Lead generation is the process of attracting new prospects to your business. Doing so can get more eyes on your products or services and hopefully lead to more sales! But, as a business owner, you don’t want to spend a ton of time trying to draw new leads in. Fortunately, there are ways to automate lead generation to help ensure you always get a steady stream of sales. In this article, we’re going to break down a few of them.
Let’s get started.
Create Lead Magnets Your Audience Will Love
Lead magnets are free items or services that a user can get if they offer up their contact details. This will provide you with more people to send promotional emails to, hopefully increasing your sales as a result.
Even with just one relevant and genuinely helpful lead magnet, you can generate a lot of leads, so it’s a very time-efficient way to attract your ideal audience. Free templates, helpful tools, calculators, online webinars, or eBooks are all great examples of lead magnets that you can use to grow your contact list.
When deciding what types of lead magnets you should create, think about what resources you already have at hand.
For instance, if you have a lot of different blog articles on a certain subject, compiling them into a free eBook can make a great lead magnet. Or, if you offer paid webinars to your website visitors, providing some of them for free in exchange for contact information could help you make more sales in the long run. If you have a free trial option for your services, you could also consider tying it to a contact form to turn it into a lead magnet.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of businesses that have created effective lead magnets for inspiration.
At Loganix, we do something similar with our free domain authority checker tool. This can analyze potential link sources or competitor websites to determine how likely they are to rank highly on the search engine results pages (SERPs). A user simply inputs the domain name of the website they want to be analyzed, offers up their contact info, and can get metrics from sources like Moz, Google, and Ahrefs.
The Loganix target audience is full of people in digital marketing, many of whom do their own backlink building or competitor research, making this a great lead magnet — people who use these tools might also be willing to pay for other Loganix services down the line. So, this lead magnet is great for getting the word out about our company.
On your website, think about what helpful tools or calculators you could offer related to your business. If you can help your target audience find information that they are looking for using one of your tools, they’ll be more willing to offer you their contact information, so you can stay in touch and eventually turn them into customers.
HubSpot, a digital marketing company, offers free marketing resources like eBooks and guides that work well as lead magnets. To get these resources, a user simply plugs in their contact and business information and then has access to the downloadable guides. These are great for drawing leads to HubSpot — people interested in these business-savvy guides will likely be interested in their services, too.
On your website, think about what types of guides you could compile for your target audience in order to draw them into your website. Doing so can potentially provide you with their contact information so you can nurture the relationship, getting you more sales down the line.
Provide A Referral Program That Will Benefit Existing Customers
Referral programs can help you automate your lead generation because your existing customers will do the work for you. They’ll start to send their friends, family, and colleagues your way!
When creating a referral program, be sure to provide incentives for your existing customers and advertise them. Store credit rewards and discounts are options that will help save your existing customers money when they continue to invest in your services. And, not only will this encourage them to refer people they know to your business, but it will also encourage them to spend more money with you, ultimately growing your business further.
Let’s look at a few examples of businesses that already have effective referral programs for inspiration.
Robinhood, a stock trading and investing app, has a referral program that works very well as a lead generation tool. When a Robinhood user invites someone else to join, both the inviter and the invitee receive a free stock, ranging in value from $2.50 to $225. This type of referral program encourages new and old customers alike to refer their friends, as it will only get them more investment money!
On your website, think about how you can incentivize your customers to refer their friends. Offering them things like in-store credit or gifts can encourage them to get their friends to sign up, making it a great form of lead generation.
Harry’s, the online razor subscription service, has an excellent referral program as well. Their program gives customers $5 off their next order each time they refer a friend, and the friend gets $5 off as well. Because these razors cost around $9 a month on a subscription basis, this is an impressive discount, making it excellent as a lead generation tool!
On your website, think about how you can offer discounts to your customers for referrals. If you structure your deal similarly to Harry’s, you can get a lot of leads going forward.
Consistently Post Helpful Updates On Social Media
If you can provide people with helpful information through your social media updates, they’ll get a positive impression of your business — this means that they’ll be more likely to come to you when they need products or services like yours, and recommend you to their friends.
There are a lot of different strategies you can use to provide people with helpful information on your social media channels. For instance, you could post relevant tutorials, statistics related to your products or services, or provide tips that will benefit your target audience.
If you’re having trouble providing your followers with consistent output, a bulk scheduling tool can help you automate your social media. These tools can help you create several posts at a time and schedule them in advance — this will help ensure that you’re consistently providing content to your followers.
Let’s look at some examples of businesses that do a great job of providing helpful content through their social media profiles.
For instance, Felix Health, an online prescription provider, has a lot of helpful information on their Instagram page.
