Contents
Lead Generation Guide – How to Increase your Leads and Conversions
Leads are the metric that, as marketers, we rely on. Because leads mean sales. And sales mean money.
Generating leads in high quantity and high quality is a salesman’s foremost task and a successful lead generation process is what keeps your funnel full of potential sales opportunities.
However, only 1 in 10 sellers feels that a lead generation campaign is effective. What is the reason for this? The answer is not quite simple, but we know that a campaign contains many different elements, which makes it difficult to know exactly which elements need fine-tuning to optimize the process and the results.
In this guide we will take a closer look at some different techniques to increase your lead generation and your income.
So let’s first look at the mechanics behind a high-performance lead generation campaign.
Lead generation
In most cases, the best lead generation campaigns contain all four sections below. From a tactical perspective, a salesperson needs four critical elements to create inbound lead generation. These include:
Offers
Your offer is content in some form with a considered high value. An offer can be an ebook, whitepaper, a free consultation, a voucher or a product demonstration.
Call to action (CTA)
A CTA is text, image or a button that links directly to a landing page, where people can find and download your offer.
Form
Without a form, you can never get any potential leads. Your form collects information from your visitors that is exchanged for your offer.
Create offers
Yes – is one of the strongest words in marketing language. And if you think a little about it, everything salesmen do, they do to get people to say; “Yes” to their offers.
When an offer is exclusive, rare or sought after, it becomes more desirable. Whether it is whitepapers, free trial, membership, seller offers, these irresistible offers can overcome the typical barriers to a lead: doubt and worry.
Why do these elements work? They trigger a physiological reaction that makes an offer more valuable. People must perceive the value of your offer to be greater than what you want in return. The higher the perceived value, the more sought after the offer is.
If you look at the principle of supply and demand, you quickly notice that when assets are limited, demand increases. Lack has a psychological impact on us, it makes us want something even more, even if it is not enough for everyone. Lack of mechanics is good, as it creates a fear of scarcity and thus a sense of urgency.
Time-limited offers
These deals are perhaps the most popular in the shortage category. Think of every car salesman ever. Virtually all of its marketing includes a limited time offer in some form.
Limited quantities
When a product is only available in a few copies, it suddenly becomes more unique and exclusive. According to some studies, limited edition/access has worked better than just limited time offers. Why? It is difficult to know exactly when an offer with limited availability stops being available, unlike time-limited offers that have a fixed end time. Limited access deals work great for people to say “yes” to your offer, but also to avoid complete procrastination.
Time limited offers
Groupon is a perfect example of a company that uses both of these tactics. All of their deals end with a given time frame and they limit the number of people who are allowed to buy a coupon, which is one is a powerful combination. Their website also packages these lack-of-commodity tactics with discounts, which becomes an added value, especially for e-commerce.
Bandwagon effect
It is a natural instinct for humans to copy from others, without even realizing it because man is programmed to be part of a group or tribe and find its place in social communities. When our social circle behaves in a certain way or procures a certain product, we tend to follow that behavior to feel a sense of belonging. So one way to make an offer more valuable is to show that other people are participating in the same offer.
Proof in numbers
A great way to show how awesome your offer is by mentioning how many people bought, downloaded, subscribed or donated.
Some examples:
Webinar
When you advertise your webinar you can, for example, write that over X number of people have already reported interest in your upcoming webinar.
Blog subscription
Increase the value of your blog by highlighting how many subscribers you have to your blog. A blog with many followers is considered credible and something that people should follow because others follow it.
Make sure your statements are true and credible. Do not lie. Do not overdo it.
Trends are great
When something is “buzz-friendly” a great demand arises. In these situations, you can coordinate your offers with what’s “hot” right now. It’s called “leverage newsjacking” and is a type of technology that works well. It could be riding the wave of a new trend. The famous egg from Instagram or something else. But don’t forget the context. There must be some kind of connection between what you offer and your reference to a trendy event. Otherwise, it just gets weird.
