4 Creative Ideas On Generating Leads The Right Way

Do you still rely on cold calls to generate new leads? If so, you need to reconsider your options. A steady stream of leads is essential to keep your business running, but traditional methods of garnering customer interest, gathering valuable data and encouraging loyalty may not work in the modern digital era.

According to the State of Inbound 2017 report by HubSpot, 63 percent of marketers agree that generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. Moreover, only 16 percent of marketers said outbound practices provide the highest-quality leads for sales. Marketers, therefore, must devise unique and creative lead generation ideas to create positive leads. In fact, by spending just six hours per week, 66 percent of marketers see lead generation benefits through social media.

There are a number of other creative ways to generate quality leads. Let’s take a look.

1. Offer Value in Creative Ways

When it comes to offering value through content creation, people generally recommend creating high-quality and useful content (in the form of blog posts, articles, videos, etc.) that will help the target audience solve specific problems. However, there is another way you can offer value to your audience. You can reach out to thought leaders and get useful insights on a specific topic in which your target audience will be interested. For instance, if your target audience includes budding online marketers, you can interview digital marketing leaders such as Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin and Larry Kim to provide your readers with the best marketing advice.

Groove is one brand that has been cashing in on this technique. It interviews successful founders, entrepreneurs and industry leaders, and asks them specific questions that can help their target audiences. The company then shares their answers on its blog. The company also makes the effort to answer all questions asked by readers in the comment section. This has helped Groove gain the trust of fellow readers, thereby establishing it as a source of expert information.

2. Leverage Explainer Videos to Generate Leads

Did you know that four out of five consumers believe that demo videos are helpful? Forty-eight percent of marketers plan to include YouTube in their content strategy, according to HubSpot. By producing explainer videos for your products, you can stir up customer interest and help them understand your business better. This is because visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text.

Explainer videos need not be professional quality or lengthy. The videos you create should be to the point, easy to understand and well edited. Take the example of the explainer video by Gigtown, a mobile application that allows people to find, follow and book musicians. The animated explainer video created by Mint, a well-known financial app, is another example of how you can keep your audience engaged.

The video explains how customers can take control of their finances by using the app. Had the company tried to write a textual guide, it would have taken an hour to read. Regardless of the product you have, creating an interesting explainer video can help you engage your customers better.

3. Consistent Blogging Helps Generate Quality Leads

Blogging does a lot more than just inform your audience about recent product launches, company news and corporate events. When done properly, blogging helps you establish authority in your niche, boost SEO, and assist with quality lead generation. According to the Demand Gen Report 2016, 47 percent of buyers viewed three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative.

Moreover, companies that published more than 16 posts per month got 4.5 times more leads than companies that published zero to four posts per month. If you still haven’t designed a blog for your company, it is time to start a blog today. But doing so isn’t enough. You need to understand your audience and what they are looking for. Create posts that will help them solve day-to-day problems. Make the posts as interesting as possible by including images, videos, infographics and recent data.

You can also encourage your valued customers to contribute to your blog. This will make them feel special, and they will bring in more traffic with the help of word-of-mouth marketing. The more you are able to engage your readers, the higher the chances they will turn into high-quality leads. A solid content strategy is required to make blogging successful.

Make sure to post regularly and engage with your readers consistently. A number of project management tools are available in the market to help you stay in control of your content strategy. Some of the most useful tools include Confluence and WorkZone.

4. Offer Free Trials

Free trials are a proven method of generating quality leads, as they allow your prospects to get a firsthand feel of your products/services for a while, without having to spend money. If your offerings help your target audience simplify their lives during the trial phase, they are most likely to purchase your product and become loyal customers. However, you need to identify the period of time for which the product or service will be available for free. This timeframe should be short enough to stir up interest, and long enough to allow the prospect to understand your product/service to the core. Ending the trial period just when the prospect has become dependent on the product/ service increases the chances of purchase.

Promote your free trials through online ads, and keep your customers updated via emails to ensure success.

Generating leads may be difficult, but with the right strategy you can achieve your goals without infuriating the prospects. Lead generation is important to ensure your business stays afloat, so try the above methods to generate quality leads and take your business to the next level.

About the Author

Pratik Dholakiya is the Founder of The 20 Media, a content marketing agency specializing in content and data-driven SEO. He regularly speaks at various conferences about SEO, content marketing, entrepreneurship and digital PR. Pratik has spoken at the 80th Annual Conference of Florida Public Relations Association, Accounting & Finance Show, Singapore, NextBigWhat’s UnPluggd, IIT-Bombay, SMX Israel, SEMrush Meetup, MICA, IIT-Roorkee and other major events. As a passionate SEO and content marketer, he shares his thoughts and knowledge in publications like Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, The Next Web, YourStory and Inc42 to name a few.