers find your solutions?
Today, customers don’t look for businesses - they look for solutions. Provide value to them and they’ll find you. In this ebook, we focus on discussing lead generation tactics that you can use to capture more leads and on board more customers. Let’s start!
Category: Offers & Lead Magnets
Nothing spells value better than an offer. In fact, it is one of the most powerful words in the English language. And the best kind of offers are lead magnets like webinars, checklists, templates, research reports, ebooks, whitepapers, on-demand videos, and demo requests. Let’s look at some tips for lead generation around offers and lead magnets.
#1 Use the element of scarcity - It’s a known psychological fact - humans place a higher value on an object that is scarce, and a lower value on those that are abundant. Thus, quoting your offer as scarce helps create a sense of urgency. Here are three ways you can make your offers scarce and in demand -
Limited Time - Offers that are available only for a given duration of time. Hubspot tested a limited time offer vs. the control version which had the offer but no time limitation. The limited time offer outperformed control by 8%. Amazon’s daily deals is a good example of this, and so is this time-specific landing page designed by Marketizator.
Limited Quantity - These offers perform better than limited-time offers. Why? Because it’s hard to tell when an offer of limited quantity will suddenly become unavailable.
Google used this tactic to generate initial buzz for Gmail. During the beta phase, the exclusive nature of the accounts caused a fast-growing demand for gmail.com email addresses. In fact, people started buying the free email service to get their hands on it. Gmail invitations were selling on eBay for as much as $150, with some specific accounts being sold for several thousand dollars.
Limited Time & Limited Quantity - Groupon is the perfect example of using both tactics. All Groupon deals end within a certain time frame, and they
limit the number of people who can buy the deal.
#2 Focus on Relevancy - It’s important to keep your offers relevant to your business and of course, target audience. For instance, Outgrow’s target market comprises digital marketers and agencies. Thus, most of our lead magnets talk about topics relevant to marketers - lead generation (like this one!), interactive content, funnel strategy etc.
#3 Leverage the Bandwagon Effect - It’s a human tendency to follow one another, and, as a marketer, you should definitely use this to your advantage. Wherever possible, mention how many people have purchased, downloaded, signed up, or donated - this makes the offer more lucrative for your audience.
Copyblogger is a great example. The message of their membership landing page clearly states how many marketers have already joined them, building immediate trust.
#4 Craft a Great Headline - A great offer or lead magnet with a bad title is a dud. Short, sexy, accurate, and thoughtful titles can help you crack the deal. Hubspot did a small experiment on the title of their ebook and ran an A/B test to see which title performed better. The revised version outperformed the original by 776% at generating leads (first time submissions).
Pro Tip: Struggling with creating awesome headlines? This guide by Hubspot can help.
#5 Different Offers for Different Buying Stages - Abiding by the Holy Law of Marketing Funnel, thou must engage the customer at every stage in the buyer journey. For top of the funnel (TOFU) create informational lead magnets like ebooks, guides, checklists etc. At the middle stage, product webinars can be a good idea. At end of the funnel, which is the purchase stage, a product demo or free trial works well.
<Funnel Graphic>
#6 Avoid Corporate Jargon - It’s best to keep the copy for your offer promotion simple. While a professional tone is important, avoid using corporate or technical jargons. Here’s a list of words/phrases you shouldn’t use as a part of your offer or lead magnet promotion -
- Next Generation
• Flexible
• Robust
• Scalable
• Easy to use
• Cutting edge
• Ground breaking
• Best of breed
• Mission critical
#7 Offer a Demo/Trial Version of Your Product - If you let people try your product/service for some time, it builds trust and they are happy to leave behind their information in exchange of this value-add. In fact, GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting typically convert 40% - 45% of their trials into paying customers.
#8 Gate Your Blog Posts - A good idea is to offer some teaser content and then gare your blog posts to get people to share their information. It's true that gated content comes with the risk of high bounce rate but if you establish your value proposition before driving users into a content lock they will know if they really want to consume the content. And if the content is worthy enough, they will even share it with their friends. Or so proves the result of a gated content test conducted by Nathan Gotch of GOTCH SEO.
