Lead Generation Techniques: 6 Ways To Get More Customers Online
There are six ways a business can generate leads and get more customers online. Many businesses focus on only one or two of these techniques but the best businesses use all of them in some capacity.
In this guide, I’ll explain each technique, the types of businesses that should use them, and how to incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
Sections
Which one are you most interested in learning about?
1. Owned Media (Your Website Your Email List)
Your website and contact list are called owned media because no one can take it away. They are something that you control completely. Therefore, they are also your biggest asset.
Social media platforms come and go. Online directories go in and out of style, but your website should always be a part of your digital marketing plan.
Who Should Use This:
It doesn’t matter if you are an international online business, or a brick-and-mortar local business, you need a website and a contact list. Your website helps people learn more about your business and your product or service. It also shows people how to buy or work with you.
Your contact list helps you stay in touch with people via email marketing or SMS if they are not ready to buy from you yet. Regular emails to your list help you stay top of mind when they do need your help later on.
You can build your contact list by offering a lead magnet on your website for free. This is something you give that helps your customer in exchange for their contact information.
This could be a guide, quiz, pdf, video course, etc.
All that really matters is that your lead magnet solves and real problem related to your product or service.
How To Use It:
When people type in words related to your product or service into search engines like Google you want your website to show up. This is the basics of using search engine optimization or SEO to get qualified leads.
To start:
1. Set up your core pages, like your homepage, product/service page, about page, and contact page.
2. Create a lead magnet and offer it on your website.
3. Create keyword-optimized blog or service pages help you to show up in search results.
5. Make sure you follow design best practices.
6. Be consistent.
This process is often called inbound marketing or content marketing because you are creating content that attracts potential leads to your website.
2. Earned Media (Social Media Platforms)
Earned media is when you create a profile and post content on other platforms that you do not own. This includes all the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Linkedin, and Pinterest.
Based on your profile and content you can earn subscribers and followers. The benefit of this kind of marketing is that it allows your brand to get seen by people for free, the disadvantage of this is that people are usually not trying to learn about a business while scrolling to pass the time.
Who Should Use This:
National and international online brands will get the most benefit from social media marketing because anyone can use their services and therefore every viewer is more likely to be a potential customer.
Video platforms like Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and Tiktok allow you to reach a large audience even if you have no following as long as your content is engaging.
Local businesses can still benefit from having a Facebook page, but will not see as big a boost from social media as the other lead generation strategies in this article.
How To Use It:
Here are the ten steps needed to get started with an earned media strategy:
Research which social media platforms your ideal customers are on by looking at your competitors or searching related content and/or hashtags.
Look at the types of content that get the most views and shares, and record the patterns and themes you notice.
Identify the topics of your content or questions you want to answer on social media.
Determine if your posts will be text, graphics, videos, or some combination of all three.
Create content.
Create a profile.
Create a schedule of when you will post content.
Research the hashtags you will use for each piece of content.
Post or schedule content.
Review the performance of content to determine what is working and what can be improved.
3. Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is a great part of many businesses’ lead-generation process. There are two main types of paid advertising.
Search Based Advertising
Here you know what the person is interested in but not much about who they are. This is one of the best types of advertising because you know that the person is interested in your stuff and has some form of buyer intent.
Most search-based marketing comes in three forms
1. Pay Per Click advertising or PPC: This is when someone types in a key phrase and your ad shows at the top of search results. This is one of the best types of advertising because you know that the person is interested in your stuff, and you only pay if they click your ad.
2. Display: If someone has visited your website or has shown interest in a topic then they will see a banner ad for your product or service.
3. YouTube Video Marketing: YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google, and it’s owned by Google. If someone clicks on a video related to your product or service your video ad can play before the video they clicked on.
Social Media Advertising
Here you know more about who someone is, but less about what they are interested in. This is where your ad shows up in the middle of someone’s social feed. This is interruption-based marketing.
The advantage of this is that you can create a very detailed profile of who your ideal customer is, the disadvantage of this is that they may not be interested in your product or service at all and you pay based upon views not based on clicks.
Who Is This For:
Businesses that have a budget to devote to advertising and have an idea of how much it costs to get a customer will get the most from paid advertising. Generally, if you have more money than time, then paid advertising is the way to go.
How To Use It:
Determine if you will be using search-based advertising, social media advertising, or a combination of the two.
Determine if you will be setting up the ads yourself, or hiring a consultant, in-house marketer, or agency.
Setting up the ads yourself gives you tons of control and saves you money in the long run but takes more time to optimize and could waste money in the short term.
Consultants, in-house marketers, and agencies can get you results early on but they are more expensive and overall results vary between who is providing the service.
Create your landing pages. When someone clicks your ad this is where they are redirected to. You want to make sure that it has all the information someone needs to take the next step in working with you.
Set up your ad campaigns and go live.
