15 Powerful Ways to Get Lead [Anti-Fail]

Leads are people who are interested in a business’s product or service. These people usually provide contact info in the form of a name and email address. This is done so that they do not lose information and promos from the seller.

Love at first sight is bullshit. Not only for mate affairs, but also for business matters.

Like a mate whose seeds must be weighed, business products or services are no exception. If a mate can be tricked, let alone consumers. So, it is not uncommon for consumers to turn away from a seller because they find an alternative product or service that is more attractive.

In fact, 7 out of 10 people never complete their online transactions. They generally switch to other, and more profitable products.

This is also supported by a survey that shows 40 percent of people don’t buy something because they are distracted by other things. So, it’s no exaggeration to say, twists and turns and the phenomenon of giving false hope are very common in business.

Even so, that does not mean you must surrender with the situation. You can apply a lead generation strategy so you don’t lose potential customers.

What are leads? Why are leads important? Then, how do you get leads? Keep reading this article because we will answer all your questions.

What are Leads?

Leads are people who have great potential to become customers. They generally leave contacts so you can contact them freely. Armed with that contact, you can send info about the latest promotions or product releases.

Also read: The Importance of Knowing the Target Market for Your Business!

However, leads are not obtained just like that. You need lead generation in order to attract quality leads. More precisely, lead generation is the process of attracting people and turning them into your customers. Some of the lead generation methods are blogs, freebies, coupons, and so on.

Before talking a lot about how to get leads, it’s a good idea to get to know the various leads. Because everyone has different needs. Of course you want to answer that need appropriately. That way, they feel you and are moved to become your loyal customers.

Here are four types of leads you need to know.

Marketing Qualified Lead

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) are people who have been exposed to and interacted with the promotional materials that you create. For example, they have filled in the contact on the landing page or downloaded a free e-book.

Even if you are familiar with your product or service, MQL is not ready to make a purchase of your product or service. Therefore, MQL is actually the most potential lead to be prospected as a consumer.

Sales Qualified Lead

Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) are people who are interested in buying a product or service. Not just asking questions, SQL is usually ready to pay a certain amount of money to become a customer. SQL’s are generally recognizable because of their questions about detailed info or product specifications.

Product Qualified Lead

Product Qualified Leads (PQL) are people who have tried a “free trial” program or basic version of a product. They are then interested in subscribing to the product or upgrading the product to the premium version.

Service Qualified Lead

Actually, Service Qualified Lead is almost the same as PQL. Service Qualified Leads are people who have tried a free or feature-limited version of a service. Then, they are interested in paying more to get the premium features they want.

After knowing what the different types of leads are, hopefully you can design the right product and determine the appropriate digital marketing strategy. After this, you will be invited to dive deeper into why leads are very important for an online business.

Why Are Leads Important?

Lead generation or leads is a very important part of digital marketing. Why? This is roughly the brief explanation:

• Leads are used to make it easier for you to contact potential prospects;
• Leads makes it easy for you to put your inbound marketing strategy into practice;
• Leads allows you to deliver useful content to potential customers;
• Leads makes it easy for you to map the demographics of potential customers and their needs;
• Leads allows you to promote and convert to the most potential customer segments.

That was a super short reason for the importance of leads. If the answers above have satisfied your curiosity, you can jump to the Tips for Getting Leads. There, you will find various ways to get leads that can be applied to your own business.

But if you’re still curious about the logic behind leads, it’s a good idea to refer to the following explanation:

Actually, lead generation is part of the second half of the customer journey or marketing funnel . This is the process that you need to optimize after introducing your product or service through social media, blogs, videos, or websites.

Why?

Without lead generation, your marketing efforts will be in vain. All efforts, from advertising via Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads, to SEO optimization of websites, working with influencers, etc., will not have a significant impact.

Because, all you get is traffic and exposure. Something very abstract to be used as capital prospecting customers. Armed with only traffic and exposure, you certainly cannot establish contact with potential customers.

In fact, you could say, without lead generation you are forced to always repeat promotional efforts from the beginning. You get stuck in the awareness stage . This is not only annoying and tiring, but also a waste of your promotional budget.

