Let’s face it — no matter what kind of industry you’re in, success always comes down to finding and connecting with the right people. All roads in business lead to new leads, right?
Whether you’re sending emails, hopping on calls, or sharing posts, the end goal is the same: generating high-quality leads that can grow your business.
If you’re not focused on the lead generation process, you might have gotten lost along the way. But with the right tips and tricks for personalized, timely strategies, you can always get back on track.
GetResponse’s automated lead generation tools can help you do just that.
In this guided road map for how to generate leads, we’ll explore 10 strategies and tools to help identify, qualify, and convert potential customers.
Let’s get started!
Main takeaways from this article:
- Discovering how to generate leads starts with understanding the sales process and knowing how to tell different types of leads apart.
- Promising prospects can take the shape of a warm lead that’s either a sales qualified lead, marketing qualified lead, or product qualified lead.
- The best way to find and connect with new leads is by combining multiple proven techniques into one multichannel lead generation strategy.
- There are several ways to generate leads online, including email marketing campaigns, optimized landing pages, and social media marketing.
- Optimizing your lead generation strategy will involve understanding your buyers, creating valuable content, and using marketing automation.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation (lead gen) is the process of finding potential customers who might be interested in your product or service, but haven’t discovered your business or given you their contact details yet.
The lead generation process is vital for sustained business growth because it fills your sales funnel with fresh prospects, helping you transform them into paying customers.
By keeping your sales funnel full, there’s always a steady stream of new leads moving through each stage — from awareness to consideration — so you can nurture them to the purchase phase.
Types of leads
Before we explore how to generate leads, it’s important to know the difference between the key types — because not all leads are created equal!
Let’s start with the basics: cold leads and warm leads.
- Cold leads have no prior engagement with your business. They are likely unfamiliar with your brand, product, or service, and will need to be introduced to your business and convinced of its value to become a warm lead.
- Warm leads have shown some interest in your brand, product, or service, like engaging with your website or social media. They are familiar with your business but need more information to become a paying customer.
There are several types of warm leads: marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads, and product qualified leads.
As their name suggests, these are high-quality leads that have been vetted based on specific criteria, like demographic or behavioral characteristics.
Here’s a quick breakdown of these valuable lead types, and the lead generation tactics that help tell them apart.
Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
A marketing qualified lead is a step further along in the sales process. They’re a warm lead that has not only shown interest in your business but has also met the criteria set by your marketing team.
Marketing specialists assume these individuals will eventually become customers — and are qualified to receive more marketing — but are not ready for sales calls quite yet.
Factors that help identify MQLs include:
- Visited your website multiple times to browse relevant product or service pages.
- Downloaded content like ebooks, whitepapers, or tip sheets from your website.
- Requested more information via email but requested not to be contacted by sales.
Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
A sales qualified lead is even further down the sales funnel than an MQL. These individuals have been vetted by both your marketing and sales team, who have decided they’re ready for a direct sales push.
Factors that help identify SQLs include:
- Indicated they want to be contacted directly by a sales team member.
- Specified they are a decision-maker or key stakeholder in the buying process.
- Displayed they are ready to schedule a meeting to discuss your product or service.
Product qualified leads (PQLs)
Like an SQL, a product qualified lead is a warm lead that is a step further in the sales funnel. These individuals have shown interest in your business and engaged directly with your product or service.
Because they’ve already had hands-on experience with your business offerings, PQLs are primed to make a purchase.
Factors that help identify PQLs include:
- Signed up for a free trial or demo of your product or service.
- Actively used the product or engaged with its features during the trial period.
- Provided positive feedback or indicated they’re considering a subscription or purchase.
Top lead generation strategies to try
Ready to learn how to generate leads that turn into paying customers? Here are the top strategies to create impactful multichannel lead gen campaigns.
1. Utilize AI-powered email marketing
Personalized, segmented email campaigns are like having a friendly chat with potential customers — they help generate leads and nurture them over time.
By showing that you understand a prospect’s pain points or needs through personalized emails, you can keep them engaged until they convert.
The only question is, how do you understand what leads need to convert? The answer is simple — automation!
Automated email marketing, like GetResponse’s AI-powered email generation features, helps connect with high-quality leads 24/7 through personalized, behavior-based email campaigns.
AI helps comb through subscriber engagement and trend data to deliver the right message to the right leads at the right time.
As a simplified lead generation tool, 90% of consumers enjoy personalized content like AI-powered email marketing to capture their business.
2. Optimize landing pages
If email campaigns are like a friendly chat, then landing pages are your warm welcome. An effective landing page sets the tone for what’s to come, introducing the value of your product or service to generate leads.
As a key component of your online lead generation, your landing pages must quickly get your message across to capture a reader’s attention. They also must include lead capture forms, so you can begin nurturing interested readers.
GetResponse makes it easier than ever to optimize your landing page with our drag-and-drop creator and AI content generator. Experiment with templates, A/B test lead capture forms, and launch custom landing pages in just a few clicks.
3. Use signup forms and popups
Speaking of lead capture forms, strategically placed signup forms and popups are a trusted solution for how to generate leads directly.
Picture this: potential customers have been browsing your website and want to learn more about your brand. At that moment, a popup fills the screen asking them to sign up for your email list.
Just like that, you’re capturing leads.
It’s wise to play around with various signup forms across popular web pages, like your product or service pages, to learn which gets the most traffic. Try our free Popup Creator to create, edit, and capture leads from one tool.
4. Leverage website chatbots
Chatbots are another popular online lead generation tool to turn website visitors into potential customers.
Website chatbots are a content marketing tool to address prospects’ frequently asked questions in real-time.
Whether a visitor wants to learn more about your product, has a question about pricing, or needs information about shipping policies, a chatbot can quickly provide the necessary information for lead generation.
