Lead generation will be one of the most important aspects in developing and maintaining a successful business. Traditional methods used to increase leads such as cold calls, cold emails and creating lists are tough work and not terribly effective. The person you contact may have little interest in talking to you or, even if they do have an interest, the timing of the contact might be all wrong. In fact, lead generation through traditional methods can be discouraging. But don’t give up hope! There are lead generation techniques that are simple and effective and result in giving your prospects something they want. Follow our 7 ways to increase new leads to see the results for yourself.
By giving your prospects something valuable, they are more likely to give you their time and more likely to return for more. we have chosen our 7 favorite ways to generate leads for this post.
Top 7 Ways to Entice Prospects into Leads
1. Collect and share success secrets from thought leaders
Interview an expert. Ask really specific questions that your buyer personas can learn from. Ask about advice, lessons and best practices and then use the substance of the interview for a blog post. You can present the blog post as a narrative about your interview or leave it in a question and answer format. You can even use the comment section of the blog posts as an interactive Q&A session between your readers and the expert should the expert agree.
2. Make Help videos to help solve common problems
Videos are a great way to solve a real problem for potential customers in a format that is easy to understand. They are also a great way to get more leads. It is very easy to make a video with simply an iPhone and a tripod. If you can help people solve a real life problem once, they are likely to come back to you. The more you help people, the more loyal they become, and the more they will see you as a leader in the industry. Also videos are often shared on social media platforms which increases your reach even more. Each time your video is shared you are generating potential leads.
3. Provide best practices lists
Take a look at what your competitors are doing when you are thinking of new ways to increase leads. You want to know what others are doing in order to achieve success. Compile those best practices into lists and give that information away. These lists are incredibly useful to the marketers looking to get started in a particular business. You can create best practises lists for SEO, for creating content, for managing leads, blogging, etc. Best practices lists should be regularly reviewed and augmented. Great information given away always comes back to you in the form of new leads.
4. Produce a deep-dive answer for a tough question.
Taking the time to create an in-depth, step-by-step long-form blog posts that solve a problem for a prospective client serves as a great way to generate leads. Not only will you be providing helpful advice, you will also be brandishing your reputation as an expert in the industry. Your buyer personas will keep coming back to the blog for more insight and instruction and might eventually turn into a customer.
5. Create a valuable email course
A well-developed email course is a great way to increase new leads. It is like going to school—for free. For busy people, this type of continuing education can prove to be really valuable. The courses can be taken (and reviewed) when it is convenient for the prospect. This approach tends to work well for in-depth topics that really should be learned over a number of sesssions. For example, you could provide 5 social media strategies over 5 separate sessions. Feel free to repurpose some of your blog content. Email courses can help people with different content consumption styles get the same valuable information.
6. Create a template to simplify an everyday process
We all use templates everyday in business—employee schedule, product sourcing, inventories, content calendar, market research sheets, budgeting, sales forecasts, etc. For those unfamilar with can be a pain to build yourself. Building a template helps people, plus it also gets your brand in front of prospective leads. Creating these templates for your customers is the perfect way to begin a strong relationship that can end in the prospect actually becoming a client.
7. Offer a free trial
Who doesn’t like a free trial? Free trials of a service help get a prospect halfway through the front door and are a great way to increase new leads. If the trial helps them and provides great value, they will be more likely to pull the trigger on the full product and become a paying client.
Touchless buying is very popular. It appeals to those who want to stay online and off the phone. By creating a free trial, your website can do its own selling and encourage buying in a low-pressure way. Most attractive of all, the trial doesn't require the potential lead to enter their payment information, which can often be a barrier to going forward.
There are a number of ways to increase leads. The above are seven of our favorite and you can see that they mostly involve giving your new leads something of value. Give something valuable away and watch it come back to you.
Topics: Social Media, Google, Lead Generation, Writing, Sales, Email, Blogging, Attract