A great example is when Pinterest started to gain attention, HubSpot was quick to publish an e-book called: How To Use Pinterest for Business. A book that was downloaded over 125,000 times. HubSpot was very careful to point out 2 things about the book. It was the first and only book on the subject then. And because Pinterest was the new and hot platform, the offer for the book became even more irresistible. A great example of using popularity and timing to their advantage.
People often judge the book by its cover. So if your offer is content such as a whitepaper, an e-book, a presentation or the like, put a little extra love on giving it a cruel title. It’s certainly easy to talk, but HubSpot did an A / B experiment where they gave an old product a new name to see what happened.
Call to action
Call-to-action or CTA is the secret ingredient to drive potential customers to your offers. If your CTA is not effective enough to catch people’s attention and persuade them to click on your offer? Yes, then your offer becomes completely meaningless.
CTA can be used on product pages, advertisements, e-mails, social media, direct mail, basically technically wherever you can market your offer. Today, we live in a world where all brands fight for customers’ attention around the clock, making it extra challenging to get customers to choose your particular offer – rather than your competitor’s.
Location
As creators, we tend to be smarter than clear in our communication. Which is not necessarily a negative ability. When it comes to CTA, aim for clarity. Leave the smartness to something else.
If you give away a free guide:
Download our free guide to XXX! Don’t hide it behind messages like: Download now, or get a free article. Always be clear.
Example: The CTA below is for advertising a free e-book. The message is straightforward, and you reinforce it with statistics about downloads and the extent of the e-book.
Link your CTA to a landing page
It may seem obvious. But it is frightening how many companies miss this opportunity. Your CTA is created to send visitors to a dedicated landing page where they will receive your offer.
DO NOT use CTA to drive traffic straight to your website. Even if it is about your brand or product, always navigate the visitor to a landing page that is relevant to what they are looking for.
Your landing pages are one of the most important parts of your lead generation strategy. In fact, according to research from MarketingSherpa, landing pages are effective for about 94% of B2B and B2C companies. The use of landing pages facilitates the directing of website visitors to targeted pages, which in turn leads to a higher rate of incoming leads.
The neat thing about landing pages is that they take your visitor to a special offer without distractions from everything else on your website. The visitor is on the landing page for one reason: filling out your form. (Which is your lead capture.)
Which elements does an effective landing page contain?
Landing pages, also called “lead capture pages” are used to convert visitors to leads by performing a transaction or gathering information from the visitor. A landing page consists of:
How do you get people to stay on your landing page?
When a visitor arrives at your landing page, it is your job to make them stay there. If there are a lot of links on your website, they can distract the visitor and reduce the chance of a conversion. One of the best ways to increase your conversions is to simply remove the navigation from your landing page:
Be consistent! Your CTA and the heading of your landing page must match. If someone clicks on a link for a free offer and then realizes that there is a catch on the landing page, you have lost their trust in a second. The same is true even if the heading differs significantly from your CTA. Then confusion arises and the visitor starts to wonder if your CTA is linked to the wrong page. Most likely, the visitor will just close the window. And their trust in you is exactly zero.
Less is more
You probably know the KISS rule. (Keep It Simple Stupid). This rule is very applicable to landing pages. Keep it short and concise. The template is simple:
- Heading
- Description of your offer
- The benefits of your offer
Sharing is caring
We live in a world where everything is shareable. So don’t forget to include sharing buttons to encourage others to share your content or offer. Include multiple social channels as well as emails where people have their own preferences for how they share. Shares = distribution. More reach = more chances for leads.
Example: Place “social buttons” clearly on your page
There are two things to think about on landing pages. The first is that if a company increases the number of landing pages from 10 to 15 can see an increase of 55% of leads. Quite logical, of course. But here comes the important thing. Do not collect all offers on one page. Create a new page for each individual offer or content. Make it easy for the visitor. Don’t confuse them.
Optimized forms
Forms are the secret behind creating a landing page. Without them, there is no way to convert a visitor to a lead. Forms are the step in your lead generation that collects information when it’s time to download your offer or subscribe to your blog posts or similar.
