Lead Generation Strategies…
These days I’m of the opinion that email marketing is still the single best way to get your message out to the world, to make sales, and to of course brand yourself and to generate authority.
The issue, of course, is generating the email leads in the first place. Because without leads, all of your best efforts, all of your noteworthy aspirations and intentions, your intellect, and all of your brilliant ideas, well, without leads all of that is for nothing.
That’s why I’d like to spend some time brainstorming some powerful ways to generate leads, even if your budget isn’t the biggest in the world.
Lead Generation Idea # 1 – Publish Lots Of Blog Posts That Are Designed To Help Your Ideal Prospects.
More and more, I’m falling in love with blogging. I think that blogging rocks.
There are a few different reasons that blogging is awesome, and the main reason is because, they are super easy and also very inexpensive to create and launch.
If you love to help people, to teach others, and especially if you enjoy writing, then creating a blog is an awesome hobby and super fun to do, and of course there are other blogging benefits that are specific to small business owners. 🙂
These days, you can setup a beautiful looking blog for about $25 – $100, and a good blog will have a very minimal upkeep (Probably around $50 $75 per year for your domain renewal, an SSL certificate, and an inexpensive host).
All of that technical stuff aside, blogging is arguably one of the best ways to let the search engines know about your written content, and if you’re truly an aspiring entrepreneur, authority, author, coach, or anyone who publishes online content, then blogs totally rock.
The best part is that you can always end your blog post with a call to action promoting your lead magnet; hopefully your lead magnet is designed to solve a significant problem that your ideal prospect would have, so that you may better endeavor to capture the exact type of lead that you wish to do business with, while at the same time repelling those who would not necessarily benefit from what you have to offer.
Lead Generation Idea # 2 – Optimize Your Blog To Collect A Lead!
These days there are so many crafty and nifty ways to promote your email newsletter in your blog.
You can promote your lead capture page within the actual content of your blog, you can promote it with a sidebar widget, with a “welcome bar” widget, with an exit intent popup, or you can do what I do and promote it right alongside the main menu as well.
My advice, is to always remember that you owe it to your audience to share your content; you can better help them, enable them, empower them, and serve them if you can get them to click on over to your lead capture page. So, don’t be shy when it comes time to let your audience know about your email newsletter, your lead magnet, or your email list!
You can have the best content in the world on your blog, and you can even have a boatload of website visitors. But what happens if you’re not properly funneling that traffic into your email marketing campaigns?
Well, that would be a tremendous shame. Because once a website visitor leaves your site, there’s probably a very good chance that they will never see you again; you’ve forever lost the website visitor, and they disappear into the abyss. 🙁
However, if they happen to subscribe to your email newsletter, well, now the possibilities have increased dramatically, right? Because you can now work on building a brand, sharing your best content, and of course, letting them know about your offers.
So, my advice, is to spend some time brainstorming about how you can use your blog in order to better promote your lead magnets, your lead capture pages, your squeeze pages, or your marketing funnels.
There are tons of awesome plugins and services that can help you accomplish this. (Services such as Sumo, AddThis, Thrive Leads, Optin Monster, WP Subscribe among others are just a tiny handful of the available options).
You can also do the very frugal (arguably lazy lol) thing and simply have a “subscribe” link in your menu that can promote your lead capture page. (As I have at the moment of me writing this).
The main idea here, is to make sure that you’re seizing every opportunity to showcase to your audience that you can help them. One of the best ways to do that, of course, is to get that end user on your email list so you can continually followup with amazing content. That’s only possible if you pitch an awesome CTA for your audience to claim an awesome lead magnet, or to subscribe to your newsletter in the first place.
Lead Generation Idea # 3 – Make Sure That You Have An Awesome Email Lead Generation Funnel.
If you don’t have a beautiful lead generation funnel, then in my humble opinion you’re really trying to swim against the tide, and you’re also missing out on a massively huge opportunity.
Because what happens if someone registers to join your email newsletter, and then they get a really lame thank you note, no welcome video, no cool gifts, and no call to action? Well, in my humble two cents that would be an epic blunder, and also a wasted opportunity.
This is opposed to having a magnificently brainstormed and crafted funnel that’s designed to introduce yourself, build rapport, share your content, and to of course generate sales.
This can be accomplished in a near-infinite amount of ways, though usually a text or video welcome message could suffice. 🙂
The worst thing that you can ever do, is generate a bunch of leads and then have a dreadful (or even worse, a nonexistent) welcome sequence!
In other words, what do your end users experience the very moment that they subscribe to your email newsletter?
Hopefully, they get a well-crafted WELCOME message from you, so that you can remind your end users to check their email, to introduce yourself, share awesome content, let your end users know what to expect, and also,to promote an offer.
For extra cookie-points, you could even go on to directly promote one of your offers, or even an affiliate offer right in the same welcome message. (A bold proposition indeed, however always remember that if you’re flat broke, it might behoove you to promote something immediately if you can do so artfully, strategically, and tastefully)
For example, if you’ve ever joined any of my email lists, you’ll notice that my finely crafted welcome sequence thanks the end user for subscribing, briefly introduces myself, and then goes on to introduce a really special offer almost immediately.
These days you can easily use tools such as ClickFunnels, Leadpages, or Thrive Architect to build amazing email marketing funnels without any technical trouble, and my advice is to spend some quality time ensuring that you deliver powerful content, so that your end users have a higher chance of actually growing to like you, know you, and trust you.
This is all easier said than done of course, and creating awesome email content definitely requires passion, grit, effort, determination, inspiration, and an overabundance of luck!
