5 Lead Generation Hacks Your Business Needs Today

By Ernest Hamilton

Dec 01, 2021 04:57 PM EST

5 Lead Generation Hacks Your Business Needs Today(5 Lead Generation Hacks Your Business Needs Today) (Credit: Getty Image)

Website visitors are great, but you're not turning them into paying customers, they aren't doing your business much good, are they?

In today's self-educating age, people jump from one site to another looking for information and solutions to their problems. 

According to a study by Google, B2B researchers carry out 12 searches before engaging a specific brand.

You want to be that brand. 

The one B2B researchers engage and possibly buy from. 

For that to happen, you'll need effective lead generation strategies that help you identify potential customers and start off conversations that lead to conversions.

Here are five such strategies your business needs today.

1. Work on Your SEO Strategy

There is no way around this one-even for those who try to hack Google's algorithms to improve rankings.

SEO is crucial for customer acquisition since it helps improve online visibility.

Strong organic visibility at every stage of the purchase cycle ensures buyers can find your products/services when conducting a search.

To maximize this strategy, here are practices to consider:

  • Create detailed buyer personas. The more information you have, the greater insight you'll have into their preferences and needs, making for effective targeting. It's okay to have more than one buyer persona since buyers don't always fit into one profile.

  • Assess your sales funnel. Have a chat with your sales team to understand how the funnel works and pay attention to successful touchpoints. Look at analytical data to establish :

  • How prospects and customers find your business 

  • Average purchase time 

  • Average customer retention

  • Why customers leave

  • Conduct keyword research. Identify the search terms people use to find your solutions at every stage of the buying process. Be sure to cover informational query keywords, which typically revolve around questions people ask, e.g. "How do I balance my book without QuickBooks?"

  • Include earning quality backlinks in your distribution strategy. Create factually correct and interesting content pieces that can be referenced by other sites. Identify and contact authoritative sites and resource pages in your niche to earn backlinks.

2. Cold Calling

Unlike most lead generation strategies, cold calling places you in direct contact with your ideal customer. 

It presents an exciting and challenging opportunity to talk about the value you can add to the prospect's business. 

The way you communicate this value determines how long the listener stays on the phone and the outcome.

So, how do you handle a potential customer once you get them on the call?

Here are tips from industry experts:

  • Track down relevant information about the prospect, their industry, preferences, and challenges to help you personalize the call and encourage engagement from your listener.

  • Know your solutions. Not a thing or two, but the offerings in their entirety. It will help you analyze how your solutions measure up to the prospect's challenges.

  • Have a call guide you can reference when speaking to the prospect. Include your opening line, points to cover, questions, objections, and how to overcome them, as well as your end goal. 

  • Block an hour or two for cold calling. Turn off email and phone notifications and focus on the list in front of you and the calling guide. If you find your mind wandering, ask questions, take notes, and focus on your goal.

  • Don't let rejection demotivate you. Rejections will come, and it's easy to relive bad experiences. Some prospects are just plain nasty. Focus on positive things, learn from your mistakes, and move on.

3. Email Marketing

Did you know that email ranks third as a source of influential information for B2Bs-after colleague recommendation and thought leadership that is?

B2B buyers depend on email from brands for educational content, updates, and purchases, which is why email marketing should be a part of your lead generation strategy.

But as much as buyers and prospects look forward to receiving emails, you shouldn't bombard their inboxes with tons of emails every day. 

That will only land you in the spam folder.

Here are tactical ways to stay relevant and nurture prospects:

  • Build your email list. Collect email contacts through content marketing and other legitimate strategies and only contact those who opt-in.

  • Segment your list. Businesses have different needs and are in different stages within the buyer journey. Group your list according to their behavior, needs, and stage for effective targeting.

  • Encourage your audiences to engage. Consider making your CTA about feedback regarding the email you sent or about specific things they want to know about. It will provide useful insights and the audience will feel valued.

  • Use a simple, mobile-friendly design. People are busy and you want to hold your prospect's attention long enough for them to read through the email. Keep it short and concise, limit fonts to one or two, avoid flashy colors, maintain abundant white spaces and use images.

  • Grab them with your subject lines. It's tempting to use click-bait headlines to entice audiences to open your email, but if the headline and content don't match, it affects your credibility. Communicate the purpose of your email on the subject line and stick with it in the copy.

4. LinkedIn Marketing

With close to 800 million members around the globe, LinkedIn is where professionals hang out. Here, you come face to face with brands, decision-makers, marketers, and other professionals.

How can you leverage this platform to generate leads?

  • Use your company page to offer value. Make your company page more than a digital business card by encouraging visitors to sign-up for valuable offers or content.

  • Leverage LinkedIn Showcase Pages to segment leads and target them effectively. Use them to promote different offerings or share content with specific audiences.

  • Create and share thought leadership content. B2B buyers look for expert knowledge, innovative ideas, and foresight to help them prepare for what's coming. Be the brand that addresses these factors.

  • Build quality connections. Having thousands of connections is great, but is it generating any leads? Aim for quality and relevant connections, businesses, and people you can potentially sell to, or receive insights from. 

  • Share newsworthy content that adds value to audiences regularly.  possibly daily. It tells your audience that you're up to update on industry developments. Further, add your thoughts to this content to express your company's position and encourage engagement. 

5. Gate Useful Content

Gating content is a staple in content marketing. Many teams use it to gather information about their audience that they can use for nurturing.

But where do you draw the line? Should you gate all your content?

Ideally no, and here's why.

Most people are reluctant to share their contact information with a brand that they know little about. 

They will often move to other sites to see if they can find useful content without exchanging their contact information for it.

Balance is what works here. 

When you regularly create and freely share useful content, you're achieving two things-building awareness and developing relationships with your audience.

As they consume your content, audiences begin to trust you. 

They know your content is worthwhile and will always want to know your thoughts-even when these thoughts are placed behind a gate.

It's at this stage that you can create and gate highly valuable content like webinars, in-depth courses, demos, industry reports, and ebooks.

So, go on and gate your best content, but remember to balance things.

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