Measure results weekly and monthly to determine what is working and what can be improved.
4. Referrals
Referrals are one of the most important sources of leads for any business. After all, a happy customer is more likely to refer your business to their friends and family than an unhappy customer.
There are a number of ways to generate referrals from your existing customers. One of the most effective techniques is to offer them an incentive for referring others, such as a discount or a free product.
You can also ask them to refer their friends directly to your website by providing them with a special referral code or by using affiliate links.
It's also important to make it easy for customers to refer your business to others. Include prominent referral buttons or links on your website, and make sure your contact information is easily accessible.
Who is this for:
Almost any business can use referrals to get more quality leads regardless of being local or online.
How To Use It:
Determine what incentive or discount you will offer current customers for referring business.
Choose how you will track the referral such as a discount code at checkout or an affiliate link that someone can share.
Automate the process. Add a call to action or CTA button on certain pages of your website or create a follow-up email workflow to inform past or current customers on how they help themselves and others by referring businesses.
5. Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is an outreach method that uses cold email, cold calling, or cold messaging as a lead-generation tool to find high-quality leads. This type of lead gen is great if you have skilled salespeople up for the task.
The best sales teams don’t reach out to everyone, they have a process of qualifying people within their target audience before they ever make a sales pitch.
Platforms like Linkedin have become a great place for businesses to find sales leads because you can qualify them by location, job title, and more.
Who Is This For:
Outbound marketing is for any business that has a higher ticket clientele that is not actively looking for your product or service.
For example, corporate recruiters often resort to outbound marketing because these people are not actively seeking new employment. They need to be persuaded.
How To Use It:
Identify where your target audience hangs out.
Make sure you have a clear idea of the pain points they may be experiencing and the benefit your business brings.
Start a conversation of genuine interest. Do not come straight out with a sales pitch. For example, a recruiter might ask, “I see you have been in the addiction treatment industry for the last five years, how did you get started doing this kind of work?”
Then a follow-up question could be “I know all treatment centers are very different, do you love where you are working now?”
Then make your pitch. You might think this is different for things like email or phone calls but it’s not.
If you would like to learn more about outbound marketing, check out my Linkedin outreach process.
6. Strategic Partnerships and Affiliates
With a strategic partnership, you team up with another company that has a similar customer base. This company will promote your products to their customers, and you'll do the same for them.
For example, yoga studios often partner with cycling studios because even though they both offer a form of fitness, they are different and complementary. Many people end up using both and everybody wins.
If a business is not your direct competitor, it could be a strategic partnership.
An affiliate program is a way to get people to promote your products for you. You pay them a commission for every sale they make, and sometimes you can give them special discounts or rewards for bringing in new customers.
Who Is This For:
Almost every business has the opportunity to build strategic partnerships. Think about who in your industry offers things that would be complimentary to what you offer. What is the jelly to your peanut butter?
You might think that other businesses will not want to partner with you, but you will be surprised how much people are willing to help out if you make the first move.
Affiliate programs work best for physical and digital products because they are easier to track. Software subscriptions, books, really anything that has a digital check-out page could be an affiliate link.
How To Use It:
Write down a list of local or complimentary partners that you could reach out to.
Determine how you will be able to share business with them. You can’t just say “if anyone is interested I’ll tell them about you.”
You could:
Set up a sign in their store.
Offer a free intro, class, or consultation to their members.
Give a discount or bonus to their members.
Be willing to repay the favor. Partnerships are a two-sided street. But, if you operate with an abundance mindset you will see that there is plenty to go around.
For affiliate links the process is simple:
Identify the page on your website you want to send people to.
Determine the benefit you want to give to people who share your link.
Create an affiliate link using a platform like Easy Affiliate.
Share the link with people and explain how it will benefit them.
Bonus Lead Generation Tactics
Check out these additional resources to up your lead generation game:
Sales Funnels 101
A sales funnel is a visual representation of the steps someone takes from being aware of your product to becoming a customer. It starts with gaining awareness and ends with making a purchase.
The funnel helps you track how many people are going through each step and where they are getting stuck. This information can help you tweak your marketing strategy to better appeal to your target audience.
1. The awareness stage is the beginning of the sales funnel, where potential customers first become aware of your product.
This can be done through advertising, word-of-mouth, or a variety of other methods. The goal is to get as many people into the funnel as possible so that you can convert them into customers.
Here, you want to collect their email or phone number so that you can stay in touch with them even if they aren’t ready to buy right away. To do this you need to offer a lead magnet, which is something free you give the lead that helps them solve a problem, in exchange for their contact information.
2. In the middle of the funnel is the decision stage, where potential customers decide whether or not to buy your product. This is often the most difficult part of the process, as people can be reluctant to spend money on something they're not sure about.
You can increase your conversion rate by offering free trials or samples, or by providing lots of helpful information on your website.