In fact, leads are not just used to keep in touch with customers. Lead generation is also useful for convincing customers to use the products or services offered. This can be done by sending various resources (articles, e-books, access to premium content, etc.) to them.

That way, potential customers can understand how the products you offer solve their problems. Through that variety of content, you can show your strengths compared to competitors. From there, potential customers feel more and more determined to buy your business products or services.

In addition to the two uses above, leads are also very useful for mapping (prospective) customers. With simple data like age, gender and specific preferences, you can know who your potential customers are and what they want. Later, you can design products that answer your needs. Plus, designing a more targeted marketing strategy.

15 Powerful Ways to Get Leads

After understanding what leads are and why they are important, it’s time for you to get into the more practical part. Here, you’ll find 15 ways to get leads that can be applied to your business.

1. Create a landing page

A landing page is a special page containing a form to collect leads. Usually this page also contains complete information about the products or services that the business offers.

Creating a landing page is the most reliable lead generation strategy. Armed with a website with a special page, your efforts to get leads will look more elegant.

In addition, you also have the opportunity to continuously get leads. Because, the landing page will continue to exist on the website. No time limit. You just need to direct people to visit the website and the landing page.

This strategy is also very flexible to be combined with other leads. For example, you can create a special landing page to share ebooks or host webinars. Smart, right?

To know how to make a landing page in more detail, you can follow the guide → How to Create a Landing Page in WordPress (Easy, Fast, and Effective) . For landing page inspiratio.

2. Share ebook

Creating ebooks and sharing them for free can also bring in leads. This is a strategic way that is usually applied by B2B businesses. Why?

B2B business transactions usually don’t happen in one meeting. This is because the transaction value in B2B businesses is generally very large. So, it may take some time for the buyer to be sure and ready to buy the product or service in question.

This ebook seems to be a “handiwork” for potential buyers. Through the ebooks that you share, you can leave the impression of being the most trusted, most skilled, and reputable business. Especially if you have a very technical business. Prospective customers can get added value and new knowledge about the business they are running.

So that your ebook is in demand by potential customers, follow some of these tips for making ebooks:

• Choose a specific topic. If you have multiple product/service lines, don’t rush to put all the related topics into one book. This is done so that you can get a large and specific number of leads.
• Create an outline to map the ebook content. So that the written content is easy for readers to understand, make sure you map the content well, in order, and logically.
• Design the ebook as attractive as possible. An attractive ebook display helps readers enjoy the content you present.
• Add a decorative element to the ebook. Put pictures, photos, quotes, diagrams, data, or anything that adds to the aesthetics. It’s even better if all those decorative elements help readers understand the content.

If your ebook has met the things above, just promote it. Then, get leads from people who are interested in getting the ebook.

3. Freebies

Freebies are content that is intentionally created and shared for free. However, this content is not the same as blogs or videos. Freebies can generally be downloaded and printed on paper. For example, checklists, worksheets, short guides, ebooks, posters, and so on.

Compared to the strategy of getting leads via ebook, the freebies strategy is arguably more effective. Because, you can create content in a shorter time. Of course, this content format is also more energy efficient. Therefore, you can focus the remaining energy on driving traffic into quality leads.

4. Create premium content

If you have super quality content and a loyal mass base, try creating premium content. This method is guaranteed to bring in quality leads. Because people who meet the criteria of the target market will provide their contacts.

This kind of strategy is actually more widely applied by news portals and online magazines. Especially by foreign-based media or those with international networks. It’s just that in Indonesia, not many people practice it.

If you are interested in trying this method, make sure you really have added value. At a minimum, make sure your content provides new insights and answers their curiosity. Thankfully, the content created also contains in-depth data and analysis.

5. Give content subscription options

This method is mandatory to apply. Especially, for those of you who are already running a blog for business. With the lure of getting exclusive updates , you can easily get the names and email addresses of visitors.

You can also add a subscribe form to all blog content. Every visitor without exception is always offered to subscribe to the blog. So, the possibility for businesses to get leads is also getting bigger.

