As marketers, we spend days—nay weeks—trying to come up with some new and clever way to market our products. We spend just as much time bringing our visions to life through content and other resources and will one goal in mind: to keep our businesses trekking along. While all that hard work is certainly par for the course, there are a few tricks that you can implement to give your next campaign a little more zazz—and, you know, to cut back on the hours you spend trying to come up with something innovative.
Optimize Your Website
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Implement Gated Videos
Adding an opt in form to your videos will help you collect more emails for your mailing list. If someone wants to watch your video bad enough, they won’t hesitate to enter their email address.
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Allow Readers to Download a Post in Exchange for an Email
Another great way to collect email addresses? Allow readers to download your best posts in exchange for their info. If you notice that a post that gets a lot of attention doesn’t necessarily result in any leads, this is a great option. It’s best used for directory posts, which readers can use over and over again for their own benefit.
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Optimize Your About Page
Many businesses don’t give their About Us or Team page enough credit, but people really do visit the page to learn more about a company they’re thinking of doing business with. Put a call-to-action on the page and watch what wondrous things it does!
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Give Fewer Choices
This may seem counterproductive—after all, don’t people like choice?—but actually, offering less choices will increase leads because it makes it less confusing for the visitor.
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Avoid the Word “Spam”
People want privacy, but when they see the word spam—even if you use it to reassure them that you won’t spam them—they run for the hills. Why? Simply using the word has them thinking that you will spam them. It’s okay to reassure privacy, but do so in a way that doesn’t freak out the potential lead.
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Create a Product Video
Product videos are amazing for so many different reasons, but the top benefits are that they can teach people how to use your product, and also, they can really show off your product. If writing about how amazing your product is just sounds too salesy, try making a video demonstration. The benefits will be clear, and you won’t have to sacrifice your integrity by creating a sales-pitch blog posts.
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Blog, Blog, Blog!
Blogging consistently is not only great for generating leads, but also, it’s great for boosting search engine rankings. Though this is a well-known fact, too many companies still do not blog, and those that do only do so on a periodic basis (as in, once a month or less). Companies that begin to blog on a consistent (as in daily) basis notice that their organic website traffic so much as doubles or even triples.
However, it is not enough to blog everyday. Your readership is there for a reason, so give them a hand and include a CTA at the end of each post. You can even hyperlink to an additional source about X topic that is longer and more detailed in exchange for an email address.
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Create and Optimize Pillar Content
Long form content acts as great pillar content and can pay off for years to come. Create content that you can continually draw from for social media posts, email newsletters, and even other short form blog content ideas. Always link back to that one piece of long-form content for continued optimization.
Optimize Your Social Media Channels
Promote Your Tweets
According to one study, Twitter users that were exposed to the same tweet multiple times were 12 percent more likely to make a purchase. With that in mind, just because you’re promoting a tweet doesn’t mean that you should change up your tweeting style. Keep your tweets fun and playful and in line with your brand’s voice, and make sure that you always provide value to your audience.
Maximize your tweet’s potential by linking to a landing page that is relevant to the tweet. Make sure the landing page contains an opt in form so you can capture the lead’s information.
Use Twitter Cards
Twitter is the perfect social media outlet to capture leads, as its Twitter cards allow you to gather a lead’s information right there in the activity stream. According to one study, Twitter cards were able to increase leads tenfold while decreasing the cost per lead by as much as 500%.
Participate in Quora Conversations
Quora’s popularity has boosted in recent years, making it the perfect question and answer forum to participate on. Quora allows you to create a profile on their site with your business’s details—including a link to your landing page—and then to answer questions about your respected field. Quora even allows users to search particular terms in order to reduce the amount of irrelevant content they’ll have to sift through. This is ideal for both you and them, as it allows for a connection between two parties who could truly benefit from one another.
Blog on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, though not as popular as mediums such as Facebook or Twitter, is one of the greatest online tools that any business owner can use, as it’s a great place to advertise to relevant, likeminded individuals. Even if no one on LinkedIn is looking for your particular product, LinkedIn offers a place to network and become a leading voice within your industry. You can connect with other like minds, swap links, and create long lasting relationships with individuals who may prove to be a great source of leads in the future.
LISTEN
Individuals who follow your brand on social media are interested in what you have to say, but the conversation needs to be a two way street. In exchange for their follow, listen to what those individuals have to say, whether it be good or bad. People are not afraid to express their opinion on social media, so it is a great way to collect customer feedback.
More than collecting feedback though, if you pay attention to what other brands your fans follow and what they like and comment on, you can glean a lot of insight into what gets their attention and what doesn’t.
