Have you not found the perfect method for driving new leads to your business? You aren't alone in your constant pursuit of lead generation.
Studies show that lead generation is the biggest marketing challenge for 65% of businesses. The good news is that you can do a few things to get your company in front of the right people. Follow the seven lead generation tips below to learn how to generate leads to increase your company sales.
1. Create Audience Personas
No matter how much you wish it so, your product isn't likely to appeal to everyone. There's a limited number of people who will consider buying from you. It's your job to figure out who these people are.
Create an audience persona for each type of person who buys your product. Figure out their gender, age, location, and interests. Each one of these will help inform you about your audience.
You need this information when you create marketing content. You can't get away with creating an ad campaign for everyone. Your personas will help you make more targeted ads that have a bigger chance of appealing to potential customers.
2. Start a Blog
One of the biggest problems companies have in generating leads is convincing someone that you're trustworthy. This is incredibly tough if you're new in an industry. If nobody knows that you're an expert, why would anyone buy from you?
You can solve this problem by publishing content on your blog. Your blog is a place where you can answer common questions in your industry. Research the common questions customers have, figure out which ones are highly searched, and write long-form content to answer those questions.
If that isn't enough reason to write content, a blog will also help you gain more traffic to your website. If you do well enough with your blog, you'll start ranking for keywords on Google. Over time, you can build a reliable stream of new customers just from organic search engine rankings.
3. Personalize the Buying Process
Unless you run a consumer brand, the buying process for a product is long. Businesses won't pull the trigger on a product straight away. You need to nurture these leads if you want to convert them to paying customers.
You can improve your conversion rate by personalizing this process. Instead of providing each person the same experience, figure out what each lead wants with your product.
The first place to start is with your email list. Instead of sending prospects the same material, email them content that fits their needs. Email software can handle this by segmenting your leads with tags.
If you have a free trial with your product, get in touch with your customers as they are testing things. Ask them what they need in a product and show them personally about how your product can handle it.
4. Get Social
Social media isn't only a place where you can connect with friends and families. Companies everywhere use it to promote their brands.
Figure out what social media websites your ideal customers hang out on and create accounts on each of them. To start, you want to push your current and past customers to follow your pages. Make it easy to find your social accounts on your website and emails, so they know where to look.
Once you have a following, your goal is to create shareable content. You want your fans to share your posts on their timelines. Doing this will help you reach new customers that you might not be able to get otherwise.
5. Use Affiliate Programs
There's nothing better for a company than an army of salespeople out there selling for you. Unfortunately, it's expensive to hire that type of workforce in-house.
You can get around this problem by offering a commission for people who send you leads. You can do this with an affiliate program.
With an affiliate program, you provide individuals with a specialized link containing a unique code. Whenever someone clicks that link, a cookie is inserted into their web browser for the future. If they end up buying your product, that affiliate gets credit for the sale.
6. Ask for Testimonials
There's not much scarier for a customer than buying from a company that doesn't have proven products. While you can't avoid this problem if you're new, you can mitigate it later by getting testimonials from past customers.
Send an email to your current and previous customers to ask them for a testimonial. If you run a product business, your customers can likely head to your website and leave a review on your product page. If you run a B2B business, you'll need to rely on testimonials on your landing pages.
These testimonials will show potential customers that your products are proven.
7. Never Stop Testing
There's one thing that's almost always true in lead generation. There's probably something you can change in your ad campaign or landing page that will increase your conversion rate. That's why it's critical to keep testing small changes until you figure out what drives the most sales.
You need a lot of data to do this and enhance your lead generation results. For a website, this means installing tracking software on your pages.
Your analytics software will keep track of where your visitors come from, how long they stay on your page and the actions they take. Your goal is to drive people to goal pages that you associate with dollar values.
Once you have enough data, you can start making tweaks to your campaigns to learn how much of a return you get after your changes. You'll need to repeat this process for everything you do if you want to make the most use of your marketing and lead gen budget.
Don't Stop Testing Lead Generation Tips
The world of marketing and sales is always changing, so tactics that work today won't always work tomorrow. Keep up to date on the latest lead generation tips, so you keep new customers coming to your business.
Do you want to learn more marketing and lead gen tips? Read our latest blogs to find our best advertising and selling content. Visit the Sales section of the Bootstrap Business Blog to learn more about lead generation tips and how to convert them into customers.
