5 Creative Ways to Generate Leads for Your Business

Every company needs to bring in customers, no matter what industry they’re in.

As part of that, they’ll need to use different ways to generate leads, which they can then turn into customers. This is often a lot more difficult than it seems.

That doesn’t have to mean it’ll be impossible, though.

In this article, I will share five ways to generate leads that will help you grow your business. 

Ways to Generate Leads: 5 Creative Picks

1. Optimize Social Media to Attract Leads

Social media is an amazing asset for generating leads. It makes your brand more visible for potential customers, helping you to interact directly with them.

This doesn’t just help you gain more visibility, but nurture your leads quite a bit. You’ve no reason not to put some time and effort into it. It’s one of the more effective marketing strategies you can use.

2. Take Advantage of Apps

Speaking of using online platforms to attract leads, apps can help with this more than you’d think.

You don’t even need to have your own app for this to work. You could take advantage of more than a few others, as long as potential customers use them. A coupon code sticker app could be a great option for specific types of companies, for example.

3. Invest in Content Marketing

Content marketing mainly focuses on establishing yourself as an industry expert.

It offers several benefits, though, and one of the more notable is helping you generate leads. By investing in this, you’ll get your brand in front of more potential customers, helping to turn more of them into leads. You should see more sales because of it.

4. Ask Customers for Referrals

The greatest asset you have for getting new customers is your current customer base.

By putting the time and effort into them, you could end up generating referrals and getting new customers. Put the time and effort into this. Implementing a referral scheme could be a great way to bring in these leads while encouraging current customers to bring them in.

5. Try a Lead Generation Service

You’ll need to spend a lot of time and effort generating leads, and it can often be complicated. By using a lead generation service, though, you could make it a lot easier. Outsourcing to these providers makes sure you get quality results, without needing to spend a lot of time and effort on it.

And these are just five specific ways to generate leads for your business.

Below, you can keep reading about 20 different ways to generate leads.

Organic Search

Organic search is one of the most known ways to generate leads in recent years.

It consists of producing educational and valuable content on your website that answers your target’s questions about your product or service.

This way, when they search for answers on the internet, you will appear as an expert, and they will get to know your brand.

Nowadays, platforms such as Google Analytics or HubSpot can help you identify your leads by organic search and know how they act on your website.

Remember: good quality content is always a great way to attract new potential customers and build loyalty.

Actually,  according to BackLinko, B2B blogs with educational content get 52% more organic traffic than B2B blogs with company-focused content.

This can be applied to almost any kind of business.

We have a writing guide to creating great articles that can rank on search engines.

Organic Social

Nowadays, every brand owns at least one or two social media channels.

Depending on how you use them, social media can be a perfect place to start finding new leads.

When we say “organic social,” we are referring to the public you attract naturally without the use of paid ads.

You can grow your following on social media without ads through valuable content, trends, hashtag research, etc.

It’s crucial to choose the right social media channel and create content that goes according to your brand.

For example, according to research, LinkedIn is the most effective B2B social media channel for generating leads. This will vary depending on your industry.

Paid Search

Did you know that, on average, Google processes around 8.5 billion daily searches?

Google is the most used search engine in the world, and it’s a perfect place to advertise your website.

There are many ways to approach paid search, but the most common is PPC (Pay Per Click).

This modality allows you to advertise your website at the top of the search results while only paying once a user clicks on it.

It can be as budget-friendly as you need it to be and usually generates fast results.

Paid Social

Paid social is all about the ads we see when scrolling through apps such as Instagram or Twitter.

These ads can be PPC, PPM (Pay Per Impression), or PPE (Pay Per Engagement).

The modality you choose will depend on the specific requirements of your campaign and/or brand.

To make an ad on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or any similar platform, you must know your target demographic very well.

Depending on your ideal audience, paid social can be a great investment to generate leads since 74% of people use social media when making a buying decision, according to WebFX.

You can find a price range for Instagram and Facebook ads right here.

Form Submissions

Form submissions might not sound like a popular way to generate leads initially. However, according to RulerAnalytics, 84% of marketers use them to do so.

These forms can be found on your website or your social media channels.

They are usually “contact us” forms, “demo request” forms, or a requirement for downloadable content.

The great thing about forms is that users submit your information willingly, and you can ask more specific questions that a common data platform won’t give you.

Referrals

A simple but effective way to generate leads is by referral. Ask your former or actual customers to recommend your products or services to someone who might need it.

Referral marketing has a high success rate because 92% of people trust referrals from people they know.

If you think there’s a big chance of getting new customers this way, you can even offer discounts to your clients if they get you new ones.

When you nurture your leads correctly and give them an exclusive experience, they will probably recommend you even if you don’t ask them.

That’s the importance of having great customer service and optimizing your lead generation process within your company.

Testimonials

Testimonials have a similar spirit as referrals but are not the same.

A testimonial is a review from a former customer about their experience with you.

