Many technologies and software in the online arena are bringing in billions of U.S. dollars per year to the companies and resellers that market them online.
Online service providers and heads of companies are always looking for fast and simple ways to create leads and generate new customers. There are also many companies in competitive online technologies sectors that need a steady flow of investors in order to grow and begin new ventures.
Online marketing experts have found many ways to create leads that bring in new potential customers, buyers and / or investors for these booming online businesses.
The fact is that each and every online business is thirsty for leads and in highly competitive niches generating a steady flow of new incoming leads is a must. Here are some tips on how to generate leads for businesses in highly competitive online niches.
Related Article: Fill That Funnel: 4 Tips for Capturing More (and Better) Leads
1. Search Engine Optimization for Lead Generation
Proper Search Engine Optimization To Get Leads. Lead generation is crucially important for any business in the world. While businesses get great revenues from their existing customers, they also need new customers in order to sustain and expand. The purpose of search engine optimization is to bring your website in the top results of search engines most importantly Google.
Being among the top results is a great way to boost your lead generation. The higher you are in search engine results, the more visitors will come on your website. The top results for any keywords are also considered the most reliable results by internet users. They will sometimes go from the first page to the second, and second to third.
Going beyond the third page is something that takes place very rarely. A professional search engine optimization company works on the content of your business to give your search engine ranking a boost. They research the most relevant keywords to your business and then filter out the ones that are most potential for you. They write informative content on your website and spread your content across the web. These links redirect people from various online websites to your website. This makes you more searchable on the internet.
There are many ways for you to collect email addresses and contact details of your customers once they are on your website. However, a more important thing is to consider any information of your visitors as lead. You get information about the devices, operating systems, browsers and platforms that they are using to get on your website.
2. Using PPC Networks for Lead Generation
Boost leads and increase sales with PPC networks. There are dozens of different marketing methods for businesses with an online presence to reach out to their audiences. PPC (pay per click) is one of the most used and lucrative methods of marketing on the internet. With PPC model your website link appears on search results and other websites.
It is expected that people visiting search engines and those websites will click on your link. The website or search engine hosting your link will be paid some commission for every click on your link. This type of marketing is called "pay per click marketing" and it is among the few paid marketing methods on the internet. However, some work needs to be done on keywords in order to take advantage of this marketing method.
Your website link appears on the search engine for certain keywords. Showing irrelevant links can go against you and so such practices are avoided by any reliable marketing companies and networks. Even when your website’s link appears on some other website, it has to be relevant to the content that some user has searched for on the Internet.
The websites where your link is hosted are part of the network of PPC marketing service provider. This is a paid method and so new businesses have to do their assessments before using this method for their marketing. However, this is a great method since it gets potential traffic on your website, giving a boost to your lead generation and eventually their conversion.
3. Using Social Media for Lead Generation
Can Social Media Really Work To Generate Leads? There is always a lot of talk about how social media can be and is a great marketing platform for businesses all over the world. However, very few resources have ever touched upon the point that social media can be a great tool for lead generation as well.
There are many different methods that can help you generate leads on social media. First, you can look at the social networks that have programs for businesses to target their audiences with relevant ads. "Facebook" has a program that you can become a part of and make sure to show ads to your customers that are relevant to their searches. Similarly, you have lead generation cards option on Twitter that you can make use of.
You can always create polls and surveys on social media to collect contact information of your potential leads. However, you will have to work hard to know the matters, affairs and things that are attractive and appealing to your audience. They will not fill out forms and answer questionnaires if they are not relevant to things they take interest in. A blog is the most important tool in collecting contact details of potential customers.
On your blog, you can incorporate many different ways for people to provide their contact details. People visit blogs because they like to interact on the web. Interact with them, respond to them on time, solve problems of your customers etc. to generate leads through your blog.
4. Using Videos and "YouTube" for Lead Generation
Videos and YouTube can increase your leads too. Video marketing has become quite a thing in the recent past. There was a time when webmasters were asked to avoid videos on the websites. It is because the internet connections were not as stable at that time. Furthermore, people were more into text content just a few years ago. After some time, people started loving images more and then the focus moved on to videos.
Today, there are many websites with short loops of videos running in the background rather than a boring white page, for a great example take a look at the "Omega Options" website. However, generating leads with videos requires more efforts. First, you will have to come up with an interesting idea that will keep your viewers watching the video till the end. The most important thing with marketing videos is to keep them as short as possible. You could post videos on YouTube to get contact details of your customers too.
The main element that will generate leads here is the giveaway. You have to promise a giveaway for the watchers of the video in order for them to provide you with their emails and other contact details. Make sure you promise a giveaway that’s appealing to them. You could also run campaigns on social networking websites through videos. Keep in mind that companies are using video content these days that affects their audiences emotionally. By making their favorite musicians, sports players and celebrities in videos, you can run some successful campaigns, get your audience interested and increase your leads as a result.
