The world of business is competitive and only the strong ultimately survive.
To stand out as a business today, you need to develop modern and creative marketing strategies that will allow you to engage your target audience effectively.
And this is where lead generation comes in.
Setting up a sales funnel is the first step to gather leads and is an important process as part of your marketing initiatives. However, what’s crucial about lead generation is gathering high-quality leads because they have a higher potential of converting and becoming your customers.
Leads who are the people interested in your product and services, need to become more familiar with what you are offering through the adoption of the following marketing strategies:
1. Create high-quality content
Blogging is one way of promoting your products and services, but it’s not enough to get you better leads. What you need is a more inclusive content marketing strategy that allows you to create high-quality content that encourages shares and engagement.
Apart from promoting your content on social media, you need to actively search for new opportunities – either through a guest posting or link building strategy or other content partnerships formed with agencies and businesses.
Minuttia, a content and SEO agency, can help you create and promote high-quality content with an SEO focus through its Google Search Console guide. This guide helps you learn how to use the GSC to improve your search traffic so if you are new to using this tool, I suggest starting from here.
2. Have an email list
Create an email list and come up with an email sequence for each of your marketing campaigns. Decide what you need it for – e.g. gather leads or inform your existing audience about your product – and start sending content via email.
This should help you keep in touch with your leads – in this case, your email subscribers. Use email marketing to send them useful resources regarding your field or organization. Consider sending an email newsletter directing them to articles on your blog, or a promotional email that offers a discount coupon for your services. The latter works great as an incentive to get them to check out your products. But you need to have effective CTAs – call to actions, in strategic places – in your email, your blog posts, and on the landing page.
Moosend offers a great example of this technique in their article on how to create a landing page.
On a single post, it encourages their site visitors to check out 25 strategies on how to optimize their landing page and with just a click, a pop-up form appears enticing them to enter their mailing list.
By giving their contact details, visitors get the best landing page practices but they also join a mailing list full of promotions and company information. This is all about positioning a CTA in the right place.
3. Conduct evergreen webinars
There are many things you can achieve through a webinar funnel. Such a funnel can educate, inform, and convert in no time. As Deadline Funnels says setting up a webinar funnel, can work for any company selling $100 products to $50,000 coaching programs and is suitable for any small business or large enterprise.
Encouraging people to join your evergreen webinar – whose content never expires, can help to gather the best leads within your audience. That’s because it presents the information you need and it’s more personal – it allows people to see your face and ‘meet’ you.
Taking part in a webinar and directly talking to your audience, builds on trust, credibility, and authority, enticing people to choose you over competitors.
This is what LearnWorlds is doing in an attempt to educate consumers on how to use its products and services.
The webinar works as a demo on the online course platform that is run by LearnWorlds CEO, offering an overview of its core features and functionality.
4. Set up an engaging landing page
The landing page offers the best and most effective way to gather quality leads. It’s also the first thing people see once they land on your website and you need to pay extra attention to it.
People interested in purchasing from you, are searching for you online and once they are on your site, they are one step closer to converting.
So, to make their journey easier, create a lead capture form and offer downloadable products like ebooks, white papers, online courses, webinars, or other types of content that can help you engage more leads, asking for their emails and contact information in return.
A great example of an engaging and highly-effective landing page is Visme’s – an infographic maker service, that has everything you need to start creating your own infographics.
5. Use case studies/testimonials
In an attempt to increase trust and credibility in your brand – which are important factors for someone to buy from you, you are going to need to use testimonials as evidence of good and proactive customer service. Think about how much time you spend on reviewing a company and comparing products before actually making a purchase, and you will realize how important this is.
Ask your customers for feedback via an assessment tool, inform them that you intend to share their review and embed those testimonials or reviews into your website. Easy right?
Another way to make people trust you is to show user-generated content that positively impacts your reputation as a company. You can do this on social media – particularly Facebook or Instagram, focusing on how other customers have used your product.
6. Design an irresistible offer
Getting your offer(s) up to engage your audience is an old good marketing technique. One way to do this effectively is to show people the real value of what they are getting. What it takes people to take in your offer and say ‘yes’ to a purchase is the perceived value of your product or service. For example, if you are offering a plane ticket at a reduced price that is normally valued at a high price for a limited amount of time, then people are more likely to opt-in for it. The higher the perceived price the more attractive your offer becomes.
7. Give something for free
When it comes to selling your products online, giving something for free is a winning marketing strategy. A free trial is always the best way to convince people about how good your service or product is as it gives them the appropriate tools and the leisure of time – as long as you permit, to explore them further.
With a free trial, you allow your audience to get to know you and vice versa. Once you get people to accept your free trial, you have more chances of getting them on board, and with the proper incentive to buy e.g. a discount on your product, you can close the deal.
A great example of giving something for free is Dropbox for Business. They are offering a 30-day free trial to engage new customers.
Image Source: Dropbox
8. Build an online community
People are social creatures and they need social interaction. Being part of a community gives the kind of reassurance they need, the sense of safety and encouragement to try new stuff. As a company, you can offer them the chance to join a community either on social media – Facebook or LinkedIn groups or through your own site – like a membership.
Doing so should help you position yourself and your organization as a pioneer in your field.
Get started on social media by introducing a dynamic keyword with reference to your company, your industry, or what you do. Because they are many groups out there, you need to make sure that yours will stand out.
Once you create a community, don’t forget to promote it through your content, email, and your landing page directly.
9. Contact leads directly
One of the best ways to engage with your leads is by offering high-quality customer support. Just think about it. People who are interested in your product are more likely to send inquiries to your customer support team. The way they handle such requests shows the level of professionalism of your organization, brings people closer to your brand, and ultimately encourages them to buy from you.
Being able to directly communicate with your leads via a live chat, phone, forums or a help center humanizes your brand and gives people the attention they need. Also, positive customer experience can bring more targeted leads through referrals.
Check how SnapEngage is taking advantage of the live chat feature on their page and are taking the initiative to talk to people directly.
10. Continue to network
Don’t take networking for granted. Being able to meet people – even virtually, is a great way to spread awareness about who you are and what you do. In a competitive market, it is important to learn how to make contacts and establish business relationships that are sincere and long-lasting.
Use LinkedIn to introduce yourself effectively to your audience, or people who want to meet you and let them know what your business does. Go the extra mile and send in-mails when you get connection requests to thank them or be the first one to reach out to others – potential customers or business partners alike.
Finally, when someone asks about what your business does, make sure you have prepared an elevator pitch to help them understand what it is all about. This should help to educate them about the benefits of your product and encourage them to check it out.
Now Over to You
To gather high-quality leads, you first need to gain the trust of your potential customers. While there are many ways to do so, some work better than others and it’s up to you to decide which one fits your business.
Whether this refers to creating blog posts, evergreen webinars, offering freemium products, or offering discounts, try out these techniques to find out if they are working for you!
Kyriaki is a Content Writer for the LearnWorlds team writing about marketing and e-learning, helping course creators on their journey to create, market, and sell their online courses. Equipped with a degree in Career Guidance, she has a strong background in education management and career success. In her free time, she is crafty and musical.