Chatbots can also help capture leads’ contact details to grow your email marketing list and nurture leads over time.
5. Website visitor identification
On the topic of site visitors, website visitor identification is the process of figuring out who’s checking out your site and what they’re interested in.
It works by tracking visitors’ behaviors — like which pages they view and how long they stay — so you can better understand your target audience and their needs.
You can implement website visitor identification by using tools like lead capture forms and chatbots or opting for tracking software that gathers data on your visitors.
Once you understand who’s visiting and what they’re looking for, you can tailor your lead generation campaigns and attract more qualified leads.
6. Social media marketing
When it comes to an online lead generation strategy, social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram remain the top marketing channels to drive traffic and engage with warm leads.
As a key form of content marketing, social media marketing requires creating engaging organic content that speaks to your audience’s pain points and interests.
Think along the lines of eye-catching infographics, video testimonials, and product-focused photography.
Beyond organic content, boost your lead generation campaigns with paid social media ads. Paid ads like Facebook lead gen ads help you reach a wider audience, capture key contact details, and direct leads back to your site.
Tools like the GetResponse Paid Ad Creator help target leads with ads that are optimized with content you know they’ll like. Plus, you can attract new leads with similar interests to your existing customers.
7. Paid ads & retargeting
We mentioned earlier that warm leads are familiar with your business, but need more information to convert.
Enter the role of paid ads and retargeting ads in lead generation marketing strategies:
- Paid ads on social media platforms like Facebook and search engines like Google help drive visitors to your website.
- Retargeting ads are paid ads that address visitors who leave your site without converting with new, more relevant copy.
Combined, paid and retargeting ads help generate leads and nurture high-quality leads until they convert.
8. Leverage search engine optimization (SEO)
There’s another way to leverage search engines for online lead generation efforts beyond paid and retargeting ads.
It’s search engine optimization (SEO)!
As a type of inbound lead generation, SEO uses optimized content marketing — like blog posts, service pages, and landing pages — to organically rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Higher placement is vital for traffic: while the first organic result on SERPs has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 39.8%, the ninth organic result has a CTR of just 1.9%.
If you want to generate leads with an informative blog post or detailed service page, you’ll need to optimize your website for SEO.
Watch this video to learn how to add SEO details to your website and generate new leads.
9. Networking & referrals
Despite the tips above, you don’t always have to generate leads online.
In fact, some of the highest quality leads for your business can come from networking at industry events and receiving referrals from existing customers. Word of mouth is still a powerful influence for warm and cold leads alike!
Referral programs have emerged as a promising way to generate business opportunities from satisfied customers.
Here are three simple tips to build a referral program:
- Make it easy to refer your business, like creating a shareable link or code.
- Offer referral rewards as incentives, like product discounts or freebies.
- Show appreciation for referrals, like sending personalized thank you emails.
10. Cold calling and emailing
While warm leads are often the focus of lead generation strategies, you can also use cold calling and email marketing to turn ice-cold leads into potential customers.
These traditional lead generation channels are types of outbound lead generation, which involve actively reaching out to your target audience — even if they haven’t interacted with you yet.
However, if you’re looking to boost your lead generation process with cold leads, you’ll need to add a personalized touch to encourage that interaction.
Customizable lead generation tools, like GetResponse Email Autoresponders, help to increase engagement with AI-powered email sequences optimized for your target audience.
Best practices for effective lead generation
Now that you’re familiar with how to generate leads, let’s explore the best practices for making the most out of your chosen lead generation strategies.
Understand your buyer personas
Before you can begin generating leads, you’ll need to define the target audience for your product or service.
Begin by crafting buyer personas, or semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on your potential leads’ needs, wants, behaviors, and motivations.
These details help inform better targeting, so you can fine-tune your content marketing and lead generation strategy to address a specific pain point or customer interest and attract more qualified leads.
Create valuable content
Content creation is a key pillar of your lead generation campaigns. Focus on high-quality content marketing initiatives that attract website visitors and engage qualified leads.
Depending on your industry and target audience, valuable content can take the shape of:
- Informative blog posts
- Educational how-to articles
- Video testimonials and demos
- Downloadable tip sheets
- Interactive webinars
Use marketing automation
Simplify your content marketing and lead generation strategies with marketing automation.
Marketing automation is the process of generating leads with AI, using data to deliver the right content to potential leads at the right time — and reducing manual tasks.
Marketing automation software like GetResponse helps build personalized workflows to engage more leads and accelerate the customer journey.
A/B testing
While marketing automation can help with generating traffic (and more leads), A/B testing will supercharge your marketing channels to new heights.
A/B testing in a lead generation campaign helps optimize your efforts, identifying what works for your buyer personas — and what doesn’t.
Try experimenting with A/B testing in different areas of your lead generation campaign, such as:
- Blog post headlines
- Email subject lines
- Calls-to-action (CTAs)
- Form placement
- Form fields
Test remarketing practices
Don’t forget to test remarketing practices in your lead generation strategies. Remember that before you can tap into MQLs or SQLs, you’ll need to get more leads warm first.
Remarketing is the ultimate tactic to re-engage warm leads who have interacted with your website or paid ads but did not convert.
Power up your lead generation strategy with GetResponse
It’s true that all roads in business lead to lead generation — but not all lead generation efforts are made equal.
It’s essential to power up your lead generation strategy with the right tools so you can be confident you’re targeting the right customers, spending your budget wisely, and planning campaigns effectively.
GetResponse, a powerful lead generation tool that includes a suite of features for automating, capturing, and nurturing leads, can help power up your lead generation strategy from start to finish.
From optimized landing pages to conveniently placed signup forms and engaging email marketing campaigns, GetResponse’s lead generation software does it all.
Try GetResponse’s tools for free and start generating leads today.