Lead Generation Idea # 4 – Make Sure That Your Followup Campaign Is Rock Solid.
Another terrible email marketing and lead generation plan is to spend all of this time and energy generating leads, and then never emailing them!
I propose that it’s a very wise idea, to create as much content as you can in advance as possible.
I know that some marketers and newsletter publishers prefer to be whimsical in their publishing efforts, however you may find that sometimes, you simply lack the devotion or inspiration to publish content. What happens then? Do you just neglect your subscribers over the long-haul, up until the point where they simply forget about you?
That’s why having an email autoresponder campaign that is already prepared and ready to handle your subscribers. Having a hefty (and awesome) email autoresponder sequence can be one of the sweetest forms of victory available to you. 😊
So, spend some time creating a beautiful email autoresponder campaign that is truly designed to better help, aid, entertain and/or educate your subscribers.
That way, you’ll know for a fact that your subscribers are getting the very best content from you, even if you decide to take a day (or a month) off.
And, if you decide that email automation isn’t your cup of tea, the very least you could do is create a few email marketing sequences beforehand, so that you may better endeavor to be prepared in the event that writer’s block snatches your creativity.
Lead Generation Idea # 5 – Consider Banner Advertising! (Super Old School, Yo).
These days all of the marketing fanatics are chomping at the bit talking about Facebook, Google, and Bing Ads.
But, did you know that there was a time when Banner Advertising ruled the roost?
Banner Advertising is still relatively massive, and it’s also very different from traditional “Pay Per Click” advertising.
The way Banner Advertising works is simple. I like to refer to a service called BuySellAds simply because they are the biggest, and oldest banner advertising network that I’ve ever heard of.
BuySellAds boasts a massive inventory of websites that will sell you banner slots, so you can advertise your lead magnet, lead capture page, or marketing funnel.
There are a ton of different websites that are selling Banner Ads through BuySellAds at the moment, and you might be surprised to see some very popular brands and websites listed here.
The cool thing (and the worst thing) about Banner Ads, or really any other type of ad, is that you really never know how your ad is going to perform until you test it. That’s why it’s so imperative to have an awesome email lead generation funnel, and also a powerful email sequence setup (or at least planned).
Lead Generation Idea # 6 – The Power Of Solo Ads?!
Solo Ads are a very old school email marketing advertising method that is designed to help email newsletter publishers build their email list on the cheap.
To be honest studying the ways of the mighty Solo Ad was one of the first ways that I really learned about the art and science of lead generation.
A Solo Ad is when you literally buy advertisements from other Email Newsletter Publishers.
Clicks are sold for anywhere from fifty cents to a couple of dollars, and click packages are usually sold in 50 to 100 click intervals. The number of clicks is agreed upon in advance.
It should be noted, that Solo Ads are a different type of beast, and usually the email lists here are very mainstream. So, don’t even consider Solo Ads if you are in a narrow, specific, local, or small niche.
For example, most Solo Ad email lists are in very general and broad markets such as “Internet Marketing”, “Business Opportunity”, “Diet”, “Weight Loss”, “Self-Help” or other very mainstream niches.
Lead Generation Idea # 7 – Consider Hosting A Webinar Event… And Building An Awesome Automated Webinar Funnel.
I think that Webinar Marketing is arguably one of the most underutilized methods of advertising, lead generation, and sales.
These days there are powerful apps (such as ClickFunnels, EverWebinar, or Demio) that can make launching amazing webinar marketing funnels a piece of cake, with zero technical expertise required.
The cool things about a good webinar marketing funnel, is that it can accomplish three of the biggest goals that most businesses have.
A webinar can help you to generate leads, to share awesome content, and to also promote your products. And, if you love to help people and share valuable content, then you’ll probably have a ton of fun sharing your content with the world.
You can also automate much of your webinar automation efforts these days.
For these reasons, I think that webinar marketing is very smart, and very practical for small business owners, and these days there are so many powerful apps that can help you to launch live (or automated) webinars.
Lead Generation Idea # 8 – Create An Awesome Email Course!
Creating an email course is one of the coolest ways to generate a lead, because not only are you aiming to create and distribute massive value, but hopefully you can find some interesting angles to help pitch your products and services as well.
Another really awesome thing about email courses, is that they make arguably one of the best lead magnets that you can ever offer, which is the ability to learn something awesome!
So ask yourself this one question; what’s something that your end users would literally BEND OVER BACKWARDS to learn more about?
If you can answer yourself that one question, then I can promise that it’s going to be infinitely easier for you to create an amazing email marketing course that totally rocks.
This all starts with having a thorough idea of who your end users are, what problems they have, and how you can help them.
If you can accomplish that, then your content is going to almost always make sense in accordance with the expectations and mass desires of your audience, which is always a good thing, right?
Also remember that it’s never a bad idea to try to sell something. I know, I know, selling is almost an “evil” word these days (lol), however, I propose, that if you create powerful content, and if your content is truly designed to enrich the lives of your end users, then they will probably be more receptive to your business, to your ideas, your philosophies, and of course, to your recommendations.
Thank You So Much For Reading This Content, You Rock!
I hope that you had a ton of fun reading this content, because I had a ton of fun writing and publishing it for you.
As always, I invite you to contact me should you ever wish to brainstorm, send feedback, or if you just want to say hi!
Until that time, please remember that life is glorious, and try to be ever thankful for the amazing gifts that you have.
Cordially and humbly…
Mike “The Lead Generator” DeVincent
MrComputerScience.com