#9 Use Case Studies & Testimonials to Generate Targeted Leads - Social proof goes a long way in establishing trust among prospects, and there’s no better way of showcasing it than case studies and testimonials. For Neil Patel, case studies have grown the sales by 185%. Similarly, VWO discovered that placing testimonials on your lead generation page can improve the conversions by 50%.
#10 Host Webinars and Podcast - Webinars and podcasts provide more leads, even more than gated content! In fact, you can gather more customer information through a webinar opt-in, than you would with a any other top-of-the-funnel offer. Don’t believe us? Ask Neil Patel. He was able to generate 518,399 visitors and 16,394 leads from 77 webinars!
#11 Offer Discount Codes - According to MarketingProfs, 57% of US online shoppers who used a coupon code said that if they had not received the discount, they would not have bought the item(s). What’s more - 93% of consumers consider special promotions as an influential reason for signing up for loyalty programs. Thus, it is a good idea to offer discount codes to see your sales go up.
Category: Call to Action Compel to Act
Put yourself in the buyer's shoes for a minute and tell me what you’re more likely to do - act because you’re told to or because you want to. I’d pick the latter and I guess you’d too.
The idea is to create instances in your buyer journey that compel your prospects to take an action, instead of you having to ask them to do something. And while the offers you give or the lead magnets you create develop the foundation for it, it’s equally important to rethink your CTAs. It’s time to rename Call to Actions into Compel to Act. Here are some tips to help you get started.
#12 Focus on CTA Placement - I can already hear most people chant - “above the fold, above the fold!” Yawn. The user has evolved, and so has the user behavior. While placing your CTA above the fold might work in a lot of cases, you must experiment to find out which placement works best for your business.
Kissmetrics puts it this way -
“For a shorter page with less information, then it might make sense to put the CTA above the folder. For a longer page that conveys a more complex and thorough investment, the CTA may do better below the fold.”
For example, Netflix uses an above-the-fold CTA while below-the-fold converts better for Boston Globe.
#13 Clarity Over Persuasion - Focus on being clear and specific. Your CTA should spell what the offer is about and the value you are providing. Offering a free guide? Say “Download our Free Guide to XYZ.” or “Start Reading the Free Guide to XYZ.” Hosting a Webinar? Say “Sign Up for our Free Webinar.” In the words of MarketingExperiments - clarity trumps persuasion.
#14 Use Contrast to Make CTA Stand Out - Make sure that your CTA doesn't get lost amidst the site design. It’s meant to stand out. That is how you can expect people to find it and click on it. To illustrate better, I am including examples of good and bad CTA designs.
GOOD CTA
BAD CTA
#15 One Size Doesn’t Fit All - You don’t have to restrict yourself to boring CTAs like Sign Up, Buy Now, Download Now etc. In all possibilities, these won’t work for all your offers/promotions. So, if need be, don’t hesitate from creating different CTAs for as many different offers as you may have. Then link each of them to website pages that are most relevant to them.
Category: Landing Pages
In the previous section, I’ve mentioned landing pages a couple of times. And as marketers you understand how important this real estate is to your conversion process.
However, creating a landing page isn’t enough. You must create one that compels visitors to take an action; your landing page must convert. The following tips will help you with this.
#16 Pay Attention to Key Elements - There are certain must-have elements that you should consider to create highly converting landing pages. These key elements include:
A killer headline - This is where it all begins. Your headline should grab users’ attention and tell them what the landing page is all about. Here are some awesome headline examples to give you some inspiration -
A persuasive subheading - This comes directly under the heading and has a hint of persuasiveness to keep the visitors hooked to the landing page. Take some inspiration from HelpDesk.
