Tag Archives: how to capture leads with social media

Tips for Lead Generation Campaigns

Tips for Lead Generation Campaigns
An effective lead generation campaign is made up of multiple elements working together. Here’s a list of these different ingredients along with ways to maximize them:

  • Tools

There are tools you can use to manage and store your leads. These tools will help you get to know your target market beyond names and email addresses. You’ll get access to crucial information, like what visitors do before completing a lead conversion form, and what they do after completing the form. You’ll know how they navigate the site, where they spend time, and what clicks they link. The best thing, some of these tools are free.

HubSpot Marketing Free lets you add contact forms and pop-ups to capture your lead’s information. If you already have forms, submissions will be automatically captured. Once a form is submitted, additional information associated with your lead’s email address will be gathered. You’ll see your lead’s public social profiles, giving you more insight on the kind of consumer they are.

Another free tool, HotJar, tracks visitor behavior through heat maps. These record movement on your website. You’ll see taps and clicks as they happened on your site. It identifies those parts of your site that are usable and intuitive, and the parts that aren’t. This can help you redesign your website to make it more user-friendly, especially for mobile screens.

  • Incentives

Creating engaging offers for every stage of the marketing funnel will help generate more leads. All conversions start out at the awareness level. They move down the funnel to the last level (which is advocacy) simply because they liked what they see at every stage and want to see more. So don’t ignore someone who’s looking around, in favor of someone who’s thinking of making a purchase. Treat both of them well.

The person who’s more interested in reading a brochure than signing up for a free trial may be persuaded to convert, but only if you nurture them from the start of the buyer’s journey.

Offers don’t have to be monetary in value at the early stage where people are looking for information. They’re not even thinking of buying anything yet, so deals like discounts won’t matter much. What’s important is relevant content, so offer e-books, whitepapers, checklists, or other resources they may find interesting.

  • Social media platforms

Many online marketers use social media to raise brand awareness. It’s not a surprise because it is effective. But it’s also effective for lead generation. Instead of posting links to articles, infographics, videos, and website content, you can post links to your landing pages with deals’. You can also post links to your best performing posts (a.k.a. those that generate the highest number of leads).

Use the unique features of your chosen platform. For example, Facebook lets you add a CTA button on your Facebook Page. With one click, it directs people straight to your website.

Twitter has Lead Gen Cards which generates leads within a tweet. When a user clicks on the CTA, that user’s name and email address will be sent to your form – all without them having to leave Twitter.

A lead generation campaign can go so many ways, but if you follow these tips, your own campaigns will blossom.

How to Capture the Elusive Lead – Part 2: Engagement

How to Capture the Elusive Lead - Part 2: Engagement

You’ve made enough of an impression on potential leads that they’re aware you exist and have a basic level of trust in your company. Now it’s time to take the next step and engage them. This stage continues building the relationship and moving one step closer to converting a curious person into a lead.

Answer Questions

Social media offers a convenient way a prospective lead can ask you questions. This offers a prime opportunity for you to position yourself as a trusted and valuable resource. Social media management tools make this process easier, as you can get a single tool to handle all of the people contacting you through your profiles.

Invite Feedback

Market research used to be incredibly difficult and costly to get. Now you can invite feedback directly from your target audience. Polls, surveys, and live chats allow you to connect with potential leads and find out exactly what they think about your plans. You can use this information to tailor your solutions to your ideal customer.

Stay Responsive

Don’t ignore engagement, whether it’s on social media, email or another channel. Focus on the timeliness of your responses with the potential lead. Therefore, if you’re quick, they’ll know that you’ll be on the ball if they do business with you.

Acknowledge Engagement

Sometimes engagement doesn’t come in the form of a question. Your audience may share your content or reach out with an observation. Take the time to acknowledge the conversation, so they know you’re paying attention to them.

Be Social

One of the best ways to improve your engagement strategy is to put yourself out there on social networks. Potential leads will find it easier to reach out if you’re already active on social media. Furthermore, share useful content from your audience, and your own resources for trust building and connect with a wide range of people and companies.

Adapt to the unspoken rules and requirements expected for the social media site. For example, on Twitter, you need to master the art of talking in 140 characters or less and provide topical information. Your Instagram strategy will thrive when you have a strong visual strategy, while Facebook works better for more in-depth resources.

Engagement is a crucial step in getting more leads for your company. You go where your audience does and put yourself out there as a valuable and helpful company.

The Value of Video in Social Media to Drive Traffic to Website Lead Capture

The Value of Video in Social Media to Drive Traffic to Website Lead Capture
If you aren’t making use of video in your efforts to get more leads, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful tools available today. Using video in social media efforts is perfect for capturing the attention of your target audience.  In turn, funneling people into your company’s purchase cycle.

A great deal of research has made it clear that video is one of the most popular forms of content for capturing and maintaining user interest. Here are several ways you can make effective use of video to enhance your lead generation.

Landing pages

The ultimate purpose of a landing page is to convert a potential customer into an actual customer. Before you can even get anyone to the ‘potential’ stage, it’s necessary to get their attention. Consider these points about your landing page video:

  • Video is 12 times more likely to be viewed than text content is to be read.  The most effective way to use video on a landing page is in conjunction with a call to action (CTA), which you can strategically place near the end of the video.
  • The whole point of your CTA should be to engage the user in some action, such as downloading a guide or an e-book – anything that increases their commitment to your brand.
  • Don’t want to place the CTA directly in the video? Redirect viewers to another portion of the landing page or to a contact form. Place your request info and that will provide you with a lead.

High-value content

High-value content videos are educational or instructive in nature, like webinars which provide significant benefit to viewers. These videos have a powerful appeal, so it’s both convenient and worthwhile to include your lead capture mechanism in the video, as part of the presentation.