Additionally, pay attention to what people want to know about your industry. For instance, if you sell health supplements, people may be curious about which are best for pre workout and which are best for post workout. You can then answer their question in a blog post or even a video, and why certain supplements should be taken at those particular times.
Take it Offline
Just because the internet has become such a huge marketing tool does not mean that offline tactics should be ignored. To truly maximize on your campaign’s potential, optimize your offline efforts as well.
Warm Calling
Ditch the cold calling efforts—nobody likes unsolicited calls anyway—and do your research prior to reaching out to a cold lead. After all, if you want someone to give you their time and attention, you should be able to explain to them why they, in particular, should care. However, while research does pay off, the most successful cold calls are made after you’ve received a referral.
Speak at an Event
Being a speaker is always a great way to generate leads, as not only are you seen as an authority figure, but also, your name and company will be splashed all over the event’s collateral—including its website. If the speech goes well, attendees will easily be able to find your information and reach out to you.
Lead Generation Tools
Popups
Despite how annoying you think customers think popups are, they actually work. People who are interested in what your site has to offer are more than willing to enter their information in order to continue to use your site, hassle free. However, if you’re going to use the pop-up, make it look nice and non-spammy, as no one wants to enter their info if they think they’ll just get spammed a ton.
AdRoll
Many times, individuals will get buyer’s remorse before they even make a purchase. More often than not, they’ll make it all the way to the check out page and then abandon their virtual shopping carts and move on. There is a way for you to track when this happens and, better yet, to find those customers and keep your name on their minds. No, we’re not talking about stalking them—we’re simply talking about using tools at your disposal, such as AdRoll, which allows you to follow them around the web and continue to expose them to your products. The more they see the products they abandoned, the more they’ll become convinced that they must have them.
Social Hubs
Though you may post to social media several times a day, the lifespan of your posts is relatively short, maxing out at just three hours. In order to continually expose potential leads to your product, use social hubs. Social hubs allow you to embed your social media posts directly onto your website, where they are then formatted into a grid. You can then insert CTAs throughout the grid in order to collect leads from your social content. This is a great tactic as a) you’re already creating social content, so you might as well maximize on it, and b) it extends the life of that content so potential leads have more time to appreciate it.
AdWords
Google AdWords has been and continues to be a great marketing tool for small and large businesses alike. However, in recent years, it has become an even stronger lead generation tool as it now allows companies to collect leads through their search ads. However, it’s important to note that the leads aren’t always qualified, as email addresses are entered after just a small snippet of information about your products or services. Directing your ad to a landing page would be much smarter and result in more qualified leads.
Email Drip Campaigns
Drip campaigns work much like popups, but instead of asking for the lead’s information so that you can send them general information about your products or services, drip campaigns are more targeted to the consumer’s needs. New subscribers are sent a series of emails about a particular topic and, towards the end of the series, are sent emails with special offers and discounts to transition them into paying plans. These campaigns usually consist of a set number of emails instead of receiving ongoing branded newsletters.
LaunchBit
Buying or trading email addresses is highly frowned upon in the marketing community and is actually illegal. However, LaunchBit offers an alternative that is just as effective as a curated email list. With LaunchBit, you can choose from a curated list of email newsletters with existing and willing subscribers, and then sponsor those newsletters. Those that you sponsor will then include an ad for your company. The best part of this is that your ad will be seen by a relevant audience—meaning, people who are already interested in or could be interested in what you have to sell.
Quizzes
Whether you’re testing people on their knowledge or asking for their opinion, people love quizzes. However, in order to use quizzes to generate leads, you must get the following three things right:
- The user interface must be easy to use.
- The topic must be RELEVANT to what you do, otherwise people will see right through this marketing tactic.
- You must offer something great at the end of it all to warrant a lead, such as a discount, tips and tricks, or a free trial.
Have Fun With It!
You went into marketing to have fun and be creative, so don’t just take these ideas and implement them without giving them your own special touch. Whether creating a popup ad or a quiz, redesigning your About page, creating pillar content, or perfecting your warm calling techniques, do so with your brand in mind.
Think about it: would you be more willing to listen to a sales pitch that starts like any other (“Hi, I’m with ZZZ security and we were wondering how you felt about your current home alarm system…”), or one that is grabs your attention and makes you wonder what the caller has to say next (“Hi! I don’t mean to alarm you, but did you know that 65 percent of business thefts occur because of an inadequate alarm system? Moreover, the crime rate in your area has increased by 15 percent in the last two years…”)? I’m not sure about you, but I know I’d be more willing to listen to the caller who did his research and genuinely seemed interested in providing a solution to a very real problem.
With that in mind, go through your marketing collateral and start implementing smart changes—you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results of your efforts!
Happy Generating!
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