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Let’s face it, it’s hard enough to get normal website traffic to a business website, it’s even harder getting business leads that actually convert to clients. This makes it absolutely necessary that every business needs to define its online priorities.
Are you interested in just traffic for the sake of numbers or do you desire to get the type of traffic that actually arrives at your business website and converts to clients?
There is no gainsaying that it’s converted traffic that sustains a business, not just ordinary traffic. Even news websites that need numbers also desire the type of website visitors that will spend the required time to read their news articles. That’s the only way advertisers will take them seriously.
- 85% of B2B marketers believe lead generation is their top content marketing goal. (Source: Content Marketing Institute)
- 61% of marketers rank their top challenge as lead generation. (Source: Hubspot)
- 53% of marketers spend less than half their budget on lead generation. (Source: BrightTALK).
- Marketing automation is believed to increase leads and conversions by 80% of marketers. (Source: APSIS)
- Businesses who follow up within five minutes are 9x more likely for leads to convert. (Source: ZiffD)
- Outbound marketing is more expensive than content marketing, but it generates three times as many leads as content marketing. (Source: Demand Metric)
As you can see from the above statistics (and more), lead generation is the way to go if your business has to survive. In this article, I will walk us through these strategies, plus the services, and tools you need to attract and convert targeted website traffic into business leads.
Difference Between Website Traffic and Business Lead
To understand the difference between the two, you first need to know the business leads meaning as well as website traffic meaning.
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Website traffic refers to the visitors that come to your website. It doesn’t matter if they interacted with your website or not, as long as they landed on your website, they are counted as website traffic.
On the other hand, a business lead refers to a website visitor that not only visited your website but showed interest in your business either by filling a form or contacting your business via chat, phone, email, etc.
As such, it is safe to say that all leads are website traffic but not all website traffic is business leads.
Also bear in mind that the quality of your website traffic will determine the quality of your business leads. If your website attracts the wrong audience, then your website traffic will invariably record low business lead conversions. So the quality of your website traffic is more important than the quantity when it comes to acquiring business leads on your website.
If you want to learn more about how to increase website traffic fast, you’ll need to read this to the end. There you will find how to perform website traffic analysis, check web traffic with the best website traffic checker tools, gain top strategies, and more. All these are to help you get fast web traffic and increase your website traffic rankings on Alexa.
Types Of Business Leads
There are three main types of leads.
- Hot Leads. This type of lead refers to the person who is ready to buy and has the money to purchase what your business is offering.
- Warm Leads. This type of lead refers to the person who might be interested in buying. He may have even done a free trial of your product.
- Cold leads. The person doesn’t know anything about you, your company, or what you do.
These three main types of leads can be further categorized into subtypes based on their position in the marketing funnel. As such you might have these different sub-types of leads:
Information Qualified Lead (IQL)
An Information Qualified Lead are people who don’t know much about your business and won’t take any action. These people are at the top of your sales funnel. They can be categorized as cold leads.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
A marketing qualified lead is a next type of lead in the sales funnels after the IQL. MQLs can take further actions to engage with your company, such as signing up for a course or downloading a pdf. An MQL is someone who shows interest in something beyond just sharing an email address or phone number. This is a warm lead.
Sales Ready/Accepted Leads (SRL)
Next is the Sales-Ready Lead which as the name implies, is sales-ready (i.e. ready to buy). This type of lead is at the bottom of the sales funnel. An SRL is a hot lead.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
An SQL refers to people who have made the transition from MQL to SQL and are now ready to make a choice. These people have likely met with a salesperson and are ready to make a sale. A Sales Qualified Lead can be an asset.
Lead Generation Strategies
According to Demand Metric Research Corp (via Direct Marketing News) the three most commonly used B2B lead generation strategies are email marketing (78%), event marketing (73%), and content marketing (67%). When you check website traffic and measure it with the number of leads you are converting, you’ll know whether your business is doing well or not.
If it’s not, there are different strategies on how to get business leads. The strategy you decide to use could be determined by your budget or need or both.
Strategies to Generate Leads for Your Business
1. Run paid search ads
One of the most popular ways to generate leads for your business is by running paid search ads on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. By refining your audience targeting and ad copy, you can reduce the cost of pay-per-click and increase ROI.
2. Run social media ads
Social media ads are another great lead generation strategy that is bound to yield fast results. You can run lead generation campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn (whichever one suits your business).
