Did you leave that bold new jacket in yesterday’s shopping cart? Has a sales rep ever called you after a white paper download? Congratulations! You’re a lead.
What does that mean, exactly?
The Oxford Dictionary of Marketing defines a lead as “A potential customer who has been identified as being interested in a product or service.”
If your readers have browsed, clicked, trialed, emailed, shopped, or called, they’ve taken the step from prospect to lead. And when you generate more of the right leads, you grow your business with happy customers.
Keep reading and discover 102 lead generation strategies to skyrocket your business.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the art of attracting prospects and capturing their contact information so you can reach out to them again. You’re identifying and targeting the ones most likely to buy so you can move them through your funnel.
Here’s how it works:
1 – You attract visitors from cold traffic with ads, content, trials, videos, courses …
2 – When your readers register for your webinar, sign up for your trial, download your widget, opt-in to your chatbot sequence, or connect with you on LinkedIn, they become leads …
3 – Some of your leads turn into customers …
4 – Your Best Customers become fans and refer your products and services to others …bringing you new leads
How Will You Attract More Customers?
That depends on your business:
Are you promoting an Ecommerce product?
Retarget visitors with ad campaigns, offer downloads, trade discounts for email addresses, and educate your customers. Four Sigmatic, for example, offers a free Mushroom Academy. New ‘shroomers can learn about the functional fungi infusing their coffee, tea, and cacao with the power of the Scandinavian forests.
Are you a service provider or online course creator?
You’ll likely be creating webinars, offering content upgrades like cheat sheets and templates, or sharing your new offer with a relevant segment of your email list.
Are you selling software or cloud services?
You may face complex lead generation requiring high-investment content, product demos, online training, and personal phone conversations.
SalesForce’s Trailhead and HubSpot’s Academy offer quality training programs free of charge on topics related to their software. And Buffer offers free accounts with social media scheduling on five platforms.
Whatever you sell, you need more leads.
The Problem:
For small businesses and independent service providers, lead generation can be challenging or overwhelming …
Another hour on LinkedIn struggling with what to say to a new connection … another radio campaign with no calls … hundreds of blog posts with no measurable results …
The Solution:
Happily, there are a dozens of ways to turn your best prospects into leads, customers, and raving fans. And they’re growing more sophisticated every day.
Which strategies will help you exceed your goals in the coming fiscal year?
100 Ways to Find More Leads for Your Business
Advertise
1. Run a PPC campaign on Adwords or Bing and drive traffic to a squeeze page or landing page
2. Introduce your optin on a Facebook LIVE video and boost your post
3. Design opt-in forms and landing pages in minutes with Systeme.io, the new French funnel builder that’s rapidly gaining popularity in the US. Drive ad traffic to your landing pages.
4. Create a simple squeeze page and run it to a VSL
5. Distribute a press release. Send it to publications reaching your target audience.
6. Promote a free offer with solo ads
7. Give away an entire online course as a Share Funnel
Start a conversation
8. Attend a trade show and network in person
9. Interview or be interviewed on network TV
10. Set up your own booth at a trade show and get to know your visitors
11. Answer and ask questions in online forums
12. Connect on Twitter and move the conversation to LinkedIn, email, or a phone call
13. Research prospects in your industry and make connection requests on LinkedIn
14. Comment in private LinkedIn groups and posts – join the conversation
15. Offer a free 30-minute consultation
16. Attend local, in-person networking social events
17. Install a chat app such as www.Tawk.to on your website to start conversations and capture leads
18. Join an association related to your niche. Reach out to other members and attend local, regional, and/or national events
19. Join your local Chamber of Commerce
20. Leave comments on blog posts relevant to your business
21. Pick up the phone and call your prospect
22. Send a personalized video introduction to a new contact
23. Offer an opt-in to a ManyChat sequence on Facebook messenger.
24. Create a calculator to estimate savings, cost, or profits
25. Design a Cheat sheet – make your own quick guide to help your readers do something better and faster
26. Create a checklist to help your prospect reach a goal – for example, a realtor could offer a home staging or landscape checklist and a professional organizer could offer a checklist listing common documents and how long to keep them.