Even if a potential client doesn’t know the person giving the testimony, it makes your company feel more human and real.

Usually, you can find testimonials written on websites. However, you can also make video testimonials, which feel even more authentic and trustworthy.

Personalized Email Marketing

Creating a great email marketing strategy will allow you to find new leads, get to know them, and create a special relationship with them.

It’s a new way of sharing valuable content other than posting on your website and social media.

It also offers an exclusive communication channel for the ones that take part in the email list.

Discounts and Coupons

This is a lead generation strategy that’s inspired by traditional marketing.

If you’re looking for clothes in a mall and see a store that has discounts, you will probably check it out.

The same logic applies to digital marketing. It’s all about giving incentives for people to get to know you better and make the buying decision easier for them.

Offer Samples

This is also an incentive, just like the previous idea, but with the potential of being even more attractive to potential customers.

The samples you offer will vary depending on your industry.

It’s simple if you sell food or makeup, for example. However, if you offer your services in your company, you can work out a small sample of your work.

A lot of coaches offer short consulting sessions for free for certain types of candidates, for example.

You can get very creative and find a way to show new users what you can give to them if they trust you.

Make an Event

This strategy will involve a monetary investment. Nonetheless, the budget can be adjusted to your requirements.

Your event can be in-person or online. The goal will be to make your company known and reach a certain audience that can be interested in your services.

This event mustn’t feel marketing-related. You have to make sure you’re offering something valuable to your public and make them genuinely interested in attending.

Depending on how big you make your event, you can even charge an attendance fee, have sponsors, guest speakers, and more.

Create an event people will remember and talk about, and every penny will be worth it.

Create an Experience

Even though when you host an event, you should be creating an experience, this strategy is not the same as the last.

To create an experience, you don’t need to make an event.

The kind of experience you can create will depend on your industry and the products or services you offer.

For example, you can install a photo booth somewhere in your city. This will encourage people to not only take photos but to share them and make your business known.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships are most common in medium to big events that require significant investments and reach broad audiences.

According to the Brittanica Dictionary, a sponsor is “a person or organization that pays the cost of an activity or event (…) in return for the right to advertise during the activity or event”.

Having a sponsor will help you reduce your costs and give you credibility.

If the organization that sponsors your event is recognized in your area, everyone that knows them will identify it and therefore be interested in what are they doing there.

Sponsorships are a great tool to generate leads while managing your budget.

Network through Social Media

It doesn’t matter if you own a business or are working on your personal brand: a great way to get yourself known is to interact with other users on social media.

Research relevant individuals in your industry and interact with them. Get to know them and build a relationship.

Networking will keep you updated in your industry, introduce you to new people, expose your profile to different users, learn from colleagues with other experiences, and much more.

Guest Blogs

A guest blog is when a person or a company publishes an article written by them on a website that’s not theirs.

This is a great way to reach a new audience and increase your domain authority, which will help you rank in search engines such as Google.

There are many ways to negotiate to make a guest blog.

Usually, you must look for a website within the same industry that publishes similar content to yours.

You must also check this website’s stats to be sure that the work of writing the article will be worth it.

Answer Forum Questions

Platforms like Reddit or Quora are known for being a space where users can find answers to common questions about different topics.

The great thing about this type of website is that you can filter the information and search by keywords.

If you know how to find the right discussions, you can show your expertise in your area by answering questions related to the products or services you offer.

You would be offering free advice and free information, which creates trust and incentives interest.

Make a Giveaway

Giveaways have become very common in social media in the last few years.

It’s a great way to earn new followers, increase your engagement and get people talking about your business for a while.

However, you must create a strategy to ensure that your numbers won’t significantly decrease once the giveaway ends.

Influencer Marketing

This strategy requires contacting an influencer to promote your brand as a whole or a specific product.

You must do your research and choose the right influencer.

If you pick a good one, they will influence their audience correctly and interest them in your business.

Some aspects to consider are their media kits, demographics, style, and discourse.

You should choose a personality that fits and represents your brand somehow.

Give a Workshop

Workshops come in all shapes and sizes. They are an educational space that allows different dynamics and topics.

You can offer a free or low-cost workshop about a specific topic of your expertise.

This will allow you to get to know new people, organize the information you know, and get your participants interested in how you work.

You can read more about the benefits of workshops right here.

Offer a Free Tool

Offering a free tool on your website is a great way to get specific data from users that are interested in your business.

They are also helpful in educating leads on what you do and showing them some of the experience they could have with you.

For example, you can check our Personal Brand Statement Generator and LinkedIn Content Template.

Ways to Generate Leads: Wrapping Up

Before you can get sales rolling in, you’ll need to find several ways to generate leads.

While this is an obvious process, it’s often much harder to put into practice than many people assume.

It’s far from impossible, though. There are more than a few ways you can try that should have an impact. There’s no reason not to put a few of them into practice.