5 Actionable Strategies for Online Lead Generation

Generating leads is important for every business. The more revenue a company has, the more leads they generate. 82% of companies that have $250,000 or less in annual revenue generate less than 100 leads per month. But only 8% of companies generating $1 billion in annual revenue have less than 100 leads per month.

Things have changed a little since the days when a hand-drawn “Lemonade: 50 cents” sign would pull in enough revenue, though. Presumably, your business goals are now bigger than earning enough for some candy or a new bike.



The way you find and qualify leads has to change. And since the world is online, online lead generation has become essential.
Generating leads online is not only important, it’s effective.
As a Digital Marketing Company in Jabalpur MP we know the best techniques to generate a valuable lead for business growth. Before we get into some strategies that make it easy to take action with your online lead generation, let’s define a lead generation and take a look at what kind of leads are important.

What is lead generation?
The term “lead generation” refers to the process of identifying leads for your business.
A lead is someone (either an individual or an organization) who has an interest in the product or service you are selling. Lead generation isn’t only about finding these individuals — it’s also about cultivating a relationship with them and stimulating their interest in whatever you have.
Lead generation is an essential part of any marketing funnel. After all, if you never generated any leads, you would never have any business. But if lead generation is a struggle for you, you’re not alone: according to the following graphic (taken from a study by IDG), 61% of marketers reported that generating high-quality leads was difficult for their organization.
When it comes to lead generation, there are two important things to know:

First, you want to generate quality leads, not just any leads.

And second, these days, a big percentage of lead generation happens online.

High quality leads

Not every lead is a good lead. In fact, according to Gleanster Research, only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales. This means you need to identify as many leads as possible, so your percentage of high-quality leads will be greater. In general, a high-quality lead is a lead that is very likely to convert and become a customer.

The buyer process is changing; the world is online. To reach your leads, your lead generation efforts need to be focused online, too. A good online lead generation campaign will include elements such as website optimization, social media, content marketing, trade shows or live events, PPC (paid per click) ads, webinars, and more.

Ready to take action and ramp up your online lead generation efforts? Here are five ways to do just that.

1) Analyze Your Competition

How do you perform a competitive analysis? First, make sure you know who your competitors are. In general, your opponents will be companies that are similar to yours in industry, target audience, and size.

Once you know who your competition is, check out their marketing strategy. What kinds of content are they focusing on? Take notes on their efforts to attract customers online (content marketing, SEO strategy, social media marketing) and which efforts appear to be working the best.

For instance, maybe a competing company of yours puts out two new blog posts each week and gets hundreds of comments…and maybe you don’t have a blog. That would mean it’s time to start one.

If you know what your competition is doing to improve their online lead generation, you’ll know what you need to do to improve yours.

Take action: Start with something simple and easy, such as keeping an eye on your competitors’ social media accounts and their customers’ complaints. This can help you devise a strategy to resolve those complaints. And then you can easily pull in new leads.

2) Refine Your Instagram Strategy for Greater Online Lead Generation

Instagram is an important tool in any marketing strategy. One billion people use Instagram, and if your brand caters to a younger demographic, this social platform is especially essential for you.

59% of U.S. users are under 30. And 72% of all teens use Instagram every day. Teens have more purchasing power than you may think, too.

To top off those stats, 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram. And over 200 million users visit at least one Instagram business profile daily.

So if you’re using Instagram, you’re already ahead of the game. But to really ramp up your online lead generation, you have to do more than use Instagram… you have to use it the right way.

Take a good, hard look at your Instagram strategy. To generate the maximum number of leads possible, you need to do a few key things.

First of all, include your face! Studies have shown that photos with faces are 38% more likely to receive likes and 32% more likely to receive comments than photos without a face. Posting photos of yourself or your employees will result in more engagement and more leads.

Second, make sure your bio (in your profile) is top-notch. You can only share one clickable link, so think carefully about what you want it to be (you can always change it later). What link would bring you the most leads? Maybe a link to a landing page on your website that’s customized for a discount you’re running right now?