Related Article: Bring On the Customers: 4 Cheap Ways To Get New Leads for Your Small Business
5. Using Funnels and Landing Pages for Lead Generation
Use funnels and landing pages to convert visitors into customers. Companies that are serious about their business go systematically. They do their marketing professionally and make sure to convert some visitor on the website into a customer with a systematic approach. If you want to convert your website visitors into customers, you will need to familiarize yourself with the idea of sales funnel. Using a sales funnel you start with an awareness phase and going through interest, evaluation and decision phase, the lead is converted into a customer. This same customer is then converted into a repeating customer too.
Now, the companies have to find ways to make people aware of their brand, products and services. Next, they have to make a contact and interact with these to be potential leads. Interaction with the person is the most important part here since this is where the company finds out if the customer is interested in their brand, product or service at all. Now, when it comes to online marketing, a customer could get to know about a company through some banner ad, PPC ad, social networking campaign etc.
The most important thing here for the company is to design an impressive landing page. This landing page has to be designed professionally so the visitor feels interested in the content. Using videos, images, and call-to-action, the company has to make the customer return on the website. Next step is to do some interaction with customers. All of this can be done using software that are designed with sales funnel idea as the base.
6. Using Email Marketing for Lead Generation
Generating leads with proper email marketing. If you are emailing your customers, it means you already have their contact details and they are already on your list of “hot leads”. However, you can increase your leads even more through email marketing, and increase the chances of converting your leads into customers. For this, you will have to understand many aspects of email marketing.
When you send an email to your customer, you want to include something in the email that would make them discuss the email with other people. This is why you would want to include some incentive in your email right in the beginning. Furthermore, you have to make sure to highlight your call to action in such a way that it is easily visible to every email reader.
Don’t make your emails very wide because this will compel your customers to scroll horizontally something that no one likes to do. The company logo should be on top and the content should be filled with words that get the attention of your customers. Auto-responders should be used so any response to your emails can be responded back.
The content of your email and the landing page it directs to should be closely relevant. Don’t experiment too much with the fonts and scripts. You could even run campaigns where you include the name of your recipients in giveaways only for forwarding your emails to their relatives and friends. While sending your email, keep in mind that your recipients receive hundreds of similar emails on a daily basis. Is there something in your subject line that would make them open yours?
A Few Important Tips
Exceptional Customer Service and User Experience Is a Must
Once a targeted internet user has arrived on your website or portal or online platform they may want to read more information or even speak to a representative via online chat before they become an official customer. They also may find it hard to use your website if they are novices or beginners without much knowledge in your niche.
It is crucial to give users exceptional customer support, quality user experience and easy access to a simple but highly informational frequently asked questions section on your website or platform in order to generate and convert more leads.
Giving Out Freebies for Lead Generation and for Making New Customers
The freebies method has done wonders for many years and offering you clients a free download of your software or a one month free subscription to your platform or online technology is a great way to get more people to sign up.
The perfect example for this little gem in online marketing is how a binary options broker or affiliate marketer will offer traders a free automated trading robot or free trading signals if they sign up and deposit money into a trading account.
Another great example of this method is how LinkedIn has offered a one month free "Premium" account to all members, which includes all of the premium LinkedIn features and a free one month subscription on lynda.com (for learning new online skills).
Why Online Reputation and Branding Is a Must
One very important thing that many online businesses forget to address and plan out is online reputation. In many cases an online business will only start an online reputation management campaign after they have found complaints and negative reviews online. This is why I always advise to start a positive online reputation and branding campaign from the get go. Even if you are generating lots of fresh new high-quality leads, they will not convert well if your online reputation is very negative.
As soon as a new online business is launched the branding and reputation management can begin, using blogging platforms and reaching out to writers and online portals in your niche can do a lot branding wise. Make sure that you are out there and that when your next potential customer searches your company or brand-name online, they will only see positive search results on Google or any other search engine.
You Have to Be Able to Stand Out From the Rest
Being able to stand out from the rest is a must. In the online technology sector, many competing companies are marketing their products and searching investors, in order to succeed in this sector or any other arena your service or product has to stand out.
A good example is "TechFinancials" that is one of the only technology providers in the online trading platform provider niche that is currently providing regulatory solutions fo brokers that use their platforms and whose platform is the first to use the "Close" and "Extend" tools that are required by regulatory bodies.
If your service, technology or software can stand out from the rest in a similar way, you will be able to beat the competition and will have a much easier time in generating leads and converting them into new customers.
Related Article: Back to Basics: Every Way You Should Be Nurturing Your Leads
Conclusion
Use the list of mentioned techniques ,plans and tips for lead generation and your business will start to generate lots of new fresh leads on a regular basis, don't forget to also make an online reputation and online branding plan from the start in order to get more conversions from your high-quality leads.