Facebook however is the most popular because it is simple, effective, and very affordable. You can start your Facebook advertising for as low as $5 per day.
3. Basic local SEO
Even without a website, you can do basic local SEO by creating a Google My Business listing for your business. This way, any search made by a potential customer about your kind of business, your business can show up on Google my business. As such, customers will be able to visit your business or contact you via phone or email.
4. Create an SEO optimized blog
Blogging is a great way to not only attract website traffic but also to collect leads. Blogs can include articles, videos, podcasts, or infographics. To improve the search visibility of your blog, you need to make sure it is SEO optimized. An SEO-optimized blog will attract relevant and targeted traffic to your website.
Make sure you target keywords that people use to describe your product or service. When your blog starts attracting visitors, you can then convert those visits to leads by adding lead capture pages and forms to your blog.
5. Be active on forums and Question & Answer websites
Forums are social sites where people interact with each other and discuss any challenge. You can meet new people and get to know more about your customers through forums related to your industry.
You can share your knowledge and answer questions regarding your business area to build trust. Once you have established authority, your forum members will be more receptive to checking out your products or services. This is a great way to drive website traffic that you can convert to leads.
Types of Business Leads Generation
Here is a stat that you need to consider while making that decision – According to Fearless Competitor, outsourcing lead generation generates 43% better results than in-house lead generation.
With such tremendous numbers, you may be better off handing your lead generation over to experts, while your in-house team concentrates on your core competencies on how to increase website traffic. But that’s left for you to decide, after all, with the right lead generation software, there is no reason why you can’t get it done.
- In-house Lead Generation
- Outsourcing Lead Generation
In-House Lead Generation Strategies
For many reasons, small businesses small go for an in-house leads generation strategy. Many are successful, as they are fully involved all the way from the get-go to full conversion.
In-house Strategies to Generate Leads for Your Business
The following are some in-house lead generation strategies you can adopt for your business.
#1. Email Marketing Leads Generation
According to Marketing Donut, 63% of consumers requesting info on your company today will not purchase for at least 3 months, this means you need to do more than drive traffic to your site. You need to nurture them through the sales process, so they remain loyal until they convert to paying clients.
Nurturing traffic doesn’t come better than with the use of email marketing. From the moment the prospect lands on your website landing page and plugs their email address, the nurturing should start, through to when they finally convert to paying client.
One of the biggest trends in lead generation is the increased use of automation software. Reports by APSIS show that 80% of marketers who use automation software derive as much as 451% more leads. It further shows that 77% of those convert more leads than businesses that don’t use automation.
Best Email Marketing Tools For Generating Business Leads
1. GetResponse
GetResponse assists you in creating content, increasing sales, and increasing website traffic. You can automate key processes and build effective email marketing campaigns with GetResponse’s integrated email marketing, autoresponders, and landing pages. GetResponse can help you increase the conversion rates of your funnel. Their monthly subscriptions start at $15.
2. SendX
SendX is an email marketing platform for small businesses that lets them produce user-friendly email campaigns that help them build trust with their customers. Email drip campaigns, a drag-and-drop editor, A/B split testing, automation, and segmentation are among the features available.
If you’re searching for simple software, SendX is a great choice. It’s simple to use and ideal for newbies just getting started with email marketing. You can quickly construct automated email campaigns as soon as you acquire the software, in addition to having outstanding support to help you when you get stuck.
SendX costs anywhere from $9.99 to $79.99.
3. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the email marketing platforms that experts recommend for improving your B2B prospecting efforts. Constant Contact provides all of the tools and support you need to reach your goals, from beginning an email marketing campaign to increasing Google Ads revenue.
The company’s mission is to help small and medium-sized businesses realize the web’s potential and make email marketing simple. They have over 100 new and mobile-friendly templates that may convert and engage customers, as well as real-time analytics, promotions, and events.
Their cheapest package is $20 per month for up to 500 contacts.
4. Moosend
Moosend is another email marketing solution that has been making waves in the market. Moosend’s automation workflows are highly robust when compared to comparably priced solutions. However, they are somewhat limited in the number of email templates and integrations with third-party services.
Moosend’s free plan allows you to send up to 3,000 emails per month to up to 1,000 subscribers. The paid Moosend plan starts at $10 per month and goes up depending on how many contacts you have.
Moosend is a good choice if you want strong automation workflows at a reasonable price.
5. ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a straightforward email marketing solution that is almost entirely utilized by bloggers, online course instructors, and creators in general to build their personal brands. It encourages users to send plain-text emails to enhance engagement, therefore it doesn’t even have email templates. As such, Convertkit might not be suitable for other use cases because the majority of its users are individuals and creators attempting to develop a personal brand.
6. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is an advanced email marketing solution that uses modern technologies to help you create automated emails. You can create email newsletters, marketing campaigns, and targeted emails using ActiveCampaign.
Their email autoresponder tool allows you to send welcome emails, establish a welcome series, or send lead magnets automatically. You can send emails on specific days and times, as well as for holidays, birthdays, and events. Their prices range from $9 to $229 each month.
7. Hunter.io
Hunter, one of the most entertaining email marketing lead generation tools, has a lot to offer. This email finder is suitable for both small and large companies.
You may use this tool to look up someone’s email address just by typing their name and company.
You can use it for free (up to 100 requests) or pay for a monthly subscription that starts at $39/month.
8. EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus allows businesses to create, launch, and manage customized email campaigns by using drag-and-drop editors and customizable templates. The automation function allows organizations to set up time-based onboarding or drip sequence campaigns that send welcome emails, share newsletters, add pop forms, categorize subscribers, send emails based on gender, age, etc.
EmailOctopus allows integration with third-party apps such as Shopify, SurveyMonkey, and Eventbrite through Zapier. Support is provided via FAQs, an email help desk, live chat, and email.
It has a free plan for up to 2,500 leads and allows you to send up to 10,000 emails per month on the free plan. Paid plans start at $24 for up to 5,000 subscribers.
Check this Best Email Marketing Course
#2 Event Marketing Lead Generation
Content Marketing For Lead Generation
What is the definition of event marketing?
Event marketing is a sort of marketing that entails holding, participating in, or attending events in order to promote a brand, product, or service. Event marketing aids in the development of deeper ties with clients as well as educating them about your product.
Businesses can host, participate in, or sponsor these events, which can be held online or offline. For promotional purposes, marketers employ both inbound and outbound event marketing methods.
Even marketing is very useful in:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Boost customer involvement
- Obtain leads
- Educating your prospects
- Upselling your customers
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Types of Events to Meets Business Leads
- Conferences
- Seminars
- VIP events
- Thought-leadership events
- Product launches
Effective Event Marketing Strategies
If you have ever managed an event, then you know they don’t sell by themselves. You need an event marketing plan or strategy for your event that promotes it to your target audience is essential in order to sell tickets.
An event marketing strategy is all about increasing awareness. Your goal is to get potential attendees and past attendees to the “awareness” stage of your marketing funnel. So here are some event marketing ideas:
1. Early bird Discounts
Early bird discounts are achieved by soaring your ticket sales so that the price of tickets goes up the closer you get to the event. You may have more than one. Your marketing efforts should focus on building interest and leads before your discount expires. This will help you create ticket sales spikes.
2. Pre-event page
You can create a pre-event webpage to have a central page that people can go to. This page can also be used to capture leads that can then be contacted later. It will also help you improve your SEO ranking.
3. Blogging
Blog posts can be used to promote your event, to fuel your pre-event marketing, and to rally people behind your idea to convince them about the need for it. Blogs are less persuasive than event landing pages, making them a great way of attracting initial interest.
4. Social media
Social media is a great way to promote your event. To engage your community during and after your event, it’s a smart idea to create an event hashtag. You can get a social event marketing specialist to run event-based marketing for your event.
5. Partner outreach
Event marketing partnerships and sponsorships are crucial for your event’s success. Therefore, it is important to reach out to potential partners, complementary brands, media partners, and media partners as soon as possible. They can help spread the word right from the beginning.
6. Guest posts and thought leadership
While blogging on your website is important, you must reach other audiences to attract new customers. This can be done by guest posting or creating thought leadership pieces that other people will enjoy sharing.
7. Paid Promotion
Pay social media advertising, Google Ads, or retargeting? Now is the right time to invest in your campaign, if you plan to do it.
8. Email
Email is an important tool in your event promotion strategy. Now that your event is ready to go, send your first major email blast to all your potential attendees, even those who have pre-registered.
9. Press release for events
You can an event marketing campaign using a press release. Press coverage can boost ticket sales and help you expand your network. This will help you build your brand strategy and increase traffic to your website.
#3. Content Marketing For Lead Generation
Content is the cornerstone of your lead generation efforts and leads nurturing. Marketers now rely on content in order to reach prospects and customers. When done right, you can attract the right audience and convert them into invaluable business leads.
