According to a Hubspot study, generating traffic and leads is the hardest challenge marketers faced in 2017. So don’t worry, you are not alone.
As marketers, our top priorities are:
- Generating leads
- Creating demand for our products
It’s quite literally our responsibility to find the content that appeals most to our audience and use it to drive traffic and create demand (even when there isn’t a market for it).
So if you find yourself in a position of doing marketing when you haven’t before, don’t fret. I’ve done the research, tested the ideas and gathered some of the highest performing lead generation methods available. Check out this compilation below:
Content (e.g. video/blog/podcast)
You first want to create valuable content filled with relevant keywords. And if you find this content is generating a lot of traffic, or is very high quality / high performing, then put that content behind a form by creating a landing page with lead gen forms to gate your content. If the material is that valuable, your audience will complete the form to access it.
Include CTAs Everywhere
Make sure your Call-To-Action is clearly defined everywhere. The goal is to direct the reader through next steps and ultimately guide them to a conversion. By including CTAs everywhere, you leave guessing out of the equation. If they want content, put it behind a form. If they’ve read a blog post of yours, end it with a Subscription box. You can even put CTAs in your email signatures and social media. Just make sure they are optimized by using simple, actionable language like ‘Download Now’, ‘Subscribe Here’ or ‘Learn More’.
Email Marketing
Probably one of the oldest but still one of the most effective forms of online marketing and lead generation. Email marketing allows you to connect with your audience by marketing in a way other marketing cannot. Once you’ve built your subscriber list, you can begin to interact with them on a very personal level through your own words, friendly copy and personalized messaging. For more information on this, read Five Tips to Designing an Email Marketing Campaign.
SEO (Website Optimization – Lead Gen Forms)
Make sure you are using industry and business specific keywords on your headers, page titles, URLs and H1 tags. Keywords are a vital part of making your site searchable so make sure to include them everywhere including meta descriptions and throughout content on your site. But be careful not to over-use too many keywords because Google is smart and will pick up when it’s overloading and mark your site as spam. For more tips on this, read SEO 101: Search Engine Optimization and Applications.
Invest in PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Essentially, it’s buying visits to your site instead of earning visits organically. Although it can be costly, it can also be the most effective in that it targets your exact audience based on their keyword search. When PPC is working correctly, the cost is trivial, because the visit can be worth more than what you pay for it. If you want people to convert, be sure that your landing page and offer match exactly what is promised, and the CTA is clearly defined.
Use Social Media (LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook)
There are a few ways you can utilize your social media accounts. Start by joining related industry groups or communities. Be active in these groups by constantly ‘liking’ a post, sharing content, ‘retweeting’ or ‘re-sharing’ others content. This will help establish a presence, build your brand awareness and build relationships in the industry as well as, drive traffic back to your site. You can also share your own content to accomplish this goal. But if your content has yet to prove its worth, I’d incorporate leading industry influencers into your social strategy.
Add Social Sharing to your websites
Relating back to the Social Media section, this will help increase traffic flow to your site. By including social shares on all of your content, you’re enabling readers to share valuable information with their community. In turn, your company can begin to develop a reputation as an industry leader and eventually become a resource for key information.
In Conclusion
Generating leads and traffic does not have to be stressful and exhausting but it is not easy. Take the time to develop a clear plan by defining your goals, set your strategy, monitor progress and analyzing results. You need to be flexible to change up where necessary and remove or adjust points of weakness.
We’re constantly tested to find new ways to generate leads but that not always necessary. Sometimes you just have to reevaluate your current process and resources. If you have new ideas, definitely test them. I encourage you to constantly try and test new ideas. It’s the only way any of us learn. Plus, you won’t know what works best for your business until you’ve tried it.
For more information on this or any other topics, check out www.dotlayer.com.
