Lead Generation Strategies That Will Beat Your Competitors

Your lead generation strategies are the most important part of your entire sales and marketing capability. You need to ace it. There is no other way about it. But before we dive into how you can improve your lead generation, let’s first think about your audience?

Your audience is probably suffering from TMI? You know… too much information.

It’s a major problem these days. The information age has dumped a ton of content on us, and until recently, we’ve willingly signed up for it. But we are beginning to realize it’s impossible to consume it all, and it’s just too overwhelming to take on any more.

You’ve probably also noticed it’s getting harder with the same ld lead generation strategies like your free e-books, whitepapers, etc. People just don’t want a ton of content anymore, even if it’s free.

Plus, much of the content that can be downloaded in that manner is also now available for free on blogs. Giving away freebies was great when blogs were mere surface material, but now articles need to be in-depth and full of value to pass Google’s test. Plus, YouTube is running ramped with how-to videos that take the place of a lot of gated content.

This is why marketers today need lead generation tactics that go beyond gated content like e-books and whitepapers. The right strategies will improve their digital marketing capability and ROI.

1. 3 Lead Generation Strategies That Trump Gated Content

Here are 3 lead generation strategies that are working really well right now for both B2B and B2C businesses…

2. Assessments & Quizzes

Assessments and quizzes are one of the most interactive and fun ways for people to get themselves on your list. Yes, it’s true… this strategy makes people actually want to sign up to your list because they are anxious to get the answers you have promised.

According to Ion Interactive, interactive content leads to conversions that are moderate to very well 70% of the time, compared to 36% for passive content.

Want to do lead generation in an effective way? Use quizzes.

If done right, quizzes are fun and engaging. They create a connection between the brand and the quiz-taker, opening up future lines of discussion. People love quizzes because they are personalized, and marketers love that as well because they get to learn a lot more about their audience through personalized questions. Plus, quizzes get shared more than most other types of content.

Success Examples

Zenni Optical created a 9-question quiz that matched the user with a pair of glasses that lined up with their personal style, lifestyle, and budget. They called it “You’ve Been Framed.”

Not only was that campaign fun, but it generated over $1 million in revenue and 29,410 lead conversions with a 9,655% ROI in just 6 months!

Here’s a quiz by Outgrow that asks, “Is Your SEO Knowledge Good Enough?” It allows marketers to see how they stack up against the top SEO experts. They take the user through 13 questions that test their knowledge. Here are what some of the questions look like:

In the end, users are shown where they stand and then they are emailed the correct answers. Outgrow’s conversion rate was 51.51% on this quiz!

Best Practices for Quizzes & Assessments

• Keep it Relevant – Obviously, a quiz must be relevant to what you are offering.
• Keep it Short – Quizzes should take about 2 minutes, which is usually about 6-12 questions.
• Set Up an Autoresponder – Email out the results or a welcome email after they complete the form.
• Make Them Fun & Intriguing – No one is going to willingly sign up to take a test, but people are inspired to take a quiz that is fun and that either tells them something about themselves or helps them in their business or life.
• Show the Count – Make the number of questions clear so they can judge how long it will take.
• Collect Their Contact Info – Don’t forget to include this vital piece at the end!

When we engage in a one-on-one conversation with potential customers, it makes them feel important, it builds trust, and it sparks a connection that can’t be made without that personal touch.

Conversational marketing is a lead generation tactic that usually has impressive outcomes. With conversational marketing, you can use chatbots and messaging apps to start a conversation and answer basic questions before a live representative even enters the scene. Once the questions get too complex for the bot, a live chat feature can kick in or contact details can be captured for a follow-up.

According to Gartner Report, 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human agent by the year 2020. That’s not surprising when you consider the success of such campaigns: the CTR of links given by chatbots range from 15-60%. That’s pretty darn good considering the average click-through rate is 1.9% for search ads and 0.35% for display ads.

Never forget that the squeaky mouse gets the cheese! If someone visits your website and you don’t have any type of chat feature enabled, they can easily leave and that is that. If you have a chat function, they can get the answers to their questions immediately and that can open up the discussion to move toward a sale.

Success Examples

National Geographic created a genius chatbot campaign around their show Genius. It sparks up conversations with people in the voice of certain geniuses from the show, like Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso

People have a blast interacting with it, especially since it answers personal and professional questions and even makes jokes. The bot has generated 50% user re-engagement with 6-8 minute average conversations and 11 turns per conversation.

BabyCentre UK (a division of Johnson & Johnson) uses the information they learn in their bot about a child’s age and current parenting challenges to make suggestions and provide advice.

The results BabyCentre UK gets from its bot show a 53% CTR and an 84% read rate, which is a 1,428% higher engagement rate than their email funnel!

You digital marketing funnel is extremely important to get right. To learn more about how to create winning marketing funnels, check this guide.

Best Practices for Conversational Marketing

• Give it a Personality – The more personality you put into your chatbot, the better results you will get, so use emojis and design the language around how a friendly customer sales rep would speak.
• Make it Optional – No one wants to be forced into chatting with a bot.
• Never Stop Tweaking – You will gain tons of valuable data from your chatbot and you can use that to keep perfecting it over time.
• Learn the Ins & Outs – Read our Comprehensive Chatbot Guide to learn where to begin.

3. Content Upgrades

This is a great lead generation tactic. Gated content still works, but it has to be stellar content. It can’t be information that your readers can find in an article somewhere or on YouTube, at least not easily. And it works best when it is extremely relevant and timely. That’s why content upgrades are working like a charm.

When a user is engaging with your content, you know it is something they want right now. Content upgrades provide them with an upgraded version of the content they are already viewing, so it gives them more of what they want, and you can never go wrong with that.

Here are some content upgrade ideas:

• A step-by-step outline of the article they are reading
• A more in-depth version of what they are reading
• A video that will help them utilize the info
• A list of tools or resources related to the content
• A checklist to make the information more actionable
• A PDF of the article for easy reading later
• Bonus content that compliments the article they are reading

Success Examples

Backlinko.com improved conversions across their website by 185% when they added content upgrades. Here’s one of their examples, and look how simple it is:

Best Practices for Content Upgrades

Keep it Relevant – The only way this lead generation strategy works is if it is highly relevant to the content the user is already consuming.

Make it Convenient – It also works best if it gives the user an easy way to learn more about the topic they are interested in.

Close a Gap – Content upgrades are even more effective when they provide an important piece of information or a resource that the content they are consuming is missing.