A common question is: how many fields should I have in my form? There is no universal answer, but consider what information you need. And customize your form accordingly.
The fewer fields in your form, the more chance of more conversions. A form with lots of fields can create friction for the customer. It just feels like too much “work”. On the other hand, the more fields, the better the quality of your leads as you learn more about them. With that said, you need to try and optimize in order to find what works best for you.
One of the best ways to increase your conversions is to not use the default word: “Submit”. It’s dry, it’s a bit boring. Instead, “send” to a statement that relates to what the visitor receives in return for filling in their information. Or any term that you find suitable.
If your form is made to download a guide, your button should read: “Get your free brochure” or similar. If your CMS offers different variants of buttons. Test yourself to find your solution. And don’t forget to make your send button in an appealing color.
Thanks to spam and other digital junk on the Internet, people have become less likely to leave their contact details today. So it’s up to you to convince your visitors’ concerns with a few simple tricks:
Be clear that their emails are not shared or sold.
If your form contains sensitive information, include security seals, certificates and similar so your visitors can feel in safe and that they can trust you.
Add testimonials from customers who have previously tested your product or service to validate your contact information request.
Make sure your company complies with GDPR and has a clear policy for managing personal data under GDPR.
If your form appears long and complicated, the visitor will start to doubt. We live in an age when laziness has taken over and time is more important than ever. But, you can round this off. With the right design and layout, the form looks less “demanding”.
Your website is a place for the visitor to come to. Getting them there is all about using all available channels to maximize your lead generation effort. A well-mixed market mix is always a goal to strive for.
The blog’s importance
According to HubSpot’s Benchmark report, companies that blog 6-8 times a month double their lead volume. In other words, blog is still a highly effective channel for lead generation. Each blog post should contain hyperlinks to landing pages, as well as CTA and copy that match your offer.
Email marketing
There is a belief among many that email marketing should only be applied when communicating with existing customers. That is not the case! Here are some things to think about in email as a tool:
Send valuable offers on valid email addresses. Since sending to invalid email will lead to getting into spam. You can check emails with Email Verifier from Snov.io. If you send interesting or valuable offers, such as. discounts, free guides, whitepapers, etc. you increase the chance that your recipients will share your email to your friends or colleagues.
Give people the opportunity to share. Work with “social” buttons, and other clear “forward buttons” in your mail to encourage and increase the chances of sharing.
Social media
Social media is more than just fake news, cat memes and backlit movie clips from your balcony. It is also an excellent channel for companies to generate leads. Here are some tips on how to do it:
Social media is about dialogue. To only communicate without participating in the conversation you start is to not completely take advantage of the power it offers. And not very effective in the long run. Your goal is to interact with your followers and be helpful.
Dare to share other than just your own content. Find interesting posts from sources other than yourself and share them with your followers.
Publishing and sharing content that drives traffic to specific landing pages is the very best weapon in your arsenal to increase lead generation through your social channels. Share your offers by posting links to landing pages while creating a good mix of blog posts, resources, discount offers and similar
Organic search
Marketing your offers in multiple channels is fundamental to lead generation. It is also important to make it easy for potential customers by appearing in search engines. To maximize your chances of getting the best exposure, you need to apply Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to your landing pages, some of the tricks are:
Choose a primary keyword for each landing page and focus on optimizing the page for that particular word. If you over-saturate your page with too many keywords, it will lose its importance and authority because the search engines will not understand what the page is about.
Include the keywords in running text and especially in your page title (H1 tag), but do not use the word without context, make sure the word is relevant in the text as a whole. And most importantly, that your content provides value.
Include the keywords in the file names of your images. Or use the words in your ALT tags.
Use the word in your page’s address. (Page URL).
Use links and CTAs in your offers
Your offers are excellent channels for lead generation.
Create more opportunities for other offers and content by pushing them into your offers.
