This is how you generate leads in 2021 (11 detailed examples)

Leads.

You want them. We want them. Every business in the world wants them.

Leads are the gasoline that keeps your business-machine running, and without it, your business is going nowhere VERY fast (or, slow… I guess).

But here at First Page, we’ve realized that there is a right mentality for generating leads, and a wrong mentality.

The wrong mentality goes something like this…

‘I want more leads’

But in contrast, the right mentality should go something like this…

‘I want more high-quality leads‘

Believe us. This mentality switch is the difference between a business enjoying an influx of revenue on autopilot, and a business fighting tooth and nail for its life every single day.

But how exactly do you generate more leads? And how can you ensure those leads are of the absolute highest quality (so they are more likely to convert).

In this insider guide, we break down 11 ways to generate more quality leads for your business, with examples from some of the biggest brands in the world. We also give you a behind-the-scenes look into some of the strategies we are using at First Page on a daily basis.

What is lead generation?

Simply put, lead generation is the marketing process of attracting, engaging, and capturing the interest of your ideal clients/market.

Lead generation is important because it allows you to build strong relationships with your target audience and increase the probability of them buying from you.

Gone are the days of cold calling and knocking on doors. Sure, those tactics can still be effective, but in a digital-first world, it’s exponentially more efficient to get your leads online.

Let me show you how…

Tip #1 – Generate a large number of leads through your blog

It should be no surprise that content marketing can bring your business a TON of leads.

The formula is simple. You create amazing, educational, entertaining, highly-engaging content that helps answer your target audience’s questions. They then feel like they can trust you, which HUGELY increases the likelihood of them doing business with you.

Trust is the name of the game.

That’s why we try to publish around 2,000 words of high-quality content on our blog every single week. It’s a way to build strong, evergreen, relationships, that bring in business.

But you know what’s better than writing articles on your blog? Writing them on your blog and then having them rank on Google.

Which brings us to tip #2…

Tip #2 – Write about the topics that have the highest search traffic potential

If you create next-level content, it will absolutely help bring in leads.

But if you create next-level content AND that content ranks on Google – that’s when you can start bringing in leads in your sleep.

Ranking on Google allows you to directly market your products or services to your target audience, and if you maintain your rankings, the traffic and leads will pour in on autopilot.

A great example of this is HubSpot. They are a content-marketing-SEO machine, and they have been able to achieve some truly insane traffic from Google.

As you can see, Hubspot has over 200,00 keywords in the top 3 results of Google, which results in them getting over 8 MILLION monthly visitors.

That means they are getting a ton of high-quality leads.

Here’s a few tips to improve your SEO, and get higher rankings on search engines.

• Use a premium tool like AHREFs to do keyword research and strategize your content
• Evaluate both keywords’ traffic, search volume, value, difficulty, and business potential and use words your target audience is using.
• Make sure you write about the topic that your ideal clients are searching for. That is key to create free, passive, and sustainable traffic.

If you want to turn your website into a traffic-generating machine, learn more about our next-level SEO services.

Tip #3 – Capture your readers’ interest by offering free downloadable content

To capture leads, consider offering free downloads, freebies, and bonus content to your audience in exchange for their name and email address.

The free content can be a template, worksheet, or checklist related to the topic of the article your reader consumes.

For example, we offer a free eBook titled ‘5 Steps to Start Selling Your Products on Amazon (in Just a Few Weeks)‘.

By offering this free eBook, we have been able to generate dozens of highly qualified leads – people who want to sell their products on Amazon.

Tip #4 – Generate leads with guest blogging

Guest blogging refers to the process of writing blog articles for another website.

This strategy consists in having your article with links to your free content featured on a high-ranked website to build your online authority.

How do you get your blog posts on another website?

• Find authoritative websites related to your niche.

• Pick a relevant topic you can write for them and for which you know you can add value. Make sure this topic has a good search traffic potential.

• Find the editors’ emails and pitch them. Show that you have done your research by adding examples of other sites that are ranking well for these topics.

The more links of your website you get in authoritative websites on the internet, the higher you’ll rank and the more traffic you’ll get.

Tip #5 – Create free tools

Free tools are one of things that if done poorly, it will backfire.

But if done correctly, it could be a HUGE way to capture highly qualified leads.

A free tool can be anything that your target audience finds useful.

For example, we offer a free tool on the First Page website – a SEO ROI Calculator.

This tool helps our users get an approximate idea of how much money an SEO campaign can generate for their business. It helps keep our users informed, gives them value, and gives them another reason to reach out to us.

To make sure your free tool idea is relevant, look for topics with high search traffic potential. For example, if you’re a realtor you might look for “house renting”, “mortgage”.

Tip #6 – Collaborate with other brands

Partner with the other brands who are not your competitors but target a similar audience and ask them to collaborate.