Take action: Set up a business Instagram account and start mapping out a strategy. To improve your lead gen, make sure your strategy includes plenty of photos with faces, create an intriguing bio with a relevant link, and then monitor what’s going on.

3) Optimize Your Email Optin Form

When it comes to email marketing, you’ve already won half the battle. After all, if someone has agreed to let you email them, that means they’re already curious about what you do. The only remaining hurdle is creating a strong call-to-action that will convert this lead into a customer. Piece of cake!

89% of marketers say email is their most-used channel for generating leads. Your competition is using email, too, so optimize your email efforts and make them the best they can be.

One good way to improve your online lead generation through email is to never, ever mention the word “spam.” Many brands include a line at the bottom of an email sign-up form that says something like, “We promise to never spam you.” A study from Michael Aagard, though, showed that this actually reduces conversions by 18%.

Take action: Optimize the email optin form on your website to get more leads via email. Revamp your vocabulary and don’t include the word “spam.”

4) Include Strong CTA’s on Your Blog to Increase Online Lead Generation

An SEO - optimized blog from a high-quality website that puts out consistent posts can help attract high-quality leads. Once you have those leads on your site, though, you don’t want them to just read your blog post and then leave.

Instead, you want them to stick around and hopefully opt-in to your email newsletter or a free resource. And one way to do that is by including good calls to action.

Blogs are an excellent way to improve your online lead generation because blog posts are a simple and natural place to include calls to action. As you might guess, a call to action is designed to prompt someone into taking action.

Inbound links (a hyperlink back to your site from another website) are a great place to slip in strong CTA’s. For instance, instead of just saying “visit Mark’s website,” try, “click here to download Mark’s free handy resource.” Make it easy for the reader to say yes.

Here are some other words and phrases to use on your landing page and in your blog:
  • Get started (this makes it sound like your visitor will be able to take action and change after just one click)
  • Sign up free (the word “free” always boosts conversion rates!)
  • Join us today (everyone wants to be part of something)
  • Learn more (this shows people there is no commitment necessary yet)
  • Shop now (again, this is effective because you’re not asking people to buy yet — just to take a look)
  • Schedule a visit (send them to a contact form when they click this)
  • Act now (creating a sense of urgency spurs people to click)
  • Don’t miss out (no one wants to miss out on what everyone else has)
Take action: If you don’t have a blog, create one! Hire a writer to help you get posts out on time. If you do have a blog, read back through your old posts and make sure they include good calls to action; if they don’t, add them. Brainstorm a list of words and phrases that align with your brand to use in writing strong calls to action moving forward.

5) Invest in a YouTube channel

When you think about strategies to improve your online lead generation, you may not think of a YouTube channel… but YouTube is a fantastic way to generate leads.

For small businesses that may not have top-notch video production capabilities, there are two choices: outsource the content creation, or remember that it’s okay to keep things simple. As long as your videos provide excellent and in-depth information or entertainment, you can get away without having expensive video equipment. Let’s talk about how.

YouTube videos are a good conversation piece to share on social media, either as a post or as a Facebook ad. Just make sure to capture your viewer’s attention immediately: 47% of the value of Facebook ads happens in the first three seconds.

Don’t overlook YouTube ads, either. They have the highest click-through rate of all digital ad formats, so they’re a great tool for online lead generation.

YouTube videos provide a way for you to generate lots of leads with only a small amount of work.

Take action: Start a YouTube channel and begin producing videos. Before uploading a video, ask yourself these three questions:

  1. Is the content of this video valuable to my viewers?
  2. Have I included a CTA?
  3. Is the description optimized for SEO?
If you answer yes to all of those questions, upload your video, share it on social media, and watch the leads roll in.

The road to online lead generation

If you weren’t already, then you’re now well on your way down the path to online lead generation. We’ve given you some great tools, tips, content advice, and more to help make your website, emails, blog, and social media a winning online lead generation strategy.

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