Because 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of nurture is the main cause for this, according to Marketing Sherpa.
Generating Business Leads Using Content Marketing Tools/Services
There are new generation software and tools that are specifically there made for acquiring business leads. They are very good at what they do, cutting out many unnecessary formalities and going straight to the job.
Here are the lead generation software tools to consider if you are going in-house still
- HubSpot: HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM, inbound marketing, and sales suite that gives content marketers all they need to create actionable, high-quality content that generates leads and sales.
- FindEmails.com: With this lead generation tool, you can find verified business leads of decision-makers in your target markets. Search per company, role, or contact details of specific people.
- ScopeLeads: This is software that finds, develops, tracks, & connects you with leads & prospects who are actually in need of your services.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: It’s a sales management tool that helps sales reps tap into LinkedIn’s vast network to land better deals.
- Legl: Legl’s tools allow law firms to thrive in a digital-first era, from making client onboarding easier to getting paid quicker.
- Lead Scrape: Lead Scrape allows you to find B2B leads from any industry. You can obtain the contact information, business name, address, and phone number for each lead. You can search for leads by their job title or a list of employees in a company.
Landing Pages for Lead Generation
Some very good lead generation strategies don’t come with the ability to create landing pages, which enables you to grab leads. Landing pages are an integral part of lead acquisition.
Statistics show that companies who increase the number of their landing pages from 10 to 15, see a 55% increase in leads ( Hubspot).
Here are the best landing page builders to aid your lead acquisition efforts:
Leadpages
Leadpages is the most affordable solution on this list in terms of cost. This could be a good choice for you if your goal is to quickly get a page online.
Leadpages has many features, including dynamic text replacement, CRM, and email integration. Some of the most popular features include the creation of unlimited mobile-friendly web pages and over 160-page templates.
Instapage
Instapage is the perfect landing page software to help you create amazing landing pages, whether you are an entrepreneur or a large agency. Instapage’s 200+ mobile-responsive templates make it easy to create stunning landing pages without having to code HTML or CSS.
You can add elements to your landing pages with ease using the editor’s drag-and-drop interface. This tool is easy to set up and takes only a few minutes.
Unbounce
Unbounce is the leading landing page creator on the market with over 1,500 companies using them. It boasts impressive features that enable you to quickly publish, test, and publish your own landing pages, and sticky bars.
It features an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, more than 125 pre-existing mobile-responsive templates, as well as dynamic keyword insertion for Search Engine Marketing campaigns (SEM).
Wishpond
Wishpond is a rapidly-rising company in SaaS and marketing. Wishpond’s interface is easy to use and optimized for conversions. Simply select one of the templates provided and enter the information that you would like to collect through landing page forms.
Both beginners and more experienced users will find the tool useful. Wishpond’s landing pages builder is as easy as using their drag-and-drop builder.
Outsourcing Lead Generation
If you decide to outsource your business leads generation, then you don’t need to bother what strategies they use (it may still boil down to the above). But you need to choose which lead generation specialist to work with.
Every business decision we take has its merits and demerits. With regards to outsourcing lead generation, here are the things to consider:
Benefits of Buying Business Leads
- You Get Qualified Leads. This is because a company that is solely focused on lead generation will provide your company with only high-quality leads.
- They Convert Better: This is because they were gotten by professionals who know how to acquire and nurture a lead.
- Save Time and Money: Outsourcing your business lead generation will save you considerable time and money.
Here is a list of the lead generation services we recommend. these are the best places to find prospects and leads for your business.
Best Outsourced Lead Generation Services
The following are the best places to find prospects & leads for your business.
imArena In-House Leads Generation Service
At imArena, we offer a top-notch lead generation service for businesses who wish to outsource their lead generation services. We have in place a great team of marketers and state-of-the-art tools to qualify leads. We cover all kinds of businesses and you can contact us for more information.
UpLead
UpLead offers advanced B2B prospecting capabilities including in-depth intelligence and the provision of contact information to leads. The platform offers many integration options, including HubSpot and Pipedrive as well as full API access on the highest level.
CIENCE
CIENCE, a lead generation company, offers everything from lead gen to custom research. They focus on cutting-edge technology and find leads from all over the world that best match their client’s niche. After this, they have an in-house sales team call them in any of the 10 languages. This makes it ideal for companies with international clients. CIENCE is also featured in our lead generation company comparative directory.