Work with them to create valuable content for their audience in exchange for getting featured on their website. The content can be of any form. From blog articles, a webinar, a video, eBook to a mini-course.

We utilize this strategy often – most recently in a webinar with Google, Airwallex, and easyship.

This collaboration allowed us to create valuable content (a webinar) and cross-market between all of our audiences. We have seen huge increase in leads from doing collabs like this, and we definitely plan to do more in the near future.

Tip #7 – Launch a virtual summit or conference

Have you ever heard of Virtual Summit? The idea is to connect experts from different industries who are interviewed by a host and share their expertise.

It is a great tactic because it ensures that the people that sign up are interested in what you do.

Moz, a SEO software company, runs Mozcon every year, a virtual summit that attracts thousands of people attend.

This allows Moz to grow their authority, as well as (likely) generate an enormous amount of leads.

Below are easy steps to follow to set up your virtual summit in an efficient way:

• The virtual event topic must be related to your products or services
• Reach out to  influencers and experts in the field
• Interview them and record the interview
• Set a date for the summit
• Ask people to register to attend the event
• Share the recorded interview with the attendants over a 3 to 5 days period

Launching a virtual summit with other brands is a great collaboration tactic that takes your collaboration with other brands to the next level.

Tip #8 – Engage your audience with giveaways

In today’s digital words, posting quality content isn’t enough.  To succeed, you have to promote your content.

Giveaways are a very powerful lead generation tactic as they build excitement amongst your target audience, increase brand awareness and generate leads.

Not all leads are the same. To make sure you are getting quality leads from the giveaway, make sure that the prize participants get is directly linked with your products or services.

This way you ensure that people who join are actually interested in what you do.

To set up a giveaway:

• Create a post on your social media channels announcing the giveaway and ask people to follow you, tag two friends in the comment, and share their story to enter.

Don’t forget to add the date and how the winner will be announced.

• Or you can simply sign up for a free app that enables users to grow their audience through viral giveaways (ex. KingSumo).

When planning for your giveaway, focus on quality rather than quantity.

You want people that want what you do, not just winning a free prize.

Finally, don’t forget to email your email list regularly and deliver value to people that have already signed up.

Tip #9 – Turn your homepage into a lead collection magnet

Your homepage is most certainly the page your website visitors see the most.

If your goal is to generate more leads then a great way to do that is to convert your homepage into a lead collection magnet.

To do that, make sure your homepage has a clear call to action for people to sign up for your email list and you might also want to consider adding a pop up newsletter sign-up built in.

A great example of this is from a company called Convertica – a conversion rate optimization agency.

As you can see, their home page is sleek, has clear calls to actions, and is designed to churn out high quality leads.

Here’s a great article we wrote about how to increase the conversions on any landing page (like your home page).

Tip #10 – Set up a referral program

92% of people trust more products and services that have been recommended to them by family members or someone they know.

To use referral at your advantage you can set up a referral program that rewards people for sharing your products/services with others.

Two incentives can be used for referral program:

• Cash incentives. The person that refers to your products gets money or a percentage of the sales in return. For example, Revolut rewards $40 to referring someone to open an account.

• Non-cash incentive. The referrer gets a discount or credit for each successful referral. Dropbox is most famous for this – they offer their users free storage space for every successful reference, and it has been a huge factor in their exponential growth.

We have been using a referral program for a few years, and we’ve received some tremendous leads because of it.

Tip #11 – Get on YouTube

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world, and creating relevant video content on Youtube can catapult your leads.

Take a company like Slidebean for example…

Slidebean is a software startup that helps other startups create eye-catching pitch decks that are also super simple to make.

But one of their marketing strategies is to grow a YouTube channel – and they’ve got over 300,000 subs!

The channel mainly publishes stories about popular startups, analyzing why they succeeded or failed.

This allows Slidebean to create content that is aimed at their target audience (startups) which helps create brand awareness, and leads. In fact, Slidebean revealed that over 50% of their leads now come from their YouTube channel.

BONUS Tip – Retargeting

97% of people who visit your site for the first time leave without buying anything, and then they’re lost forever. Unless you can bring them back (Mailchimp).

Retargeting does exactly that. It is a type of advertising that targets website visitors that have left your website without taking action.

For example, once you have a Facebook pixel installed on your website, everyone that leaves your site without taking action will be retargeted with an ad showing your product or services.

The key is to add value. For example, you can retarget website visitors with a free resource for them to download or showing up your product to entice them to take action.

Conclusion

All these tactics are practical and work effectively to increase lead generations. We hope that you’ll find the ones that work best for your business and website.

If you need help with increasing your traffic and generating more leads, reach out to a First Page digital strategist today. We’ll help create an epic strategy for you that starts sending you high-quality leads on autopilot.