An on-point offer description - You can include or exclude your headline in the description. It can be a paragraph describing the functionality but should always be user-oriented and to-the-point. No back stories here. Including a superb example of an explanation given in picture form below-
Supporting images - Check out our list of 80 amazing photo resources to find the right image for your landing page. Make sure the pictures are large and relevant to your product/service.
Supporting elements - These are some additional elements that help build trust - think testimonials or security badges.
A form to capture information - You can’t have a landing page without a form - where else do you plan to capture the lead information? However, there are some do’s and don’ts that you must keep in mind while designing a form. We’ll discuss more about them in the next section.
#17 Don’t Make it About You - The landing page should spell value for your visitors. If the page talks a lot about the company or the product/service, you won’t be able to communicate value. This will send your conversion rates downhill.
#18 Remove Main Page Navigation - The best way to increase your landing page conversion rates is to simply remove the main navigation from the page. Minimum distractions = more conversions. #19 Landing Page Headline Should Correspond with CTA Title - The heading and the CTA of the landing page should have consistent messaging. Even a slight difference can confuse the visitors and they might not click on the CTA thinking it's linked to a wrong page.
#20 Be Minimalistic in your Approach - Less is more in case of landing pages. Be brief and to the point. Including too many elements can clutter the page and distract the users.
#21 The Benefits Must Stand Out - Nothing explains your product/service like a list of benefits. But it’s easier said than done. Adding a couple of bullet points talking about your product isn’t enough. You’ve to ensure that these benefits focus on the user and not your company.
For instance, at Outgrow, we could list the benefits in two ways - “Calculators & quizzes convert better” or “You get more conversions using interactive content!” Which one is more customer-oriented? It’s the second one. That’s the kind of benefit we go for, and you should too.
#22 Keep the Flow Logical - If a customer is interested in what you’re offering, they’d engage with the landing page. They’d read the content and follow the thought process. However, if your landing page doesn’t have a set flow, you can end up confusing them, and thus losing a lead. So, you must create a logical and compelling process for them to follow. Here’s an obvious flow we try to follow -
Explanation/Overview → Benefits → Testimonials → Call-to-action
#23 Encourage Social Sharing - A great way of getting more leads is to ensure people know about you. Thus, it’s a good idea to add social share buttons in clear sight.
Note - In some cases, social share buttons may divert attention from the main CTA and lower conversions. Thus, it is best to A/B test and see what works for you.
#24 Create Multiple Landing Pages - It’s simple - the more landing pages you have, the more leads you generate. Don’t believe me? Here’s what folks at Hubspot have to say about this - campaigns with 40+ landing pages get 12 times more leads than those with 5 or less. In fact, by just increasing the number of their landing pages from 10 to 15, companies have seen a 55% increase in their conversions.
#25 Don't Forget Thank You Pages - Don’t just stop at converting a visitor into a lead. Even when someone has filled a form on your website, use Thank You pages to promote other offers and content. This helps you convert prospects into loyal fans.
Category: Optimizing Forms for Conversion
#26 Keep it Short, Silly - The fewer fields in the form, the more conversions you'll get. Rule of thumb is to keep the number of fields between 3 to 5. Also, limit the number of required fields. In case it is essential for you to capture data, consider dividing your form into sections.
#27 Think of Creative Button Text - Don’t stick to the default button text 'submit'. Think out of the box. A good idea is to customize the CTA button according to your offer. Here are a few examples you can use -
- Download this ebook
- Sign me up for a demo
- Show me this presentation
- Claim your coupon
- Save your seat
#28 Focus on form placement - According to Unbounce, the best converting spot for the form lies in the upper right hand corner of the page (source). However, as we mentioned in a previous point, A/B test both form and CTA placement to find the one that works best for you.
#29 Hide Previously Completed Forms - Hubspot does this well. For first time visitors, their forms are really long. However, if you’re returning for the second time, they show you a shorter form to improve the user experience and increase the conversion chances on the second offer.