6. Provide live chat on the website

The live chat feature is not only useful for business credibility. It also doesn’t just make it easier for buyers to contact you. There are other reasons why you should add a live chat feature on your website.

In addition to its two main functions, live chat can also be a means of increasing leads. Especially if you provide a contact form like the picture above.

The form of live chat above is not only exclusive to loyal business customers. By entering the name and email address fields, you can attract leads from very potential potential customers. Especially in the form of sales qualified leads (SQL).

7. Take advantage of social media 

Efforts to get leads can also be done through social media. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The condition, of course, is that you have an added value or exclusive content to attract potential customers.

Once you have the “X factor” in question, you can create announcement content on social media. The content tells you that you want to share exclusive content for free. The trick, the prospective customer just tells the email address.

Even if you want to get more leads, you just need to provide additional requirements. Especially if you don’t share the announcement on social media lines belonging to potential customers. This strategy is used by Explosive Books to grab the attention of potential customers.

8. Webinar

If you want to be different from the others. Plus, you have more resources and energy for it. Try using webinars to gain leads, especially MQL.

Content formats such as web seminars provide flexibility for you. Mainly in terms of maintenance. You can create webinars anywhere and anytime. It is so flexible that even the speakers in the webinar don’t have to be in the same room.

With these advantages, your opportunities to create “out-of-the-box” webinars are endless. The more interesting the webinar discussion offered, the more people who want to join the webinar session. That is, the more leads you get. Also, leads will not be limited to certain areas.

If you are interested in trying this method, make sure you read the complete guide to creating a webinar in the article → What is a Webinar? The Newest Marketing Strategy for Online Business .

9. Create an event

Even though there are webinars, offline events are still the prima donna. Especially if the format of the event is like a workshop. Offline events tend to be more able to facilitate interactive discussions and events that require practical learning.

Through events like this, you can still get leads. You do this by opening an online registration form. If the prospective participant does not come to the event that is made, you still get the contact.

10. Quiz

Gaining leads can also be done through quizzes. Not only by making quizzes with prizes, really. You can also create trivial quizzes for fun purposes.

One example of a trivial quiz is a personality quiz. However, you can change the content to make it more relevant to your business. That way, the content created will be more interesting.

11. Giveaway

Giveaways or quizzes with prizes can also be used as a strategy to get leads. This method is very widely used by big and well-known brands. The reason is none other than because the number of leads that can be obtained can be very large.

12. Referral

Referrals can also be used as a field to find leads. This one method really can’t promise a lot of leads in a short time. However, this method tends to work well in the long run.

Through referrals, the leads obtained are usually of higher quality. Because, only people who are ready to use the product are targeted through this program.

However, you need to remember. In order for a referral or affiliate program to be successful, you need to give a bonus to the referral provider. Whether it’s in the form of money, discount coupons, points, or other things.

13. Trial a product or service

If you’re selling a good product, why not let people try it? By giving a trial option or a free trial, you let potential customers feel how great and powerful the product is.

This method actually opens up two opportunities at once. First, the opportunity to get potential customers directly. Or, secondly, the opportunity to get leads in the form of product qualified leads or service qualified leads.

14. Discount coupon

There’s no one who doesn’t like discounts. That’s why, discount offers are something that’s hard to resist. Especially if to get it, they are only asked for an email address and a little personal info.

Therefore, try distributing discount coupons to attract leads. So that you can add users at the same time, you can combine this strategy with the blog subscribe option.

15. Find leads on Hunter.io

We specifically recommend this one method for those of you who are struggling in the B2B field. When you specifically want to offer a partnership, product, or service to a company, you can find out through Hunter.io.

Just enter the prospective customer’s website. Then, you will get the website owner’s admin email. It’s just that, you need to create an account first to be able to view the email in its entirety.

Ready to Hunt for Leads in the Ways Above?

Yes! We’ve shared various ways to get leads. Which is the most effective way? We leave that again to you. Basically, every business has a different approach to getting leads.

But so that your lead hunting strategy looks more elegant and professional, don’t forget to create a special page on the website. If you don’t have a website yet, don’t worry. BlueHost has a service that makes it easy for you to create a website. Check it out now.