3. In the retention stage, you're trying to keep those people in the funnel and convert them into customers. You can do this by providing great customer service and offering incentives for continued use.
Domain Authority and Backlinks
Domain authority is a number between 1 and 100 that increases depending on how many other websites link to your website.
If a website with a domain authority of 70 links back to you, this is a bigger boost than you would get from a website with a domain authority of 12.
It also helps if the website is connected to your industry.
It’s like becoming cool and popular because other cool and popular kids have said they like you.
This domain authority number is a little different depending on which SEO or search engine optimization tool you use. Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz all have similar domain authority checkers.
You can check yours for free using Moz’s domain analysis tool or by downloading their free Moz Bar Chrome Extension.
In order to rank on Search Engine Results Pages, or SERP, you need to build up your domain authority in order for Google to put your content on its first page.
Guest Posting To Increase Your Domain Authority
Guest blogging can be a great way to:
Get your name out there.
Establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Drive traffic back to your website.
But most of all, boost your domain authority.
Like all marketing strategies, it’s not quite as simple as slapping up a blog post and sitting back and waiting for the leads to roll in. There’s a process to guest blogging that you need to follow if you want to see results. Let me walk you through the process step by step.
So you want to start guest blogging? Great! The first step is to find relevant blogs to submit your content to. To do this, you’ll need to do some research.
Start by taking a look at your industry. What are the major players in your space? Who are the top blogs and publications? Take a look at their website, and see if they accept guest submissions.
If they do, compile a list of their submission guidelines and make sure your content meets their requirements.
If you don’t have any luck finding relevant blogs on your own, there are plenty of lead-generation tools out there that can help you find them. One of our favorites is JustReachOut.
JustReachOut allows you to search for blogs and journalists based on keywords and topics, making it easy to find relevant contacts.
Once you’ve compiled a list of potential targets, it’s time to start pitching your content. This can be a daunting task, but there are a few things you can do to make it easier:
First, make sure your pitch is personalized and tailored to the blog you’re submitting to. Generic pitches are much less likely to be accepted than pitches that are specifically tailored to the recipient’s interests.
Second, make sure your content is high quality. This doesn’t mean it has to be long or complex, but it does need to be well-written and well-researched.
Third, make sure your pitch is concise and easy to read. Keep it short and sweet - no one wants to read a long essay on why they should publish your content.
Finally, follow up! If you don’t hear back after sending your pitch, follow up a few days later to see if they had a chance to check it out. Don’t be pushy or aggressive, but let them know that you’re interested in hearing their thoughts.
Lead Generation Campaign Tools
Lead generation tools are essential for any business looking to increase its customer base. There are a variety of tools available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The most important thing is to find the tool that best fits your business needs.
Website Builders:
Squarespace: Service-based businesses or small businesses can use Squarespace and get great results. That’s what I use for my website.
Webflow: Another great website builder that has more customization is Webflow. It has a steeper learning curve but is another great all-in-one platform.
WordPress: This is what most large businesses use to create more complex websites. Additionally, they use website builders like Elementor or Drupal.
Kajabi: If you are a course creator and you need an all-in-one platform then Kajabi is the way to go. It is more expensive but has everything you need to create a solid website, host your content, and email prospects.
All of these platforms have templates and apps that make it easy to build a website and get new leads for your marketing campaigns.
Client Relationship Manager or CRM
There are a thousand different CRMs you can use to keep track of the clients in your pipeline. I recommend only choosing something that fits your current needs.
CRMs like Hubspot and Salesforce offer a ton of bells and whistles but they also are more complicated than what most businesses need.
High Level and Pipedrive are more simple options that will provide the fundamentals.
An additional software that I like is leadrebel.io which helps with B2B lead generation.
Email providers
Mailchimp is my go-to. You can import your list and get started for free. You only have to pay more when your contact list increases.
The reason most people use an email provider is that it allows marketing automation when it comes to retargeting paying customers or incoming leads and mass emailing their contact list.
Content Creation Tools
Descript: To add subtitles and do quick editing. This is also a really easy tool to onboard someone onto even if they have zero video editing experience.
Tubebuddy: To find my YouTube video topics
Clearscope: To write blog posts, white papers, and case studies.
Canva: To create graphics for infographics.
Vyond: To create video animations and gifs.
Screenflow: For highlighting screenshots and screen shares.
Riverside: For podcast and webinar hosting.
The Linkedin Outreach Process
Before you start posting thought leadership content it’s important that you spend time building your outreach list. These could be people you want to collaborate with, potential influencers, or even just prospective customers.
How To Use The Search Bar to Find Your Connections On LinkedIn
Type in a word related to your product or service that helps you identify with your ideal clients.
For example, if I am trying to reach out to behavioral health professionals in my community, like therapists the first thing I am going to type into the search bar is therapists.
