Do you feel like you’re failing to capture the right leads online?
Or maybe you’re able to get a fairly high number of leads, but seem to be struggling to properly close the deal?
Perhaps it’s just been a while since you actually took the time to sit down and truly evaluate your current business leads generation strategy.
If any of the above situations sound familiar, then we urge you to keep on reading this post.
In it, we’re telling you some of the most effective ways to generate leads online — and things that your competitors likely aren’t doing.
From connecting with other businesses to making sure that you actually know what separates a quality lead from a time-waster, read on to learn how to grow your business.
Understanding High-Quality Business Leads
Before we talk about how you can secure more business leads digitally, let’s first quickly cover the things that you need to determine whether or not you’re actually capturing quality leads.
That is, are these people that are genuinely likely to do business with your company? Or are you just attracting more random traffic to your website, in the hopes that at least of few of these people will be interested in working with you?
A quality lead contains many key components.
First of all, their timeline is right. They’re ready to buy sooner rather than later. In fact, they’re actively looking to buy right now.
You also want to make sure that your lead generation funnel is working to put you in contact with the people who are making decisions for their business.
While Joe from HR might love your products, for example, it’s Cathy from inventory management who actually has the purchasing power for the company.
Finally, be secure in the fact that you’re marketing to people whose budgets and current financial situation actually allow them to buy your products.
While aspirational branding is always great, you also need to keep the lights on when it comes to your own company.
So, the next time you ask yourself, “What is a lead?” Instead, we suggest asking yourself, “What is a qualified lead?”
It’s those qualified leads that you should be creating products, buyer personas, and of course, lead generation strategies, around.
Now, let’s talk about a few of the many ways in which you can hook them.
1. Write an E-Newsletter
Your company does a lot in a month.
You hire new team members, open up a new location and expand your service area, and you’ve even created a couple of new products.
You even attended a huge conference, where your CEO was the keynote speaker.
How do you let all of your followers and leads know what you’ve been up to — without forcing them to visit your site and social media platforms all of the time?
By having them sign up for an e-newsletter.
First of all, this is an awesome way to determine who is a quality lead, because those who sign up have actually opted into hearing from you.
But you can also use these e-newsletters to let people know what you’ve been up to, about upcoming promotions and sales, and above all, what you’re up to next.
You might be surprised by how many responses you get — and how much your business is able to grow as a result.
2. Use the Comments Section to Your Advantage
We all love to spend our downtime reading articles, commenting on blog posts, and putting our two cents into a conversation on our favorite forum.
Guess what?
So do your customers.
And often times, those dream leads you’ve always fantasized about capturing are already hanging out in the comments section of not only industry blogs, but sometimes even your blog itself.
That’s why it’s so essential for you to include a link back to your own website in your own comments signature.
After all, if someone is reading a post that’s related to what you have to offer, then chances are, they’ll be equally curious to learn more about what your brand is all about!
Plus, in addition to helping you to capture leads?
It’s also a seriously effective way to bring in more traffic and clicks to your website. This will certainly make it much easier for your website to rank higher in the search engine result pages.
3. Develop a Strong Linkbuilding Plan
If you want to capture high quality leads online, you’ll need to give serious thought to your linkbuilding strategy.
While internal links are important for SEO when it comes to lead generation?
It’s the external ones that will matter the most.
Make sure that you link to authoritative sites, and reach out to let these sites know you’ve included some of their past articles in your content. They’re likely to link back to one of your blog posts or product pages to show their thanks.
In addition to linkbuilding, capture more leads by actually writing guest posts for popular industry sites.
4. Optimize Your Content
When you create blog content and static content, think about what your own market is the most likely to read.
To figure this out, you can also use analytical site tools and data evaluation tricks to help you to determine your popular posts and products.
Then, you’ll be able to create content that you know your followers and leads will be excited to engage with. This is also an awesome way to understand exactly what your customers want and need.
If you’re not sure — or if you just haven’t asked in a while?
Create a customer survey in order to find out!
5. Work with Influencers
We all have those people and companies who we stalk obsessively on social media.