  • By having users fill out a contact or subscription form before viewing the presentation, you’ll capture the lead on the front side. The only drawback to this strategy is that viewers will need to be convinced of its value before they become interested in viewing.
  • Content on your website, or social media, can be used to alert users to the video. This effectiveness makes webinars one of the best methods for acquiring leads on the Internet, and it’s a strategy you should be using.

Demo videos

Some of the most popular kinds of videos are demo videos and product description videos. If used properly, these can generate an enormous amount of information about your target audience. You can use this data later for lead generation.

  • It’s not a good idea to make any lead capture attempt in the video itself. This is likely to put off viewers.
  • Videos can be used interactively to learn all about potential customers. (e.g.: types of technology they use, vendors they work with, and pain points.)
  • You can also include survey questions. These help to flesh out potential customer profiles so that follow-up contacts can be more focused and personalized.

The Bottom Line

Video is one of the most attention-getting and persuasive forms of media you can use for lead generation. Make sure to include it in your strategic marketing initiatives.

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How Lead Capture fits within Social Media Lead Generation

How Lead Capture fits within Social Media Lead Generation

Many business owners believe that social media marketing is only about brand awareness or updates to let followers know what’s going on with the business. What they don’t realize is that social media has some serious lead generation power.

To get started generating leads, think about your opt-in freebie or lead magnet. This is something you create and offer to potential customers for free to get them to sign up for your email list. This can be anything from an ebook or white paper or video education series to a free consultation or a discount/free shipping.

Once you’ve decided how you’re going to lure potential customers onto your email list, you can set up your lead captures on social media.

Step 1: Landing Page

Your landing page should include a brief bit of information about the lead magnet, graphic, and a signup form. Plain, and simple. On a lead capture landing page, you don’t want to distract the customer from what they’re there to do: sign up for your email list. You can include a First Name field, but you should only have your Email field required to make signing up quick and easy.

Step 2: Facebook Ads

There are 2 types of Facebook ads you can use for lead generation. The first is the basic lead generation ad that gathers emails directly in Facebook. When your ad is finished running (or every week or so if you have your ad running continuously), go into your lead ads library to download the most recent signups and upload them to your own email marketing platform.

The other option is conversion tracking. You’ll set up a conversion tracking ad that leads to your landing page. You’ll need to insert a pixel on your website’s home page, your landing page, and your thank you page to track conversions.

When setting up your Facebook ads, create a caption that makes your targeted audience want what you’re giving them (in exchange for their email address).

Step 3: Twitter Cards

Twitter Cards are interactive tweets that give more info on a link, app, or video. Twitter also has a lead generation card for ads. To get access to the Twitter Cards, you’ll need to create an ad account and run an ad.

Create your lead generation Twitter Card in the same manner, you would create your Facebook ad. Twitter Cards also allow you to collect email addresses directly through Twitter, without the customer navigating to another website. The cool thing about Twitter Cards is that you can promote them, but you can also organically tweet out a lead generation Twitter Card. Pin it to the top of your Twitter profile to increase views. This is a great way to organically collect new leads.

Step 4: Promoted Pins

Design a Pinterest graphic that leads to your landing page. Create a Promoted Pin campaign with the traffic objective, so you pay for clickthroughs. If you don’t have graphic design skills, outsource this project. Pinterest relies heavily on visual aesthetics, so your pin graphic is important.

These are the top 3 ways to capture leads on social media. Want to move potential customers through your sales funnel? Try using these 3 lead capture methods.

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How Engaging Your Fans on Social Media Helps Grow Leads

How Engaging Your Fans on Social Media Helps Grow Leads

Training your sales people to go from good to fantastic is challenging. But there’s a large amount of readily available information regarding lead generation that can be helpful in growing new leads.

What if I told you that there’s a sales tool that can accomplish all this – and more? It doesn’t require a fancy company car; no expense account and business cards are useless. The cost is free (yes, free) and it works late at night, on the weekends, and even holidays. This invaluable sales tool is social media.

Some business owners view social media as a tool to use occasionally for marketing or, as an afterthought. When you engage with current customers through social media, gathering new leads is possible and has a fairly low entry cost.

Social Media Selling

With social media, you aren’t giving a sales pitch. The rules of engagement are unique, but necessary to follow if you want to effectively acquire new leads.

Make sure you focus on what your customers say. Don’t worry so much about what you want to say. During any social interaction, remember the following:

  • Avoid pushing your products or services
  • Do not focus on yourself
  • Don’t recite a sales pitch

You aren’t trying to “sell” on social media, you are just trying to communicate. What does Selling on Social Media Look Like?

You know someone is selling if the majority of their posts focus on a service or product they offer. Or, if they list all the benefits of choosing “them” over the competition. Other signs of social selling include:

  • Sharing employee details
  • Posting information or images of awards their product or service has received
  • Featuring a testimonial about the service they provided

This is all focused inward, on the company.

When someone thinks about who to follow on social media they usually (intentionally or unintentionally) think “what’s in it for me?” If you only rehash your selling points, they’re going to turn away.

Educate, Excite, Engage

These are the three “E’s” of social engagement.

You want to provide your customers with education. Tell them something they don’t know or help them make informed decisions about purchases they make down the road.

Make your posts exciting. Think local, think big, think different. Don’t post the same thing everyone else is. Let your customers know you care about more than just getting a sale.  Be a resource and a go-to value-adding source for the best information in your industry.

Once you have a prospect’s attention, you can engage them. Listen to their questions and concerns. It’s important they know you care about what they have to say and what they need.

The Bottom Line

Engaging your customers on social media means they’re waiting for what you have to say. They are also going to share this information with their friends on their social accounts. As a result, you can get new fans that will want to hear what you have to say. Social media offers powerful lead generation benefits. Use it to its full potential to increase your business sales.