#30 Be Smart With the CAPTCHA - To avoid the risk of scaring off visitors, make sure that your “human verification” code only shows up when there is some sign of abuse over the form (such as multiple submissions from the same IP in the same day).
Category: Interactive Content
While landing pages and lead magnets have been your go-to lead generation resources for quite some time, sadly they don’t convert as well. A good landing page gets low conversion, usually in the range of 0-12% (with an average of about 2.35%).
Calculators and quizzes on the other side enjoy conversion rates that are almost a magnitude higher. We have seen conversion rates of almost 40%. This completely transforms marketing ROI! However, you must know how to create interactive content that will get you maximum conversions. Here are some tips -
#31 Create a Quiz/Calculator/Assessment - Interactive content can come in many forms - quizzes, calculators, interactive infographics, videos, etc. However, when it comes to lead generation, quizzes, calculators and assessments are your best bet. Buzzfeed reveals that 98% users who start a quiz finish it. The site creates an average of 7.8 quizzes a day. TAG Livros, for instance, built an interactive quiz and hosted it on their website. Within a month, this quiz alone generated more than 72K visits, 23K leads, and 5K engagements. That’s a lead generation rate of almost 32%!
Creating a quiz, calculator, or assessment isn’t a labor. With Outgrow’s WYSIWYG editor, designing interactive content is as easy as using powerpoint. You can learn more about creating calculators and quizzes here.
#32 Host the Calculator/Quiz on your Homepage - This is the first page your prospects see on your website. Thus, it’s best to host your calculator/quiz here.
The Professional Wingman, a premier social strategy company for professional singles, was looking to better their personal relationships. They used a quiz ‘Are You Dateable?’ as a primary call to action on their homepage. Thanks to the quiz, the team has received 1471+ leads so far from 2981+ visits.
Pro Tip: In this post we show you 4 ways you can use interactive content to optimize your homepage for better conversions.
#33 Pick the Right Title for Your Interactive Content Piece - The first thing someone sees is the title copy and that is what leads them to finish taking the quiz, provide their info, and finally share the content with their network.
Business2Community analyzed 100 quizzes receiving 10,000 views or more and found that "Which (blank) are you?" is the most irresistible quiz title. In fact, quizzes that include the words ‘which’, ‘are’, and ‘you’ receive almost 3x more views. Another study found that using the word ‘actually’ in the title increased views by 100%.
#34 Make it Entertaining - Humans have an attention span shorter than a goldfish. Thus, it is important to make your quiz/calculator entertaining to keep your prospects hooked. One of the best ways to do this is to include more visuals. Including images, GIFs, and infographics in the interactive content makes it more aesthetically appealing, which increases the attention span.
Here’s an example of a quiz created on Outgrow that uses a video on the results page -
#35 Use Positive Messaging on Results Page - Make the results uplifting, inspiring, or funny. This encourages people to share more, which in turn means more people end up taking your calculator/quiz. One study found out that results which contain words like “awesome”, “great”, and “excellent” get 3x more Twitter shares. Here’s an example of how we use positive messaging on results page at Outgrow -
#36 Add a CTA on Calculator/quiz to Redirect to your Landing page - Create a quiz/calculator that solves a problem for your target persona, and link its CTA or results page to a landing page. Since interactive content gets 4-5X more shares than static content, you’ll be able to direct more visitors to your landing page.
#37 Share on Social Channels- You can’t expect your interactive content to convert if you’re not promoting it right. Thus, don’t forget to share your quiz/calculator on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, and Google Plus. And don’t forget to target relevant groups on these channels. Here’s a list of top Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups in various niches to help you get started.
Another way to spread the word is to answer relevant questions in your niche in Quora and add a link to the quiz/calculator as a CTA in the answer. However, make sure you do this only for relevant questions, else you might get marked as spam.
#38 Post in Relevant Communities & Forums - These channels offer you access to most engaged and qualified audience. One of the best communities to target is Reddit. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the community and culture of Reddit before you go ahead and promote your business there. You don’t want to be banned from the platform. This post highlights some ways you can use Reddit for marketing and lead generation.
