Love it or hate it, lead generation is integral to your business’s success: you can’t grow and scale a business without it. However, it’s a difficult activity that needs creativity and constant effort, and this can sometimes drain your energy and run you out of ideas.
So, if you find yourself struggling while navigating through mundane lead generation forms maze, then we’ve got something exciting for you–10 unique tactics to generate leads (the fun and easy way). But, first:
What Is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is all about attracting and capturing potential customers (aka leads). It includes initiating contact with prospects, gathering information, and nurturing them to become your paying users.
As essential as it is, lead generation is a tough activity. It’s time consuming, and it’s always subject to people’s ever-changing perspective and mood. A recent study shows that 61% of marketers identify this as their biggest challenge.
For the majority of businesses, lead generation falls into the hands of the marketing team, taking the form of:
- Creating lead magnets for visitors
- Setting up email marketing campaigns
- Using SEO to attract more organic traffic to your websites
- Running social media ads
10 Unique Lead Generation Tactics
Now, with a clear definition in mind, here are some creative ways you can generate high-value leads for your business:
#1 Create Exit-Intent Popups
Businesses often view popups as intrusive and distracting. While this is true, popups can be one of the most effective lead-generation tools when used in a way that is compatible with visitors’ browsing behavior.
Here, exit-intent popups can be the middle ground. Since these only show up when the visitors are about to leave your site, it’ll not negatively impact the user experience.
A converting exit popup entices visitors with an incentive or discount.
The goal is to get the visitors to spend as much time as possible on your site, thus increasing the likelihood of them signing up for your lead magnet, placing orders, or filling out a query form.
For maximum impact, your exit-intent popups should:
- Be eye-catching enough to draw visitor’s attention.
- Have a compelling offer to solve your target customer’s burning problem.
- Be crystal clear with your value proposition.
- Relevant to the page’s content (for example, a PDF pertinent to each post over a general PDF across all).
Experiment with different formats. Use the exit-intent popup to divert people to other pages on your site with quizzes, discount codes, or product recommendations.
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#2 Run a Contest or Giveaway
A little competition never fails to enthrall the users to consider converting. That’s where contests and giveaways come in as a lucrative lead-generation tactic. It’s especially effective for word-of-mouth marketing and expanding your business’s reach.
Lead-generation giveaways can take many forms, but they should not be expensive enough to deplete your business’s finances. Evaluate the costs to ensure they’re only a small price to pay for the engagement and conversion they create.
Depending on your business, you can use the following as contest prizes:
- eBooks
- Infographics
- Videos
- Email courses
- Monetary incentives (first-purchase discount, free products, or samples)
Leveraging giveaway platforms, your marketing team can design giveaways using a pre-set framework, thus saving you time and all the hassle of logistics.
#3 Personalized Templates
People need templates for everything–emails, eBooks, newsletters, resumes, letters, and whatnot. No wonder businesses have used them as a key lead-generation tool for years.
Despite their ease of use, using generic templates barely cuts anymore. Offer personalized templates for each lead, and people can’t resist but convert.
Take Shopify’s customizable privacy policy template, for example. Users simply need to fill out their name, email address, and store name, and Shopify will email them personalized templates for their eCommerce website. That’s not it. By downloading these templates, users will also sign up for Shopify’s free trial, skyrocketing the conversion opportunity.
Therefore, if you are using templates for lead generation, try personalizing them to capture higher quality and quantity leads.
One cool idea for personalizing your emails is to use gamification. This will make your email stand out, as it won’t just be a message, but something your prospects can interact with, and get to know you more in the meantime.
#4 Develop an Email Course
A well-developed email course is an effective way to grow your list and generate leads because:
- You get multiple points of contact with the new lead, training them to open your emails consistently (instead of just once for accessing the lead magnet)
- It builds trust and authority, thus improving your conversion rates.
Also, building an email course is low-risk. It’s much easier than a full video course, webinar, or fillable workbook. Plus, the course allows you to test new ideas at little to no additional cost.
To create an effective, lead-capturing email course, start by planning and writing your course content. Choose your topic–something closely related to your product or service. Make it truly valuable for the audience.
Once the email course is ready, you’ll need to create an email list. Use email finder tools to get prospects and leads’ email addresses by scanning websites, social media profiles, and other sources.
Also, create an autoresponder sequence using your email service provider. Say you are creating a 5-day email course. You’ll have to set the autosender sequence for five emails, with each email scheduled one day after the previous one.
#5 Put your Customer Reviews to Work
Customer review platforms are powerful places for lead generation. Partly because people trust authentic customer experience over branded testimonials. But also because these platforms rank much higher in search engines.