As you can see in the image above, in this post, they outline the difference between retinoids and retinols. This is really important information, particularly as both have become skincare industry buzzwords. By outlining the differences between the two products, Felix Health can help their customers and build trust, thus increasing the chance that they’ll get more leads through their website.
On your Instagram page, don’t be afraid to use your posts to teach your audience something, as Felix Health has. Doing so will show your customers that you care and build trust with them, improving your ability to generate leads.
On the other hand, Leave The Key Homebuyers, a real estate company based out of Long Island, New York, has helpful content on their Twitter page. As you can see in the image above, they use the space to showcase their later-in-life customers. They note that they have resources for inheritances, estate planning, downsizing, and more. Not only is this helpful for followers and customers to know, but this post can serve as a lead generation tool for the late-in-life services that they offer.
On your social media accounts, think about how you can help your followers by promoting different services you provide. Showing your followers how you can help them is a great way to generate leads.
Betty Crocker, an American cooking brand, provides their followers with helpful content on their Instagram page. As you can see in the image above, they’re using their social media posts to promote their recipes, such as a cookie pizza that their customers can make with a cookie mix. Not only is this a fun way to promote their products, but it serves as lead generation, as well. People scrolling through their Instagram feeds might come across this website and be tempted to buy Betty Crocker cookie mix in order to make this recipe.
On your social media pages, show off how you can best use your products and services! Doing so will help get new people excited about your products, getting you more sales in the future.
Ensure All Of Your Content Is Optimized For Search Engines
A lot of lead generation simply involves getting your business in front of the right people. One of the ways you can do this is by ensuring that you show up on the results pages for search engine queries related to what you do. This is all a part of search engine optimization (SEO).
For starters, you’ll want to conduct some keyword research. Head to a tool like Google Keyword Planner with a list of words and phrases related to your business. Plug them into the planner, and Google will provide you with a list of relevant keywords that people are searching for more information about. Weave these keywords into your content, particularly by adding them to your titles and headers, to help ensure your website appears on valuable SERPs.
When trying to build a piece of content around keywords, think about what types of questions a reader has about the topic in question. Based on your expertise in your field, what can you teach your readers about the keywords in question? What questions can you answer? Doing this can help you boost your rankings on the SERPs.
Let’s take a look at an example of a website that has well-optimized content for inspiration.
Looka, an online logo maker, has a lot of well-optimized content on its blog. In the company’s article titled “How to Choose a Blog Name,” they incorporate relevant keywords into their titles, headers, and the like.
And their keyword strategy has worked — this piece of content ranks on the first page of Google for relevant keywords with a collective monthly search volume of 7,840. Once this article helps someone find the perfect blog name, they can then use Looka’s other services to create the perfect logo! This makes it an excellent article for lead generation.
On your website, be sure to optimize your helpful articles with relevant keywords. Doing so will help get you to the top of the SERPs your target audience is looking at and hopefully convince them to use your other services, making it a great form of lead generation.
Send Email Newsletters That Provide A Lot Of Value
A lot of businesses simply use their email lists as a selling tool, but using them to provide value and helpful information can help you generate more sales. If your email newsletters are helpful to your target audience, people will be more likely to shout about them to their friends and colleagues, leading to more eyes on your website and more sign-ups, making it a great form of lead generation.
This means that, while you can add some promotional material, it’s important that you focus on providing useful information and tips for your newsletter subscribers while mentioning your products or services only briefly in the context of how they can help.
Let’s take a look at an example of a business that does a great job of providing helpful and actionable information in their email newsletter.
Litmus, an email marketing company, uses its newsletter to promote helpful content on its blog. As you can see in the image above, they’ve started their newsletter by promoting their article on single opt-in vs. double opt-in.
Litmus’ newsletter is being used as an opportunity to show that they’re an expert in their field and constantly thinking about ways to help their industry. It’s a great form of lead generation, as people will be interested in the content that the newsletter is promoting.
In your newsletters, be sure to promote helpful content! Show off snippets of useful tools or thought-provoking pieces — doing so will get more people to your website, making this a great lead generation strategy.
Summary
Lead generation is vital to the success of your business — if you want to make more sales, you need to ensure that you have a constant stream of leads. Fortunately, there are a lot of different ways that you can automate your lead generation. In this article, we covered helpful newsletters and social media posts, expert content, lead magnets, and more. Implement these strategies to generate more leads without having to do too much more work!
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Author bio & headshot:
Alex Ratynski is a Content Strategist at Loganix, an SEO fulfillment partner that works with agencies and marketers. The company focuses on helping businesses to improve their online visibility, so they can grow and reach their goals. If you enjoyed this article, visit the Loganix blog for more expert advice.
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