Another strategy that many product companies use is to launch calculators, assessments, or recommendation engines as side projects on Product Hunt. This ensures that they can continue to milk the PH traffic even before they’ve launched their product.
Besides these, other communities we’ve personality tried, and have worked for us, are Google Plus, Growth Hackers, and Inbound.
#39 Syndicate your Content to Other Sites and Add Calculator/Quiz Link to It - Syndication is basically re-publishing a content piece you’ve created on different platforms. This ensures that you can reach a broader audience and thus improves your chances of getting more leads. You can either syndicate a calculator/quiz to another platform or you can create a post and link it to your interactive piece. We’ve used Medium, Inbound, Outbrain, and LinkedIn Pulse for content syndication at Outgrow. There are many other paid and free channels that you can tap into.
Pro Tip: To understand content syndication better, you can refer to this guide by the Search Engine Land.
#40 Embed the Calculator or Quiz in a Blog Post - Including a calculator or quiz in your blog post can lead to better conversions. Our data suggests that a blog post with a quiz or a calculator embedded inside of it will bring over 20 times more conversions than a post. We tried this in-house. Here’s an example of a calculator embed in a blog post -
#41 Use as Personalized CTAs - Besides using interactive experiences as embeds, you can also use them as call-to-actions to your content. Personalized CTAs convert 42% more as compared to their generic counterparts. So, if you are writing a blog post about ‘How to Make Your Content Go Viral’, instead of offering them an ebook or course to download in the CTA, you can add a ‘Viral Factor Calculator’ or a ‘Will Your Content Go Viral’ quiz. This will be more actionable and thus have higher click-through rate.
Here’s an example of something similar we implemented on the Outgrow blog -
Results? This blog got 60% more traffic than blogs with regular CTAs.
#42 Use in Exit Intent Popups - Embedding relevant interactive experiences in exit intent popups can help you positively impact the decision of your prospects.
Take a cue from VisualDNA. The company uses a ‘Who Am I’ quiz to gather insights into audiences. The quiz reveals people’s true identity based on psychological theory. This is a win-win situation as the company gets volumes of customer data in return.
#43 Comment on Relevant Blogs and Include a Link to your Calculator/Quiz - Commenting on relevant niche blogs can help you grab attention of an interested audience. Just add a link to your calculator or quiz in the comment, wherever relevant.
#44 Write a Roundup Post of Viral Calculators/Quizzes and Include Link to your Calculator/Quiz - Roundup posts are not only easy to create but also get you a lot of traction and shares. SEO Hacker did a roundup post recently which got them more than 400 shares and became their most visited page of all times.
You can create a similar post about or around your interactive content piece. Here are some post ideas -
- Top 100 quizzes/calculators of all times
- X calculators/quizzes that broke the internet
- X resources you need to build a quiz/calculator
- X websites to promote your interactive content
Category: Blogging
According to HubSpot’s recent Benchmarks report, companies that blog 6-8 times per month double their lead volume. This proves that blogging is a highly effective channel for lead generation.
While we all understand how crucial blogging is to the lead generation process, we often miss out on the small details that can have a huge impact on our conversions. Here are some tips that will help you better leverage blogging as a lead magnet.
#45 Use CTAs in the Text of your Blog Post - While everyone uses call-to-actions in the end of their blog posts, it’s a good idea to place one in the mid of the body. This especially works well for longer blog posts as there are quite some chances of people abandoning the post before they reach the end. However, make sure the placing is not abrupt but relevant. Techtarget does this well.
#46 Use the 'Hello Bar' - This plugin sits on the top of a web page, in this case your blog, and politely asks prospects for their information. None other than Neil Patel swears by it. In one of his posts where he covers Hello Bar, he revealed that it accounts for 11% of all his Quick Sprout leads.
#47 Offer Perks to Your Readers - Why should someone leave behind their information through a blog post? Offer them some incentive. This could be a free ebook, entry to a webinar or any other incentive that lures them to keep reading.