A / B testing
A / B testing is a great way to increase your leads across all your channels. A / B testing can be used in CTA, landing pages, e-mail marketing, advertising, and more. According to research from HubSpot, A / B testing can help you generate up to 40% more leads. When A / B testing is used correctly it is a strong takeover in the competition.
Conclusion
Generating leads online has the power to transform your marketing. Using excellent offers, CTAs, landing pages, and forms and marketing them in various digital channels can reduce your cost per lead while delivering high-quality leads to your sales team.
This guide covers the basic methods for all aspects of lead generation and conversions. But these are just the tip of the iceberg. Keep tweaking and testing yourself in each step to find exactly the methods that work best for you.
More and more companies are eyeing the positive effects of using inbound marketing when it comes to optimizing their content and working methods to generate traffic to their website. Traffic that at the next stage can be converted into leads and then customers.
About half of your web visitors will not return unless you are able to convert and collect information about them in any way. A working email address is the first thing a marketer can ask for here, but it’s easy for visitors not to give away such personal information. Giving before taking is the key here and according to the inbound marketing method offer value before asking for information – as well as making sure it is obvious for the visitor to move on.
1. Create content for all phases of the purchase press
Far from all visitors to the website are ready for a conversation with the sales team, or to see a demo of your product. At the beginning of the buying press, you are probably more interested in more educational information in the form of an e-book or a guide.
It is important to make sure that you offer value for all phases of the purchase process and that there are clear CTAs (calls-to-action) buttons for these throughout the website. It takes time to write content that both creates value and leads the lead through the purchase press, but if we do not offer something to visitors who are not yet ready to buy, we risk that they will not return.
If you want to take personalization a step further, you should test smart CTAs. They sense where a person is somewhere in their buying journey, whether it is a new visitor, a lead, or a customer – and then adapt the CTA button accordingly.
2. Analyze the behavior of your visitors
What are your visitors interested in when they contact you? Did they Google anything and reach your site that way? Or did they find you via social media? Try to map from which channels your visitors and leads are coming from as well as what question they have searched for. There are some good methods for this.
Systems like HubSpot have this kind of tracking built-in, but you can get it through Google Analytics and other systems as well – but then with a little more hands-on. Try to identify the most obvious reasons your visitors have for contacting you and create automatic email feeds to take them closer to a decision after your first contact.
3. Identify your existing leads
Do the same with your existing leads. Analyze their behavior through the different phases of the buying process and try to find where most of the conversions are happening as well as clear pitfalls, maybe you are offered content that does not relate to the page you are on? This method can easily ensure that visitors always receive the right offer at the right time and in the right place.
4. Be flexible and test, test, test
Trends come and go, behaviors change and opinions change. It is therefore important to maintain a dynamic strategy at all times when it comes to converting leads.
Perform A / B testing on which type of CTA works best, which landing page converts the most, or what content captures your visitors’ interest. Experiment with layout, design, UX, and ad channels until you find what works best. It is not enough to emphasize the importance of A / B testing and the wonders it can do with our click-through rates – and the quality of our incoming leads.
5. Be consistent
Running a company blog with articles that lead to downloadable materials with deeper diving within the same subject is a perfect method when you want to work more consistently – and operate according to a well-proven approach in inbound marketing.
In fact, the campaigns that convert the most leads are the ones that keep what they promise and offer a friction-free transition all the way between ad text and design, to the actual conversion content. Ensure that you maintain consistent and clear communication throughout the process and that you as a visitor are offered exactly what is involved from the beginning. A campaign should also reflect the brand – just like the website, blog and products, and services. A consistent impression leads to more loyal visitors and customers because surely you like to return to someone who keeps what they promise?
It’s not about collecting an email address – it’s about developing and leading new customers through their buying journey. By creating high value and relevant content for visitors and personas, reviewing how existing CTA buttons and landing pages perform as well as analyzing existing leads’ behaviors, you will get a good deal on the road.
Of course, there is a need for a vicious marketing automation system that monitors all customer data – as well as what does and does not – if you have it in place, you have all the prerequisites to successfully collect more leads to higher quality.
