6 Effective Ways to Generate Leads Online

Generating effective leads is an essential part of maintaining profitable marketing and sales funnel, and as more and more business is conducted online, the ability to generate high-quality leads online has become more important than ever. Below are some of the most effective digital marketing strategies for reaching new prospects, creating interest in your business and products, and ultimately generating organic, qualified leads.

Create Content, Not Sales Pitches

One of the most important things to keep in mind when trying to generate leads is that people are looking for helpful, informative, or entertaining content—not just another product push. Creating genuinely useful content is a great way to not only build trust and authority for your business, but it also gets people interested in the products or services you have to offer. Effective content can come in many forms, whether it’s blog posts, infographics, or even podcasts, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different forms of media. As well, consider creating guest content for other sites related to your industry, which can put more eyes on your business while also generating important backlinks that improve your site’s search engine rankings.

Build an Effective Home Page

With few exceptions, the majority of your site’s traffic will be getting their first impression of your business from the home page, and designing your page with that fact in mind can lead to the significantly higher lead generation and dwell time. An effective home page should make it clear right away what kind of products and services you offer, and what sorts of problems you can help your customers solve. Using a clear call to action and a fewtargeted keywords is a great way to grab attention, but resist the temptation to include a wall of text. Keep your home page short and sweet, and use a mixture of text and images to convey your message as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Leverage Social Media

While most businesses have caught on to the importance of social media and its potential for generating leads, the majority aren’t leveraging those platforms in a productive way. Using your social media accounts simply as a megaphone for advertising is a good way to end up with few followers and even fewer leads. Instead, take the time to actually communicate with the audience, whether that means replying to comments, sharing tips or content from others, or simply providing answers and customer assistance. Some companies have seen massive success by hiring a social media manager with experience in creating distinctive, engaging, and sometimes even humorous content, but even a small amount of effort in interacting with customers on social media platforms can pay dividends when it comes to generating new leads.

Offer Incentives to New Customers

Data from major retailers suggests that targeting new customers with special deals, coupons, and discounts is one of the simplest and most effective means of generating leads and increasing long-term revenue. And instead of simply creating offers and hoping customers stumble upon them, it pays to take a more proactive approach by distributing them through email, flyers, and social media platforms. Adding an introductory coupon to your welcoming email not only entices people to spend money, it also provides a shortcut to mailing list growth, which can help generate even more leads in the future.

Don’t Overlook Review Platforms

Virtually every industry has at least one major review platform that serves as a place for customers to share their experiences, and studies have shown that the majority of people research a business on these platforms before deciding whether to spend their money. Building a reputation through positive customer reviews is a great way to organically generate new leads, and you can improve the odds of a customer leaving a review by offering small discounts on future purchases in return for honest feedback on a major reviewing platform, such as Yelp, Glassdoor, TripAdvisor, or any other site that suits your industry. It’s also worth noting that an occasional bad review isn’t the end of the world—in fact, if you are willing to publicly respond to those reviews in a timely and professional matter while offering a workable solution to the customer’s issue, you can actually turn a negative review into a testament to your customer service.

Use Personalized Email Marketing

A recent study from Experian revealed that personalized email marketing strategies resulted in significantly more leads and up to six times as much revenue when compared to generic email campaigns. Small touches, such as personalizing emails with recipient names or keeping track of locations, interests, and purchases may not seem like a big deal, but it makes a big impression on potential customers and allows you to create more granular, targeted marketing, all of which translates into more sales.

Lead generation is a vital component of any effective marketing strategy, and while the sheer variety of ways to reach prospective customers may seem daunting, the methods above represent some of the most effective and efficient methods of attracting interest and guiding new leads through your funnel towards a sale. With the basics of online lead generation under your belt, there is nowhere to go but up. Carry on!