They’re people that have made their mark on your industry and, more than likely, are actually making a living off of creating sponsored posts.
This means that these influencers have a serious amount of consumer trust placed in them.
They also have access to and influence over an even bigger target market — that’s likely exactly the same or very closely adjacent to your own. In short, if these influencers recommend a product or service?
Their followers — which can easily get up into the millions — are going to flock to it.
Send these influencers free products, reach out to them about collaborating in a message, and do what you can to get noticed and endorsed by them.
6. Connect with Local Leads First
When you’re starting the process of re-evaluating your current lead generation strategy, you need to ask yourself how well you’re actually serving your local market.
While, depending on the type of business that you run, your local market won’t always be the most important, it’s still something to prioritize.
For example, if you’re a software company that mainly works with local businesses?
Then you’ll need to make the content you create as localized as is possible. Pepper your blog posts with references to local landmarks, businesses, (more on that later) and even events.
Also, be certain that you’re using location-based keywords to better connect with people and other businesses in your service area.
7. Write an Ebook
Another awesome way to get more leads?
Write an eBook on a subject that’s related to your business, and that you’re incredibly knowledgeable about.
The more niche the topic that you’re able to write about, the more leads you’ll actually generate from it.
While that sounds counterintuitive, what you’re actually doing is catering to a hyper-specific market that’s also likely being way underserved.
While you can always put your eBook up behind a paywall to generate a little extra cash?
We strongly recommend that you make it available for free.
8. Never Underestimate the Power of a Hashtag
We bet that you didn’t initially expect hashtags on social media to be a good way to generate leads online.
But think about it: people (probably even yourself) spend hours every day combing through their favorite hashtags on social media. They like to see if there are any new product drops, articles, or even major news developments in what they’re interested in.
By selecting the right hashtags for your brand, you’re pretty much guaranteeing that you’re getting your posts in front of the people who will be genuinely curious about what you have to offer.
Check out this post to help you understand the tools you can use to find the best hashtags to connect with quality business leads.
9. Work with Other Businesses
We’ve already spoken about the importance of having a linkbuilding strategy earlier in this post.
But sometimes, it’s not enough to just link out to reputable sites and hope that they one day return the favor by linking with you.
Especially if you’re a local business, or if you just have lots of brands that you’re friendly with online?
Why not engage in some good, old-fashioned cross-promotion?
This means that you can offer a percentage off coupon for their products when one of your customers buys something from your, and vice versa. You can promise to refer one another if you’re working in similar industries.
You can even write posts where you interview one another, and frequently comments on their social media posts.
You want to let people know you’re involved in the local community, and that you know the right people that can get other jobs your shoppers might need to be done.
10. Know When and How to Follow Up
You’ve worked hard to create the perfect lead generation sales funnel.
You’ve mastered lead generation across multiple channels, you’ve created relationships with influencers and other businesses, and you’re starting to see the results.
More people are visiting your site, making purchases, signing up for your newsletter, and giving you their contact information.
Unfortunately, this is often when companies start to make mistakes. It’s because they come across as way too desperate, needy, and high-pressure when they’re trying to turn a lead into a sale or a long-term client.
Remember that the client, not you, is in control of their timeline and their final decision.
Don’t follow up more than a few times a week or even month. When you do follow up, sweeten the deal with a discount or a promotion.
Above all, know when it’s time to walk away because a lead is just wasting your time and resources.
Looking for Professional Lead Generation Services?
From helping you to identify high quality leads to giving you several of the very best techniques about how to capture them, we hope that you’re ready to take your lead generation strategy with new goals in mind.
Remember that you can use things like email marketing, social media, ebooks, influencers, and so much more to connect with business leads.
Of course, we also know that sometimes, what you really need is the help of a professional.
That’s where we come in.
Be sure that you spend some time on our website and blog to learn more about the kinds of digital marketing services we offer. Whether you’re ready to master local SEO, or if you just want to learn more about how to optimize your website design?
We want to be the people that you know you can rely on.
Check out our case studies to learn more about the ways in which we can make it all happen.
When you’re ready to make a change for the better, reach out to us to get started.