D&B Hoovers
D&B Hoovers is a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet that can pull contact information from B2B leads from a variety of sources, including public business records, credit scores databases, and third-party service providers with which they have partnerships.
LeadPops
LeadPops makes it easy for real estate agents, attorneys, and mortgage pros to generate more qualified leads.
LeadGeneration.com
LeadGeneration.com, an end-to-end lead generation service, launches and manages multichannel paid and organic campaigns for a fee. LeadGeneration.com has one of the lowest entry prices and offers a free consultation as well as a variety of a la carte options that start at $1,000. It is a great option for people who want to buy quality leads while on a tight budget.
Buying Business Leads Database
You may decide to buy business leads from others, either from services providers or solo ads providers. These are new business leads for sale obtained by professionals to serve various kinds of businesses.
One thing you have to watch out for is how the leads were acquired. Double-opt in email leads seem to convert the most. Also, warm leads do better than cold leads.
Best Leads Database Providers
Buying leads from trusted leads database providers is one of the best strategies on how to get more business leads. We have listed out some of the best business leads database providers.
1. Lusha
Lusha is an online lead seller who uses a credit-based system to distribute lead information. This is the only list that offers a free forever option. Lusha’s monthly free plan allows users to receive five credits to unlock their profiles and access phone numbers and emails.
2. Salesfully
A great lead-buying option that is available to small businesses involved in business-to-consumer (B2C). Salesfully is a great place to purchase consumer leads. It boasts a database that includes more than 140 million households and consumers in the United States, as well as 14,000,000 businesses. Users can search for and download unlimited business-to-consumer leads (B2C or B2B) at a low cost. B2C leads allow for high-level filtering, including based on marital status, credit score, type and house of residence, net worth, political involvement, and marital status.
3. Soleadify
Soleadify provides access to information on millions of small businesses. It is limited in scope, but it offers accurate international data. This allows businesses to search by software or tech they use for leads. This database is perfect for companies who want to have a competitive edge over other competitors to help them find new leads.
4. imArena.net
At imArena, we have a database of leads for different business niches that your business can get and start marketing right away. These leads are carefully qualified because we want to make sure our customers get buyer-ready leads.
PS: Try to avoid any free business leads database providers and such business leads will do more harm than good to your business. They are spammed to death and lead to spam complaints!
Steps for Converting Business Leads
Depending on the stage the lead was when acquired, there are outlined stages where they will be put through for optimum conversion. Here are things to do to get the best out of a business lead:
#1. Qualify
Not all leads will be the right fit for what your company sells. Before you give leads to your sales reps, it’s important to qualify them. This will ensure that they are ready and able to buy. Selling to leads who aren’t ready for the purchase can lead to wasted time and frustration for your small business. If leads aren’t interested in the solutions you offer (or not yet), then marketing should continue to get them warm up until they’re ready to work alongside a salesperson. This is one way to qualify small business leads.
#2. Score
Qualified leads may not be equal in weight. Lead scoring measures the ranking of leads according to their likelihood to close a sale. The better the score, sales reps have a greater chance of closing the deal.
Lead scoring allows sales representatives to concentrate on their most profitable opportunities first to ensure that hot leads don’t get bored and stop asking questions before speaking with a rep. Sales reps who spend more time working with their top leads will close more deals and make better use their time.
#3. Distribute
Once leads are reviewed, they will need to be assigned a sales rep. This is also called lead distribution. Although some companies automate this process for you, you will need to plan how your sales reps will receive leads. Some companies assign reps to different products. Others will give leads based upon rotation.
#4. Follow Up
All leads, regardless of their position in the sales process, should be followed up on after they enter your sales funnel. It is crucial to follow up in sales. Sales reps who prioritize multiple followups tend to make more sales. It is common for salespeople to stop reaching out after the first message. But it takes at least five attempts before they make a sale.
You can make sure that your sales team follows up on all leads consistently and fairly to ensure that there are no missed opportunities.
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In Conclusion
The importance of getting consistent targeted business leads cannot be overemphasized. We have gone above and beyond to provide you with all the strategies and tools you will ever need to get quality leads for your business. As stated earlier, outsourcing your business leads generation will profit your business in more ways than one – you save time, resources, and get quality leads that have already been warmed up and are ready to buy whatever you are selling.
Here at IMarena, we assist businesses like yours to get consistent quality traffic that will meet your business needs. You can order our Targeted B2B Leads Generation Service from the shop. Also Contact us today for your digital marketing needs.