#48 Offer Blog Summary Downloads - This comes handy in case you write in-depth, long-form posts because not everyone has time and patience to read a 2000+ words post. Instapage, offers shorter, downloadable summaries in exchange for a name and email, for those who want to get the key takeaways without having to read the entire blog post.
#49 Add a Sense of Exclusivity - Offer your readers with exclusive content that will help them learn more than free access to your blog can. Facebook marketer Jon Loomer does it right with an exclusive blog section called “Power Hitters Club,” where he hosts live, 90+ minute workshops that break down into detail the free content he touches upon on his blog.
#50 Optimize Opt-in placement - Studies show that 55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website. Evidently, if you’re looking to increase conversion rates, you’ll need to grab the attention of your visitors as quickly as possible. Some placement areas where you can put an opt-in include your header, sidebar, the end of blog posts, your About page and your footer.
#51 Use a Click Popup - This is not your usual pop up - you click on a word/phrase and this pop up comes up. Wishpond literally doubled their blog lead generation with click pop ups. Here are some numbers that can inspire you to try them -
#52 Use Slide-in CTAs - You must have noticed on some blogs that as you scroll down towards the end of a page, a CTA slides in from the right hand side corner. This is the slide-in CTA. This is a non-intrusive way of asking people for their information. The GIF below explains how slide-in CTAs work.
#53 Time Delay Popups - Once readers have clicked through a blog post, time delay popups come around to give them an offer to avail, an ebook to download, or a webinar to attend, in exchange of their contact information, of course. This is a good way utilizing any load time on your website. Forbes does this, and so does MarketingProfs.
#54 Use Exit Intent Popups - Larry Kim used them on Wordstream. Not only has it reduced the bounce rate by 60% and increased the on-site time by more than 50% but also got them more than 2000 emails - all this in 2-weeks time. I bet you want to try them now!
#55 Publish a Calculator/Quiz on your Blog - You can do this as a stand alone piece, as an embed, or as a CTA. You can test and see what works best for you. To understand the various ways you can optimize the ROI of your blog using interactive content, check this post.
#56 Try Guest Blogging - This is the most underestimated lead generation technique. Guest blogging can get you thousands of visitors and help capture more emails. Gregory Ciotti used guest blogging to add 36,733 more qualified subscribers to his email list. However, before you start pitching to different sites to write for them, you must have a strategy in place. This step-by-step guide can help you get started.
#57 Repurpose your Blog Posts - You can repurpose any popular piece of content, and create
- Lists and How to Guides
- White Papers, Courses, Ebooks and Slideshares
- Infographics and Videographics
- Videos
- Podcasts and Webinars
- Slideshares
For example, Brian Dean's famous long-form article that outlines Google's 200 Ranking factors has more than 7424 tweets, 4963 shares on Facebook and an estimated 4705 do follow and 785 nofollow links. Thus, it was repurposed by Search Engine Journal into this infographic which has further been cited in many influential blogs including entreprepreneur.com.
#58 Leverage Push Notifications - You’ve sure heard about them for increasing traffic, and now we’re telling you that work when it comes to lead generation. SuperCoder increased their lead generation by 113%, and conversion rates by 25% using web push notifications.
#59 Personalize the Content you Create - Content targeted towards specific audiences is more likely to convert as compared to generic content. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, individual customer stakeholders who perceived supplier content to be tailored to their specific needs were 40% more willing to buy from that supplier than stakeholders who didn’t.
Category: Social Media Marketing
#60 Run Contests - Social media contests have been an all time favorites for marketers as they draw a lot of attention. However, make sure you have set your goals right. Design your campaign with a focus on qualified leads and not entrants. Also, be mindful of the channels you want to target. While most marketers prefer Facebook for running contests, Twitter is an equally good platform if you’re able to generate the right buzz.
