7 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Lead Generation

Competition today is as fierce as it has ever been. Lead generation is a critical task for businesses looking to get ahead in their market. In fact, lead generation is often identified as one of the most difficult challenges facing companies today. What used to work, is no longer considered effective. These days you need a broader approach. How to make best use of the internet and social media in particular, is something that you have to embrace fast as your competitors are gaining advantage. Here are 7 highly effective tactics you can learn from successful companies:

1. Launch Campaigns in Social Media Channels

Don't be afraid to arrange some type of campaign as a way to get more attention and promote your brand in general. Maybe it can be a contest where the top 3 or top 10 are rewarded. Another idea is to give a promo code to social media users visiting your business page in a certain channel. Remember when something is trending in social media, the word gets around fast. An exciting and generous campaign can work wonders for lead generation. After all, “growth hacking” tactics must become essential part of your sales funnel:

2. Create a Series of Articles About a Relevant Topic

People tend to love free tips and ideas, especially if the content is well-written and has some type of value to them. For example, it can be creative ideas on how to use a service or a detailed guide on how to repair or modify a product. Reading the content might require a free signup. When visitors provide their contact information you'll have plenty of leads. This method of course requires some high quality content. Use Google Trends and Google Alerts to research and get the most current news on any topic.

3. Host a Webinar

Webinar is nothing else but a web-based seminar. For it to be effective it has to be educational and best if free. When participants register for the webinar, you have your leads. Be mindful of some common pitfalls. If you host a webinar, it's not supposed to feel like a marketing activity for your company. In other words, don't act like a car salesman, but act like a teacher. With the right topic and educational content, your webinar will hopefully convert many leads into paying customers. Company Buzzsumo states that conversion rate of webinar attendees to paid customer is 20%.

4. SEO

Stressing the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) is like beating a dead horse at this stage, but experts always bring it up for good reason. Getting as much traffic as possible to your website will more or less guarantee increased lead generation. If competitors invest resources into SEO and your company doesn't, then it becomes self-fulfilling. People using search engines end up at your competitors website, giving them the lead instead. There are many great websites and articles on the topic, but one of the best places to get the information is moz.com

5. Remarketing

Most companies very effectively use social media companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ offer for their remarketing. The purpose is to re-target those who visited your website, then left without making a purchase. Many marketing experts claim that multiple contacts are needed to generate a lead and this is a method for influencing those "quitters" that seem to be interested. Turning them into real leads will translate into more paying customers. Hanapin Marketing report shows that ad channels, like Text Ads, Mobile, and Remarketing continue to gain steam in 2017, followed closely by Social Advertising, particularly Facebook.

6. Reviews

These days people tend to go through testimonials and reviews before they make decisions. Internet is a powerful tool for this purpose and you want a lot of positive third party reviews to show up for anyone making relevant searches. They are seen as objective sources of information, at least compared to content presented by the company itself. There are many good places on the web such as Google reviews (google.com/business), where you can promote your business for free and get those leads which your competitors have been stealing away.

Simple search for a business near me has given me few options and a good indication which place to visit.

7. Tracking Analysis

Wouldn't it be great to know who is visiting your website and takes interest in your business? Then you pick up the phone and call them, or send an email? Well, that is something that is largely available through many providers and has been used very successfully by B2B organisation for their lead generation. Not only you can see which companies your visitors come from, but you can get their names and contact details too. Check out www.whoisvisiting.com or www.traffictruffle.com where you can get the basic service for free.

Conclusion

Analysing your competitors and adopting their practices may take some time and effort. But the good thing is, in most cases you don’t have to have a big budget to use these tactics as most of them are free. What growth hacking will give you in return, is a steady stream of leads which may otherwise go somewhere else. Surely, that must be the best investment you can do today!