Consistently generating qualified leads is the lifeblood of any business. You need a constant stream of leads and the ability to close them in order to grow and prosper. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to generate leads that are just the right fit for you and your offer.
Far too many business owners get caught up in generating as many leads as possible, without necessarily considering their quality. Their lead generation methods are geared towards low-quality leads that are unlikely to convert. Here are 8 proven ways to drive qualified leads straight to your business.
Search Engine Optimization
Improving the SEO of your website will ultimately mean that more of your potential customers can find you. Ideally, you want to rank for keywords that have high buyer intent and relate to your offer. Effective SEO can usually provide a consistent stream of passive traffic that requires very little to maintain.
The fact that they are searching for these terms also helps to qualify them as customers that can benefit from your offer. Tools like SEM Rush and Ahrefs have turned this process into an exact science that you can use to your advantage. They also let you see the strengths of your competitors and identify areas where you can overtake them.
LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect with like-minded professionals online today. It can be a particularly valuable tool to generate leads, especially if you work within a certain niche. There are a range of different strategies you can try out depending on the strengths of the business and yourself.
A great way to do this is to connect with business owners who can benefit from your offer. If your business aims to help dentists with their marketing, look to connect with these dentists and demonstrate how you can provide value. Alternatively, you can opt to write LinkedIn articles targeting your ideal clients and attract organic leads that way.
Education-Based Marketing
Using education-based marketing can be a great way to warm up potential leads before they convert. This is especially true if you have a high-ticket offer where customers usually don’t convert right away. The best way to do this is usually to provide some free value before they become a customer.
This is often done in the form of a free report that looks to solve the main problems they’re facing in their business. If you can provide value with your free content, they’re much more likely to eventually become paying customers. With a proper email marketing campaign, this whole process can become quickly automated.
Social Media
Recent numbers suggest that Facebook receives 2.38 billion active monthly users, while Instagram also has over 1 billion active users. You’re simply leaving money on the table if you aren’t marketing to these audiences. These platforms offer very in-depth advertising platforms that can provide a stronger insight into your ideal customer.
The sheer volume of users on these sites means that social media can be effective no matter the size or scope of your business. Their advanced algorithms know their users so well that they’ll efficiently optimize your campaigns over time. Social media advertising costs are continually on the rise, so business owners should look to get in while they can!
Landing Pages
A landing page is essentially a web page that has the sole goal of getting the user to perform a specific action. They allow you to capture leads by providing some sort of offer, trial, or free report. These tend to convert quite highly as a good landing page generally only offers one action.
While you are giving something away, many customers feel more inclined to sign up if they’re receiving an exclusive deal. As with e-mail marketing, this can be essentially automated after the initial set-up process. To help with your site SEO, it’s best to host these landing pages on your own server as opposed to a 3rd party.
Email Marketing
Direct response marketing is one of the most effective ways to acquire new customers and email marketing is no exception. Not only is it a great way to maintain warm leads, it can help immensely with generating new ones. While it tends to get a bad rap, cold outreach is still a great way of drumming up new business.
Statistics have shown that email marketing provides an incredible return on investment, bringing back $39.40 for every $1 spent. If you can scale these numbers even just a little bit, the sky is the limit. With how advanced email automation tools have become, it is increasingly simple to just set and forget your campaign.
Referrals
Referrals are one of the easiest ways to drive qualified leads to your business that doesn’t cost you anything. All you need to do is to create a referral program where employees or customers can refer leads to your business. They then get a percentage of the revenue that the client brings in over the life of your relationship.
This is especially valuable for your customers, who likely have contacts within their industry that can also benefit from your offer. With no customer acquisition costs involved, you’ll generally enjoy even higher profit margins on these customers. Especially if the advertising budget is tight, this could be a great low-risk way to generate new leads.
Networking Events
Getting qualified leads to your business can definitely be more about who you know than what you know. As the name would suggest, one of the best ways to expand your network is with dedicated networking events. If you’re able to go out and impress new business owners, you can forge lucrative and long-lasting partnerships.
The best part is that you can then leverage their contacts to find more qualified leads for yourself. Many of the business owners you meet will have hundreds of contacts that could potentially benefit from your offer. Especially if you provide an industry-specific product or service, this is a goldmine that most business owners tend to avoid.
