7 Lead Generation Strategies to Attract Your Target Customers

Leads are the main driving force for the success of any business. Without a consistent flow of people who are genuinely interested in your brand, products, and services, your business cannot thrive.

As a business owner, generating a steady and sufficient amount of high-quality leads should be at the top of your priority list. To meet this goal, you need to have a strong lead generation strategy that successfully drives interest in your brand.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your lead generation efforts then you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we’ll be listing down seven lead generation strategies that can attract your target customers. Let’s get started!

What is a Lead Generation Strategy?

A lead generation strategy is a collection of actions and tactics used to attract prospects and turn them into leads. It involves stimulating the interest of your target customers in your product or service for the process of filling your sales funnel with people whom you can convert into paying customers. Once people are already in your funnel, you can work towards nurturing these targets until they are ready to buy.

It is an essential part of building a successful and profitable business because it:

• It lets you target your desired customers. When it comes to leads, quality matters as much as quantity. With a strong lead generation strategy, you can determine qualified prospects who have a high probability of converting into actual sales.
• It helps generate brand awareness. The more people know about your brand and the products and services you offer, the stronger your earning potential will be. Lead generation creates a ripple effect especially when you’ve reached your target audience. They can help spread the word about you because they trust your brand.
• It increases your profit potential. When used correctly, a lead generation strategy can increase the sales of your products and services. By nurturing people who are already interested in your brand, you can convert them into full-fledged customers and increase your profit margins.

4 L’s of a Lead Generation Strategy

Every successful lead generation strategy has four phases. This includes:

Lead Capture

The first level involves collecting information from prospects. This may include their name, contact information, and other relevant details about them. Typically, this phase involves platforms like a newsletter or blog subscription sign up form or a “contact us” form on your website.

Lead Magnet

This is an incentive that encourages prospects to become a lead. In this phase of the lead generation process, you are providing something valuable to prospects in exchange for their contact information. Once you have their contact information, you can then progressively interact with them and nudge them towards making a purchase. Lead magnets can come in a wide variety of forms including subscriptions, samples, free consultations, training videos, webinars, white papers, or bonus tips that they won’t get anywhere else.

Lead Qualification

In this phase of the lead generation process, you use the lead’s information to determine the likelihood of a prospect becoming a client. You can do this through either through qualifying conversations or by using automated lead scoring tools.

Lead Segmentation

After qualifying your leads, you then move on to lead segmentation. This involves placing your leads into categories based on different criteria. In doing so, you can optimize your succeeding marketing efforts and remarketing efforts leading to better conversions.

7 Effective Lead Generation Strategies

Create a Must-Read Email Newsletter

Email remains one of the strongest contenders when it comes to acquiring new prospects and nurturing leads and existing customers. It’s also a great way to share your lead magnets to prospects.

Using a weekly or monthly email newsletter, you can encourage prospects to continuously connect and interact with your brand.

It’s also an excellent way to nudge your leads down your sales funnel by sharing promotions for your products and services, updating them about new blog posts, informing them about upcoming special events, and recommending content from industry leaders.

A few things to keep in mind when using email newsletter as a lead generation strategy include:

• Set a consistent schedule to deliver your email newsletter
• Solve your leads’ pain points by incorporating engaging content
• Track things like click activities, phone calls, emails, and interactions within your newsletter platform
• Review metrics
• Reach out to people who have clicked through to access the content included in your email

Gated Content

Gated content refers to any material that people can only access by filling out a lead capture form. It is a win-win lead generation strategy that provides an incentive to your prospects in exchange for their name and contact information.

Once a user fills out the form, they’re redirected to a page where they can access the information. It attracts potential leads by providing valuable pieces of content that solve their pain points. This includes white papers, e-books, guides, reports, courses, worksheets, and online tools.

Apart from collecting leads, gated content is also a great tool for building your reputation as a thought-leader in your industry.

Host Events

Holding events such as webinars, workshops, seminars, meetups, and conferences is another great lead generation strategy that attracts your target audience effectively. You can host live and even pre-recorded seminars to generate leads from your prospects.

It’s a mutually-beneficial lead generation strategy that lets you collect information from prospects while building deep and meaningful relationships with your potential customers.

Freemiums or Free Trials

Freemiums and free trials are a great way to capture leads who may not be ready to purchase yet but are already interested in what you’re offering.

This is especially helpful for SaaS businesses. You can offer a free version of your product with just a basic functionality. As your leads get to know the tool or service you’re offering, you can promote the benefits of upgrading to a paid version gradually until they are ready to buy.

Leverage Social Media

Social media is a great platform not only for getting in touch with and engaging your audience but also for generating high-quality leads. There’s bunch of ways you can use it to collect leads including:

• Sharing links to your gated content
• Running contests or giveaways
• Using lead generation ads to seamlessly collect leads without redirecting users to a landing page
• Hosting hangouts, live videos, and webinars on social media channels
• Creating a Facebook Group where you can provide users with the latest brand updates, offer exclusive deals, receive feedback, respond to questions
• Use chatbots to connect with your prospects, decipher the intent of your visitors, and develop a profile of each customer
• Run referral campaigns to increase social leads
• Work with influencers to increase sign-ups

Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation

Your website is one of the most valuable lead generation tools you have in your arsenal. However, it can’t do its job collecting leads if you don’t optimize it. Here’s how you can do just that:

• Make sure your website is well-designed. First impressions can make or break your lead generation strategy. Fundamentals such as intuitive navigation, images and white space, responsiveness, and aesthetic appeal can help convince visitors to stay long enough so you can drive them to your call-to-action or lead magnet.
• Incorporate effective landing pages that contains conversion-focused elements and optimized for better user experience. Make sure that it defines the service you provide and how it can help your potential customers. Your landing pages should also  clearly state what happens after they click your CTA.
• Use contact forms wisely. Don’t ask for too many pieces of information and add them to your most valuable web pages such as high-performing blog posts or a pillar service page.
• Promote your lead magnet in various parts of your website including the top and bottom of your homepage, the side bar, and in your blog posts. Don’t waste time and provide value immediately.
• Display trust signals by showcasing your best testimonials and success stories.

Re-targeting People Who’ve Already Interacted with Your Brand

Prospects don’t always convert the first time around but that doesn’t mean you’ve lost the opportunity to turn them into leads entirely. Sometimes more than one exposure to your brand for a prospect to convert.

Using retargeting ads on social media as well as through Google AdWords is a good way to nurture prospects and nudge them towards your sales funnel a bit more until they become full-fledged customers.

When it comes to retargeting prospects, bear in mind that they are already aware of your brand and your services. The next step you need to take is to convince them that you’re the best choice and your lead magnet should reflect that.

Conclusion

Having a strong lead generation strategy is essential to the growth and scalability of a business. It’s not enough to rely on your existing customers in order to make your business profitable. Instead, you need a steady stream of leads whom you can nurture into paying customers.

With the tips we’ve mentioned above, you can improve your lead generation efforts and increase your brand’s sales potential.However, if you need a little extra help generating leads for your business, you can always turn to lead generation freelancers to help you out. Simply sign up to hire pre-vetted specialists on the FreeUp Marketplace today!