What is Lead Generation? + The 5 Best Lead Generation Strategies
Lead generation definition
Lead generation is the process of generating interest in your brand, products, or services. It is an essential strategy to grow your business and reach more prospects.
Are you searching the web to learn more about digital lead generation and how you can use it for your business? Keep reading to go through these topics:
- What is lead generation in digital marketing?
- How does the lead generation process work?
- Why is lead generation important?
- 5 best ways to generate leads
- 6 tips for making your lead generation campaign a success
- Lead generation FAQs
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Get My Free GuideWhat is lead generation?
Lead generation is the process of identifying, attracting, and converting people into prospects through outbound and inbound marketing, and lead generators.
Common lead generation channels are:
- Search
- Social media
- Your website
To generate leads online, you can:
- Run paid ads
- Offer free product trials through your website
- Offer gated content
- Launch an email campaign
How the lead generation process works
Now that you know the definition of lead generation, let’s discuss how an inbound lead generation process works.
The lead generation process typically starts when your target audience faces a pain point. The prospect then discovers your business as they look for solutions.
They click your call-to-action (CTA), which leads to a landing page. On the landing page, they fill out a form, share their contact information to access gated content, or sign up for a free trial.
Here’s an example. Let’s say your firm offers architectural services.
You publish helpful content to attract prospects to your site. When an online user searches for “tips for hiring an architect,” one of your pages ranks.
A user clicks on your page and reads through your content. At the bottom of the page, a contact form is available where they can leave their information and sign up as a lead.
Why is lead generation important?
Lead generation matters for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses for a few reasons. That’s because lead generation does the following:
- Support healthy business growth: Without leads, your company can’t grow. While you may receive referrals, those often aren’t enough to grow your business the way you want. You need a way to attract and convert prospects, and lead generation provides that.
- Attract qualified leads: Next, lead gen offers a solution to finding qualified leads, versus any lead. While you can spend time cold-calling potential leads, this strategy rarely results in a lead — only unhappy people with a bad image of your brand.
- Offers a natural transition from consumer to customer: With lead generation, your business can also provide a seamless customer journey. People can move at their own pace from consumer to customer, like by downloading an online guide or completing a contact form.
Most of all, it benefits your business because it works — when done right.
5 of the best ways to generate leads
Whether you work with a top lead generation company or earn leads in-house, you need to use the right strategies.
Here are some of the best lead generation services:
5 lead generation strategies
Let’s go through each lead generation strategy.
1. SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most powerful ways to generate leads. In fact, SEO leads have a nearly 15% close rate.
SEO is a digital marketing strategy that optimizes your website for search engines (like Google) and searchers (human users). When you optimize your site according to SEO best practices, your website can appear at the top of search results, rather than on page two.
With SEO, your business can reach users as they search on Google, Bing, and other search engines, and quickly become their trusted resource and company of choice. For example, a user searches for “tour packages to Greece.”
If your travel agency offers such services and packages, you want a top spot in that search result. Even if your business doesn’t appear in that search result, you can use other SEO tactics, like outreach, to help earn press and exposure for your product.
How can SEO generate leads?
SEO can generate leads by:
- Attracting bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) leads with optimized product and service pages
- Drawing middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) leads with guides and customer testimonials
- Reaching top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) leads with optimized blog posts and articles
In addition, SEO is a useful strategy to outrank your competition in search engine results pages (SERPs).
If your online competitors don’t use SEO, your business can earn a top spot in search results with ease. When you earn a top spot in search results, you provide your business with direct access to leads.
2. Paid advertising
Paid advertising is another strategy to generate leads. That’s because you can advertise on:
- Search results
- Websites
- Social media
- And more
Whether you’re looking to generate manufacturing leads or insurance leads, paid advertising lets you reach your prospects online.
Paid advertising describes the use of paid ads like pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements to attract potential prospects and customers to your business, products, or services. While you can use traditional advertising formats like billboards, digital ad formats tend to offer more value and flexibility.
The advantage of paid advertising for lead generation is that your company will usually pay on a per-click or cost-per-click (CPC) payment model. This means you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
Depending on your ad settings, you can also pay for an ad based on views or conversions. Even better, paid advertising includes advanced targeting options.
With these options, your business can create hyper-targeted ads that focus on the most valuable prospects for your business. Plus, your ads can reach users when they want to hear from your business, like when they search for your company, product, or services.
How can paid advertising generate leads?
You can use paid ads to generate various types of leads. Here are some ways:
- Launch search ads promoting a free, downloadable guide
- Create social media ads highlighting a sale, social post, or guide
- Build remarketing ads offering a limited-time offer to marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
You can also take advantage of your paid advertising data to improve your sales and marketing teams’ understanding of your target market and customer journey. This data can help with all your lead generation efforts, from your ads to your emails.
3. Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most common ways to generate leads. In fact, 60% of consumers say that emails influence their purchase decisions.
With email marketing, you can take a personalized and long-term approach to growing your company and your relationship with potential clients.
Email marketing offers an all-in-one solution for communicating with prospects and clients. You can create various audience segments and email campaigns. That way, you send content and offers tailored to users’ interests, concerns, and more.
Companies across industries use email marketing because of its effectiveness and return on investment (ROI). In fact, businesses see an average ROI of $36 to $40 for every dollar spent.
How can email marketing generate leads?
You can generate leads with email marketing by:
- Building relationships with MQLs by sending them informational and useful content
- Sending sales qualified leads (SQLs) follow-up BOFU content
- Sending special updates and offers to service qualified leads for upsells and cross-sells
For the best results with email marketing, ensure your company offers valuable content.
While you may want to send content that highlights your services or products, remember to think about your users. Give them something valuable. Otherwise, they will unsubscribe from your emails or not even read them.
4. Social media marketing and advertising
Social media offers immense opportunities for companies that can master generating leads from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Social media marketing focuses on making posts and content for your followers to encourage them to engage with your brand. Meanwhile, social media advertising involves creating ads to increase brand awareness or generate leads.
How can social media marketing and advertising generate leads?
Here are some lead generation ideas you can implement on social media:
- Launch targeted ad campaigns to drive follows, likes, and even shares
- Run lead-generation ad campaigns that collect contact information
- Post informational content to drive brand awareness and website traffic
- Respond to comments, questions, or concerns
For example, a veterinarian who wants to generate leads for their practice can post interactive content about pet care. The goals are to encourage interaction, drive brand awareness, and encourage users to inquire.
5. Content marketing
Content marketing is another powerful lead-generation strategy. By creating original and helpful content for your target audience, you can capture prospects at different stages of the funnel and nurture them toward becoming a lead.
A few examples of content include:
How can content marketing generate leads?
You can use content marketing for a variety of lead-generation efforts — from SEO and social media to email marketing, including:
- Publishing free, downloadable online guides
- Writing informative blog posts for users in the early stages of the buying journey
- Create viral content like infographics to earn exposure
- Build resource libraries for supporting your sales teams
- Create a repository of support articles for your existing customers
For example, a dental practice looking to attract leads can use its website to answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) about certain procedures. They can cover questions related to recovery time and procedure costs to help potential customers.
The more quality information you provide, the more likely you’ll be to generate leads on your site.
6 tips for making your lead generation campaign a success
Now that you know what lead generation is and the different strategies you can employ, let’s go through some best practices that will improve your lead generation:
How to improve your lead generation
You can also check out lead generation trends to align your strategy with the current market!
1. Identify your buyer personas
Are your prospects reading your content? To ensure you’re creating content that attracts them, identify your buyer personas.
Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on your current customer base and market data.
Businesses can have multiple buyer personas. For example, a travel and tourism company can have the following personas:
- Mia the family traveler: She’s in her 30s to 40s and travels with her husband and two young kids. She organizes the annual holiday family trip.
- Stacey the outdoor enthusiast: She’s in her 20s and enjoys traveling solo or with a friend. She prefers destinations that offer outdoor activities.
- Jill the jet-setter: She’s in her 30s to 40s and travels frequently with friends or family. She’s willing to spend a little more for comfort and convenience.
2. Gather insights from your sales team
Your sales team connects with your leads one-on-one, which allows them to offer unparalleled insights into the questions of potential clients.
Collaborate with your sales team by asking about their experience with leads and learning:
- What your leads want to know
- What your leads desire in a product or service
- What your leads expect from a product or service provider
Understand your leads better, and your team can develop a better lead generation strategy. You can adapt your content marketing initiative, for example, to cover a frequently asked question among leads or tweak your social media marketing to reach your ideal customer.
3. Create a consistent experience
While you may use a range of channels and techniques to reach potential leads, you want to create a consistent experience. Doing so lets your users recognize your business, products, or services when seeing them again, like via a paid ad.
Consistent messaging and branding also make it easier for users to transition from stranger to prospect. They feel confident that they’re working with the same company when moving from your social media profile to your website.
4. Provide every user with a unique offer
When it comes to lead generation, companies can struggle to create compelling offers for users in the earlier stages of the buying funnel. While it’s easy to offer a free trial or obligation-free quote to BOFU users, that kind of offer doesn’t work on users who are still researching and considering.