27. Create content upgrades for each of your most popular blog posts
28. Make and distribute a brochure
29. Offer an instantly downloadable free ebook
30. Give away a free printed book (they pay for shipping)
31. Offer a subscription to a monthly newsletter
32. Provide a report or case study highlighting a past success
33. Offer gated access to a free chapter of your next best-seller
34. Create and share a bundle of free graphics for personal use or sharing on social
35. Design a comprehensive guide on one specific topic or skill
36. Make a shareable infographic in minutes on Picmonkey or Canva
37. Offer a whitepaper outlining a solution to an industry challenge
38. Make a prep guide for an academic or professional certification exam
39. Provide templates guiding your reader through planning a speech, writing an email sequence, making a potato gun, or sewing a quilt …
40. Create a workbook for skill development
41. Design a printable Journal for personal growth and reflection
42. Offer an informative buying guide for a complex buying decision
Educate
43. Drive targeted Facebook traffic to a “presell” landing page and retarget visitors
44. Record a downloadable audio course and deliver it on an MP3 player
45. Create and share a recorded webinar. Right now, automated webinars, emails, and funnel pages are all included in Systeme.io for about half the price of comparable popular funnel software.
46. Team up with complementary businesses or service providers and design an online summit
47. Draw visitors to your site with a strong content strategy. Want to know how? Check out HubSpot’s Free Content Marketing Certification Course
48. Host a live webinar on Zoom
49. Make Landing Page and website templates on Systeme.io and give them away as free Sharefunnels.
50. Conduct a local, in-person workshop
51. Use Gary V’s $1.80 Instagram strategy and add an opt-in link to your profile
52. Turn existing content into a Slideshare and link to your offer or website
53. Design and share a free mini-course on Teachable
54. Offer a video tutorial as a lead magnet
55. Write and publish a case study – gate the content
56. Make a viral personality quiz with a gorgeous template from Interact and share it everywhere!
The Power of Print
57. Make coupons and track to find out what’s working and where.
58. Send a postcard – even if they throw them away, they’ll still see your message. Add a Dynamic QR code leading to your appointment-setting or video landing page.
59. Buy or rent a better quality mailing list – e.g current subscribers to a publication or members of a professional organization
60. Create video brochures/mailers
61. Print 1000 business cards to share
62. Send a letter to your ideal prospect. Hand address it and use real stamps.
63. Advertise on local radio
Strategies
64. Split test your ads, landing pages, and emails to find out what brings you the most leads and sales
65. Create opt-in forms to match your goals. If you’re after a smaller number of highly qualified leads ask for more information. Consider adding fields for address, phone number, company website. number of employees, company name, position, and/or gross revenue.
66. Optimize your YouTube videos for lead generation with strong keywords, relevant tags, and opt-ins.
67. Create and promote Video Ads on the Google Display Network and use strategic targeted placements
68. Place a Call to Action on every page and piece of content you produce
69. Link to your opt-in in a pinned tweet
70. Add opt-ins to your website in your blog posts, front page, and side bars
71. Post product reviews from happy customers
72. Run a contest/giveaway on Facebook
73. Send event triggered emails and letters
74. Retarget cart abandoners with ads and email
75. Structure your content and website for great SEO
76. Ask for referrals you can use to attract more satisfied customers Do it faster with a template from SurveySparrow
77. Set up Morevago on your website to attract leads with social proof
78. Create an affiliate program so your biggest fans can promote your product
79. Create a Smart CTA that’s different for past visitors and cold traffic https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/cos-general/create-a-smart-call-to-action-cta
80. Offer free migration to your software
Free Trial
81. Give them the tools to create a free graphic, document, or game (and then pay to keep it)
82. Offer a free, personalized demo of your software or service
83. Offer a limited trial version of your software or service
84. Give limited access to your software with freemium accounts/memberships
85. Provide a sample of your product
You’re the Expert
86. Appear as a podcast guest
87. Guest author a blog post for a website in a related field and include a link to your site in your bio
88. Become an in-demand public speaker – learn to speak at Toastmasters or the National Speakers Association
89. Help others and answer questions in Facebook groups. Give quality answers, and others will see you as an expert – including less active group members
90. Host a radio show on a popular local station
91. Host a Voice America Radio Show
92. Host a weekend workshop at a tropical destination
93. Lead an in-house training or workshop
94. Interview or be interviewed by an expert and publish on your website or YouTube channel – or do it Live on Facebook.
95. Share tips on your YouTube channel
96. Start your own podcast and put it on iTunes, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Pippa, Spotify, and your own blog!
97. Volunteer or get paid to speak at a conference – If you’re not ready to give a speech, offer to lead a breakout session
98. Volunteer to be the guest speaker at a local networking luncheon
99. Submit an article to a print or online publication
100. Make a documentary
101. Start your own LinkedIn Group
102. Create your own Facebook Group and invite others to join