Now you’ll see that there are a whole lot of other qualifiers that LinkedIn gives you such as posts, groups, and events, and each of these could be super valuable on their own, but for now, let’s focus on people.
From here there are two other qualifiers that might be helpful and these are connections and location.
For locations, maybe I want to find therapists in Denver. I’ll type in Denver. Now my list is narrowed down.
Next is connections, 1st-degree connections are people that I am already connected to, but second-degree connections are people we know in common. This can be a great trust-building bridge.
So, I’ll click 2nd-degree connections.
The next thing I want to do is make sure they are actually active on LinkedIn. If they don’t have a profile, or if they haven’t posted in a while I don’t want to waste my time.
I can click into their profile, and check out their activity, and as long as they are active they might be a good person to reach out to.
Now I have a list of people in the profession I am looking for, in the location I am in, who I also share some connections with, and who are also active on the platform.
This focuses my efforts even more.
If I am not geographically bound and I want to connect with other people of interest, I can type in a hashtag, like #mentalhealth into the search bar and see who on LinkedIn is posting on that topic.
If my company only works with companies that have blogs I can type in #blog and see people who are posting from their blogs on LinkedIn.
It can also be helpful to join groups around your ideal connections or create or attend events where your people might also be. You can find those filters when you type something into the search bar too.
Think about intersections.
Intersections are what allow you to focus on who you are talking to when you are networking or creating content and it is THE thing that allows you to get results.
Here is what I mean, If I told you to meet me on South Walnut Street in Bloomington, though you may have an idea of where that is, a street covers a lot of distance.
Chances are you may never find me.
But the second I tell you to meet me at South Walnut and 2nd street, you can very easily find me.
Its latitude and longitude. You need two different intersections to have direction, to know where something is. Applying filters, actually helps you FIND where your people are, which in marketing, is everything.
It doesn’t matter if you know who your product is for if you don’t know where they are at.
The more intersections you have the more focused your efforts will be.
If your audience is therapists that's a lot of folks.
Therapists in Rockville, Maryland.
That’s closer.
Adolescent therapists in Rockville Maryland who have posted on LinkedIn in the last 30 days.
Bingo.
Brands, platforms, and followings are built one person at a time, but you can only find that person if you know exactly who you have in mind.
Once you have a list of really specific people, before you ask for a connection, you need to build up some goodwill. And for this, you need to leave comments. You should comment on someone’s posts at least twice before you ask for a connection.
How to Use Sales Navigator To Create Connection Lists on LinkedIn
If you would like to streamline and organize their list-building process more then LinkedIn sales navigator can be a great tool.
It’s a paid feature of LinkedIn but it allows you to create even more filters, to create lists, and it pulls people’s profile information onto the dashboard itself.
One of the most helpful features is that you can set a filter to only display people who have posted on LinkedIn in the last 30 days so that you know they are somewhat active.
You can also search by companies, employee count, recent job changes, and more.
You can also create alerts from your lists so that you are notified when people post so that you are ready to comment.
A helpful process is to create:
List of prospects
Commented once list
Commented twice list
Send connection request list
This way, after you comment on their stuff you can place them in the commented once list, then commented twice list, and then into the ready send connection list.
How To Ask For Connections On LinkedIn That Get Accepted
Before you start posting content on LinkedIn there is one more important step. To make connections.
For example:
“Hey [First Name], I saw that we share some connections, and I have really enjoyed your content about [X] and thought it would be awesome to connect.”
With this approach, narrowing your connection list down to specific people, engaging with their content, and then giving them a reason to connect, you will dramatically increase the likelihood that they will say yes.
You can send up to 100 connection requests a week, which means that go-getters could send up to 20 a day Monday through Friday.
And, when someone accepts a request, that frees up that spot. So within a couple of months of hustle, you can build up your connections by the thousands.
Essentially, the people who do the best on social media, are actually social. Sure there are scheduling platforms that make it easier to post on multiple platforms or auto-message prospects, but what you can’t automate is the actual social side of things.
All the same rules apply on social media as they would for in-person networking events.
There, you walk up to a group of talking people and would first listen to the conversation (Building a list and viewing activity).
Next, you might make a meaningful response to what they are saying (Commenting).
Then, you would introduce yourself (Sending a connection request).
Afterward, you might say what you think about the topic and ask questions or ask other people’s perspectives on an issue (Posting content)
Finally, if it seems like a good fit, ask someone if they would like to talk further (Initiating a meeting or sale).
Sending someone is connection request out of the blue and asking them to buy your stuff is not something you would ever do at a party, so don’t do it on social media.
Conclusion
Whether you are a solo b2b marketer or you a part of a huge marketing team, every business needs to use a variety of lead-generation techniques to get new customers. With a new understanding of these six techniques, you can grow your business for years to come.