The phrase “Lead Generation” has almost become a swear word in many companies. That’s because generating quality leads that actually convert is one of the most difficult tasks of marketing and sales – And it’s only getting harder!

With overflowing markets, unpredictable search engine algorithms, and increasingly savvy customers, it may seem impossible to break away from the competition and generate quality leads in large numbers.

But, there is hope:

We’ve put together a list of five tried and true practices that are sure to increase your company’s supply of quality leads.

Whether you’re an up-and-coming marketer or a well-seasoned entrepreneur, these tips will help you increase sales and grow your business.

1.) Properly Qualify Your Leads

Since 2012, generating high-quality leads has consistently ranked the number one challenge marketers face. Despite producing great content, spending lots of money on a pretty website, and building up a large stockpile of leads, companies struggle to convert those leads to sales.

Where does this struggle stem from?

It ultimately comes down to one thing:

Poor lead qualification.

Qualifying leads is the process of screening your leads to find the ones that actually have the potential to convert. It involves gathering all the information you need to contact your lead and tailor your product properly to their needs, enhancing the odds of a successful conversion.

Without a good lead qualification process in place, nothing else you use from this article will matter.

There are three main steps to the qualification process:

1. Research
2. Outreach
3. Filter

Research

Research everything you need to know about your target market. This will aid you in accurately identifying your ideal customer and creating 1-3 buyer personas.

Here are some key data points you may want to research in your market:

• Age
• Race
• Sex
• Geolocation
• Income
• Interests/Hobbies
• Needs
• Buying behavior

There are many research tools out there that will automatically collect this data and serve it to you on a silver platter.

Once you’ve identified your ideal customer, you should set up a scoring system for rating your leads’ potential. In other words, how well do they match the buyer persona(s) you created?

A good scoring system will weed out the leads that simply aren’t worth your time. It will also inform you of when to reach out to the lead, and what approach to take.

Outreach

Some information you just can’t gather through surveys and data analytics.

You need a salesperson to connect directly with your leads.

We suggest using the acronym “BANT” to help you more accurately gauge your lead’s temperature.

Budget - Is your lead’s budget conducive to your prices?

Authority - Is your lead the right person to be talking to? Are they the decision-maker?

Need - Is your product/service a good fit for the lead’s needs?

Timeline - How urgent is their need for your product/service?

Filter

Once you’ve created an ideal buyer persona and a lead scoring system, and you’ve gathered all the information you need about your leads, you will be able to properly and efficiently screen your leads.

2.) Use Landing Pages with Form Submissions

84% of marketers use form submissions to generate leads.

Form submissions kill two birds with one stone:

They generate leads, and they collect specific information about those leads that will greatly aid you in lead qualification.

“But where will prospective customers find and fill out this submission form?”

On a landing page.

A landing page is like a movie trailer. It’s a brief but powerful introduction to your product/service that will get visitors to want to know more. And you can craft a few different versions of your landing page with content that speaks to different categories of your market (think of your buyer personas).

It’s the perfect place to put a sign-up form for prospective customers to fill out a short survey and give you their contact information. This won’t only generate warm leads for you, but it will give you the information you need to complete the qualification process and convert leads to sales.

Here are some quick pointers for creating landing pages with high conversion rates:

• Use landing page builders, which will automatically track which of your landing pages are performing the best.
• Offer a worthwhile value proposition. Why should your visitor fill out your form? What will you give them in return? A free session? A discount code? A raffle ticket?
• Keep it simple - When in doubt, err on the side of brevity. Nobody wants to read long paragraphs. Get straight to the point and use some sizzle.
• Include an introduction video. Many people prefer watching videos over reading.
• Include social proof - customer reviews, testimonials, etc.

3.) Lead Generation Companies Still Work

Depending on your industry, it may be worth it to simply buy large sets of data from lead gen companies. It’s the easiest way to gain a lot of leads FAST.

Then, you can run this large set of leads through your newly developed qualification process.

And with the advancement of modern technology, many lead gen companies are now able to give you up-to-date data with more useful information attached to them, such as location, career, and age.

The downside is, lead gen companies can be pricey.

But here at ListShack, we’ll give you 50,000 leads a month for just $50/mo!

4.) Improve Your SEO Strategy

The higher your listing ranks on a search engine results page (SERP), the more traffic your site will receive, thus driving a higher quantity of inbound leads.

“But how do I get my listing to rank higher??

There are several methods to boost your website’s SEO so that it appears higher on SERPs.

To enhance your organic SEO ranking, you should make sure to include quality content on your website, and use the highest-ranking keywords in your industry throughout the site. One of the best ways to improve your SEO is to have a lot of backlinks from authoritative websites.

But be warned:

Search engine algorithms are constantly changing and becoming increasingly sophisticated every second. Simply stuffing your website or landing page with keywords won’t necessarily improve your ranking on SERPs. If your website is too spammy, search engines will actually rank it lower!

Here are some free SEO tools you should consider using to improve your SEO game.

Additionally, you could invest in PPC advertising to further increase your odds of ranking higher on SERPs. We suggest starting with Google Ads.

5.) Affiliate Marketing is Gold

Affiliate marketing is a referral system in which a company pays an individual money for every referral of theirs that sells.

This extremely popular lead generation method incentivizes individuals to do marketing for you.

This means that even the leads that don’t end up converting can provide you with sales!

For example:

If John connects with one of your salespeople, but decides your company isn’t a good fit for him, your salesperson can offer John a cash reward for referring people to your company that do end up buying your product/service.

It’s a win-win! John makes some money, and you just got 2-3 new clients out of 1 old lead!

You should also add a page to your website dedicated solely to pitching your affiliate program. People who visit your website may not become a customer, but they might very well be interested in becoming an affiliate and earning some money.

Of course, former and current customers make the best affiliates, since they can speak from experience.

We suggest using professional affiliate management software such as LeadDyno or Rewardful to run your affiliate program.

To Wrap Up…

1. Qualification enhances quality.
2. A Landing page convinces visitors to sign up.
3. Lead gen companies provide bulk.
4. SEO strategy increases traffic.
5. Affiliate marketing saves time.

Quality lead generation takes time, effort and strategy. There’s no getting around it.

But if you use these 5 simple strategies, lead generation will become much easier and more efficient.

For tips on how to generate leads using telemarketing, click here. For generating leads using direct mail, read our article here.