12 Creative Ways to Generate Leads Online

As a business owner, it's important to do everything you can to attract new customers, and gathering leads on the web is one of the most effective ways to do it. However, many business owners don’t know how to promote their business online effectively. Following these twelve tried and true strategies will help you generate more leads for your business.

1. Improve Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If your site isn't on the first page of the search results, potential customers probably won't be able to find you. So it is very important to optimize your search rankings. Here are a few ways to boost your rankings:

Pick the Right Keywords

Your keywords need to be optimized for both voice and text search, and they need to be relevant to what your business offers. This will help ensure that people interested in your business are likely to find it.

How Many Keywords Should You Put on a Page?

Your website's keyword density should be in the range of 1-3%. This will ensure that you can optimize your rankings without getting penalized for keyword stuffing.

Get Your Business on Google Discover

Google Discover is designed to direct potential customers to relevant search results. The service uses automated software programs to analyze a user's past searches. In order to optimize your website for Google Discover, it's important to post highly informative content, effective images, and video tutorials on your site.

Improve Your Local Rankings

It's important to make sure that you attract potential customers who are located in your area. This means ensuring you optimize your local search rankings by including the name of your city, county, or larger geographic region in some of your website's keywords.

2. Gather Backlinks

Not only can backlinks direct potential customers to your landing page, but they can also improve your search rankings. However, if the links are posted on sites with a poor reputation, they could actually be harmful to your rankings. Here are a few tips that can help you evaluate whether or not a backlink is likely to be beneficial to your reputation on the web:

1. Look at the link's toxicity score.
2. Determine whether or not the website is credible.
3. Consider whether or not the site contains relevant content to your brand.
   

Post Relevant Content With the Link(s)

It's always important to ensure that your links are posted along with a paragraph or two of relevant, informative content that includes a call to action. This will ensure that the messages are not flagged as spam and will help keep potential customers engaged.

3. Create a Survey or Quiz

Creating a questionnaire is one of the best lead generation ideas to consider in 2022. Here are a few ideas for survey questions:

1. Ask customers what they use your products for.
2. Ask customers if they would refer a friend to your business.
3. Ask customers how they found out about your business.
   

4. Create an Effective Blog With Exclusive Content

One of the best lead generation strategies is creating informative blog content for your target audience. However, it's important to post regularly. In fact, most digital marketing experts recommend creating a new blog post for your website at least a couple of times a week. In addition, you might want to consider creating a section of your blog that's only accessible to subscribers.

5. Promote Your Brand on Social Media

Social media marketing is more important than ever in 2022, and it's important to have a strong presence on multiple platforms. However, it's important to know which ones to focus on. Companies that offer their services mostly to other business owners should concentrate on LinkedIn and other professional networking platforms.

However, brands that primarily focus on business-to-customer (B2C) marketing should choose platforms that are designed for a general audience. Two examples of these sites are Facebook and Twitter. Here are a few other tips that can help you find the right social media platform(s) for your unique brand:

1. Choose platforms with social media communities that are relevant to what your brand offers.
2. Consider the typical age range of the social media platform's user base, and determine whether or not it's well-suited to your brand.
3. Look for posts related to the products you offer on any social media platform you're considering using.
   

Use Imagery to Improve Your Brand's Reputation on Social Media

A picture is worth a thousand words on social media, and many experts feel that it's one of the most important content marketing strategies. While some platforms are more image-oriented than others, you should always try to include imagery with some of your posts. Here are a few tips that can help you pick the right pictures for your brand's social media page(s):

1. Post photos of new products that you offer.
2. Upload a photo of your company's team.
   

6. Offer a Rewards Program or Giveaway

Offering loyalty points is one of the best ways to attract and retain customers in 2022. If you don't want to use a point system, there are many other creative ways to generate leads by offering discounts to repeat customers. Many business owners swear by this method, which could be an effective, creative lead generation strategy for your brand.

7. Stay in Touch With Previous Clients

In most cases, your conversion rates will be much higher than usual when you're reaching out to past clients. Thus, most marketing experts recommend contacting them with email, physical mail, SMS messages, and even phone calls.

8. Build an Effective LinkedIn Profile

If your brand focuses primarily on business-to-business (B2B) marketing, your LinkedIn profile could be one of your most effective lead generation tools. Here are a few tips that can help you build your network on this platform:

1. Join communities for business owners in your industry.
2. Always reach out to former or current associates
3. Encourage clients to post reviews on LinkedIn.
   

9. Send Out Promotional Emails

Promotional emails can be an effective way to reach out to your target market. Not only can these messages generate leads for your business, but they can also improve customer retention. That's because previous customers will be aware of any new products or services you offer.

However, you should never send them to an email address that isn't on your subscriber list. That's because this would be considered spam, which violates the CAN-SPAM Act. So, sending out bulk, unsolicited emails is not an effective marketing strategy. In addition, you should always include contact information in the messages. This will ensure that potential customers who have questions about your brand's offerings can reach out to you.

10. Offer Useful Information to Potential Customers

In order to gather leads online, you'll need to establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Here are a few creative ways to generate leads by offering information to potential customers:

1. Create animated video tutorials for your products.
2. Post blog articles about products that haven't been released yet.
3. Help potential customers better understand your products' specs by posting informative blog content.
   

11. Use Pay Per Click Ads

Starting a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign can make it easy to gather leads fast. The advertisements are either placed at the top of search results pages or next to the content on websites. You can also purchase PPC ads for social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Here are a few tips that can help you launch an effective PPC campaign for your product or service:

1. Use effective imagery for your PPC ads.
2. Ensure that the text in these ads is short and simple.
3. Choose high-traffic keywords for your PPC ads.
   

12. Offer a Competitive Employee Benefits Package

Offering a comprehensive benefits package is one of the most creative ways to generate leads, and it works. Many people are more likely to do business with a company that treats its employees well. Here are a few innovative ideas for employee benefits.

1. Offer health coverage to part-time employees
2. Consider offering legal and life insurance
3. Offer a retirement package
   

E-Marketing Associates Can Help You Get More Leads

As digital marketing professionals with more than 20 years of experience, we can effectively promote your business online. Just tell us your goals, and we will work with you to design a plan to deliver results. For more articles and ideas on how to grow your business, subscribe to our weekly small business marketing newsletter today!