A company called Snapshot started a contest on Facebook wherein they decided to give away a high end DSLR camera. As a result of the contest, the company was able to generate almost 190,000 emails opt ins and with over 55% of that coming from referrals.
#61 Run Paid Ads - Every social media platform, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, lets you create paid ads. Two things you must be very careful about while setting up your ads are - know the kind of ad you want to run and set your audience profile right. To help you understand social media ads better, here’s an end-to-end guide by Hootsuite.
#62 Use Facebook Custom Tabs - You can customize your Facebook business page to add tabs like Contact Us, Store, Contests, Testimonials etc. You can also get more leads by embedding an opt-in form in the custom tabs. What’s more - you can use an RSS feed to have your blog showing on Facebook page.
#63 LinkedIn Lead forms - This year LinkedIn rolled out this feature called ‘Lead Forms’, which are designed to increase mobile conversion rates by placing CTAs on your ads - and we’re totally drooling over it. To understand how to use lead forms correctly, you can read this guide by Venture Harbour.
#64 Engage in Social Selling - Forrester’s research reports that big enterprise companies selling business to business take social selling very seriously. 98% of the 265 sales and marketing technology decision makers at B2B companies surveyed saw value in social selling in both the short and long term. Rule of thumb? Choose the right tools, stay active, and measure results to get the right insights.
#65 Create Relevant Slide Decks - Now how can you forget the good ‘ol Slideshare? It’s still as much of a lead magnet as it always was. A good way to generate more leads from slide decks is to add a CTA to download the presentation. Sidekick growth marketer Anum Hussain tried this technique and saw a 400% increase in the number of downloads from the landing page.
Category: Miscellaneous
#66 Have Clearly Defined Target Persona - Defining your user persona is actually the first step in any lead generation strategy. While profiling your users, it’s important to focus on just a few crucial areas that Revella describes as “The Five Rings of Insight™,” as described by Revella. These things determine that you have buyer personas that positively impact lead generation and sales.
#67 Use Data to Identify Pitfalls in Buyer Journey - Knowing why you’re not converting is also a step towards converting better. Thus, it’s important to leverage data to identify gaps in your lead generation strategy and work to fill them.
#68 A/B test your pricing page - Meebox A/B tested their pricing page where the Original had no discount while the Variation had discounts of 20% (40% for the highest plan) if customers locked in for a 2 year period. Results? They saw a 121.56% increase in revenue and 51.85% increase in conversions. (Source)
Original page
Variant with discounts
#69 Live Chat on Important Product Pages - The potential of live chat has been untapped when it comes to lead generation. 63% prospects said they are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat. This is probably why, using live chat gets you 4-8X more leads.
#70 Display a Toll-free Number - 1800 numbers help improve conversions. They build trust among the customers and thus encourage them to reach out to you or leave behind their information.
#71 Create an Affiliate network - A B2B service provider had only around 8 percent of the business owners sign up for their free service also purchased a product. However, thanks to an affiliate marketing program, the number of business owners who purchased a product at the time of sign-up rose to 8.5 percent in the first month. In the second month that number rose to 11.7 percent. The program still continues to deliver above average quality, with 8.5 percent of new customers purchasing additional product during the sign-up process.
#72 Create a Promo Video - This not only helps you educate your audience about your product/service offerings, a promo video can also help you get leads. By using software like Wistia, you can add a CTA in the middle of your video to capture leads.
#73 Pay per click ads - These ads instantly put you on page one on the search engine, thus putting you in front of people who are searching for your solution to their problem. More people are aware of you and what you have to offer than before. Here’s Google’s guide on PPC ads to get you started.
#74 Ranking & Reviews - Ranking products and services in your niche (like this article on Content Marketing Institute) can be one of the best lead generation hacks. It can get you sales ready leads.
Lead generation has been and will be a challenge for marketers. It’s not just about finding good leads but also turning them into paying customers. And this requires you to be at the top of your game. However, given the growing complexity of the lead generation process, it’s important to make your approach as engaging as possible. This ebook helps you do just that?
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