Google recognizes the independent role of these sites in the customer decision journey. Thus, having your product/service reviews on the platforms will put you higher in the initial consideration set, which, upon further nurturing, leads to the moment of purchase during the buying process.
Building brand loyalty is one of the main goals when it comes to scaling up a business, and using this loyalty to create a strong social proof for your brand is pure gold.
Encourage loyal customers to leave reviews on third-party platforms with strong SEO, like Google Reviews, TripAdvisor, Glassdoor, Trustpilot, or Yelp. It’s the perfect way to expand your brand presence and get noticed by your ideal customers–without spending a dime.
The best part–this technique will help you outrank competitors in high-value keyword searches (a crucial dictator in B2B and SaaS business success).
#6 Show What’s Working for You
Sometimes, pulling the curtain aside to give users a peek into your success (or even failures) can be moving for potential clients. You are being authentic and given that your prospects’ business also goes through ups and downs (similar to yours), sharing what’s worked and didn’t can be a great lead-generation tactic.
Show how your company builds strong supplier relations through account payable automation that leads to word-of-mouth referrals (supplementing indirect leads). Share detailed case studies and success stories highlighting your credibility with tangible evidence.
The goal is to be transparent, authentic, and relatable to your audience. This will help build trust, establish credibility, and attract quality leads that resonate with your journey and value proposition.
#7 Create Interactive Tools
There’s a good reason why top brands–like Moz, Ubbersuggest, and Hubspot–have invested in creating tools. It’s an incredibly effective marketing strategy because even simple interactive tools can fuel quality leads.
While developing an interactive tool for a lead magnet seems like a lot of work at first, the leads it’ll generate will be well worth it. However, it’ll be an expensive venture. Therefore, before dipping into tool-based marketing, make sure the tool is something valuable for your target audience.
Take charge with potent lead generation tactics and propel your business to success!
#8 Create a Worksheet
Businesses deal with dozens of tasks best suited for worksheets every day. From the finance department, using worksheets for financial reporting to marketing professionals utilizing it for campaign planning–it’s an all-rounder.
Providing this simple solution can help create a mutually positive relationship with leads. Promoting the worksheet through different channels (social media, email, or blog posts) will also help drive traffic to your website–thus increasing branding visibility.
Create a worksheet on your business’s core expertise. Use this opportunity to educate the lead about your product, showcase your experience in particular areas, and engage them in interactive activities to help them understand your value proposition.
#9 Offer On-Demand Product Demos
Most SaaS companies have to persuade clients to schedule meetings and then showcase customized product demos. However, not all prospects will be ready for the call to see the product in action straight away.
Enter on-demand demos, a powerful tool that you can use to attract prospects with high intent and convert them into paying customers.
Create a few general product demos. Each demo should focus on one to two particular problems your product can solve. Make sure to highlight the user experience and social proofs (customer testimonials and before and after scenarios).
End the demo with a clear, easy-to-follow CTA. Schedule a call for a personalized product demo or opt-in for a trial. The strategy will help build trust in your product while also generating leads without dedicating hours to scheduling and presenting custom demos.
#10 Focus on Content Development
With 67% of marketers reporting lead generation from their content marketing efforts, you need to leverage content to build demand and generate leads for your brand. It’s the perfect way to bring in more business organically.
Start with competitor research. Take inspiration from what’s working for them and give it your own spin–think about what more value you can add. Leverage AI to create high-quality and personalized content for different segments and generate leads. You can use AI in your content development process for:
- Emails marketing
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Website personalization
- SEO
- Advertising and retargeting
Brands can also find webinars, videos, podcasts, and other types of audio content to give them better lead-generation opportunities. The key lies in market research, strategic planning, and experimentation.
Measuring Success and Beyond
One-size-fits-all rule KPIs cannot be applied since every business has unique goals, target customers, and processes. However, with a clear understanding of the fundamental facets, here are seven lead generation metrics and KPIs you must keep an eye on to track your success:
- Lead acquisition
- Customer lifetime value
- Cost per acquisition
- Lead conversion rate
- Qualified leads
- Average revenue per customer
- Capture vs Conversion rate
Final Thoughts on Creative Lead Generation Strategies
Successful lead generation relies on two elements–lead engagement and conversion. With that in mind, take your lead generation efforts beyond forms. Revamp your current lead generation strategies by implementing the above creative tactics and start bringing in more business today.
Growth Hackers is a seasoned lead generation agency helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners implement creative lead generation tactics, increase their productivity, generate qualified leads, optimize their conversion rate, gather and analyze data analytics, acquire and retain users and increase sales. We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact GrowthHackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