Take the time to research potential offers for every stage of the funnel. A few examples include:
- A free guide
- A coupon
- A free trial
- A free consultation
Monitor your social media for ideas, too. Sometimes, users may comment and express interest in what they’d like to receive. You can even browse industry forums to see what users want or expect when working with service or product providers.
5. A/B test your landing pages, forms, CTAs, and copy
Also known as split testing, A/B testing is a methodology that compares two versions of your webpage, landing page, or social media post. The goal is to identify the better-performing version based on the data.
A/B testing your landing pages, CTAs, and copy provides you with insights on how you can improve your lead generation campaigns. With A/B testing, you can:
- Determine which CTAs drive your audience to action
- Identify the landing page layout that effectively generates leads
- Pinpoint ad copies that encourage your audience to engage with you
6. Improve your lead form’s conversion rate
Your lead form is a crucial element of your lead generation efforts. That’s why if you want your target audience to fill them out, you must optimize them for conversion.
How? Ask only for the most important information in your form, while considering their stage in their journey. For example, you can ask for their email address and name to give them access to a gated TOFU content.
To get a free trial of your service, however, they may need to provide other details, such as their organization’s details and how they’ll use your services. This way, you’re also ensuring the quality of your leads.
Other tips to improve your lead form’s conversion rate are:
- Make other fields optional
- Break your forms into multiple pages
- Gain your prospects trust with a clear Privacy Policy
- Optimize your “Submit” button
- A/B test your form
Lead generation FAQs
Got more burning questions about lead generation? Let’s answer them here:
1. What is a lead?
What is a lead in digital marketing?
A lead is an individual or organization that shows interest in your business, product, or service.
People can show interest in various ways, including:
- Downloading a free guide
- Completing a contact form
- Following your brand’s social media account
- And more
In almost all cases, your business will hear from a lead before a lead hears from you.
While you can initiate communication first (like by cold calling), this approach generally doesn’t perform well. That’s why many companies try to attract leads.
When you bring leads to your business, they’re more likely to have a genuine interest in your products or services.
2. What are the different types of lead?
You can attract four types of leads:
- Marketing qualified lead (MQL)
- Sales qualified lead (SQL)
- Product qualified lead (PQL)
- Service qualified lead
The table below summarizes their differences:
| Type of lead | Definition | Where they are in the funnel |
| Marketing qualified lead (MQL) | MQLs come from your marketing efforts (such as a downloadable guide offer) | MQLs are often in the early stages of the funnel. They may not be ready to connect with your sales team. |
| Sales qualified lead (SQL) | SQLs show an immediate interest in your products or services. They fill out your contact forms to express their interest. | These leads are typically in the lower stage of the funnel. SQLs are ready to speak with your sales team. |
| Product qualified lead (PQL) | PQLs demonstrate an interest in your products or services by signing up for a free trial. | PQLs are in the consideration phase. After trying your product, they may contact your sales team to ask questions or learn more. |
| Service qualified lead | Service qualified leads currently use and pay for your products or services. | These leads have an active interest in your business. They will contact your sales team for an upsell or choosing a different plan. |
3. Outbound lead generation vs. inbound lead generation: What are their differences?
You can generate leads through outbound and inbound means. Here’s how they’re different:
Outbound lead generation focuses on pushing people toward your business, products, or services. It uses strategies like cold calling, trade shows, and advertising.
Meanwhile, inbound lead generation pulls consumers toward your business and offerings. An example of inbound lead generation is publishing helpful blog posts that attract your target audience.
The table below summarizes their differences:
| Outbound lead generation | Inbound lead generation | |
| Definition | A strategy that pushes consumers toward your brand | A strategy that draws consumers toward your brand |
| Examples | Cold calling Trade shows Advertising |
Publishing blog posts Video marketing Publishing informative and entertaining social media posts |
Inbound marketing almost always generates the best results and qualified leads. That’s because it reaches potential leads when they’re looking for your business, products, or services.
While they’re researching, you’re serving as a helpful resource. In fact, less than 20% of marketers think outbound practices provide valuable leads.
37% of marketers say that generating high-quality leads was one of their biggest challenges.
We want to decrease that percentage.
WebFX can help you generate high-quality leads with a customized marketing strategy.
Learn More About Lead Generation Services
Master lead gen with a top lead generation agency
WebFX is a top lead generation agency and has worked on lead generation and digital marketing campaigns for years. We have clients who came to us with the exclusive goal of bringing in more leads to their sales reps so they could close more deals and earn more revenue.
With our award-winning team, we’ve helped our clients achieve that goal so they can achieve new levels of success. Now, we’re excited to drive the same results for you!
Do you want to earn new leads for your business? Contact us or call us at 888-601-5359 today to create a lead generation campaign that suits your business!