10 best ways to find leads online

On average, organizations generate nearly 2,000 leads a month and nearly 90% of that is from online lead generation. As a business, you need to channel your resources into finding high-quality leads online. 

Unfortunately, many businesses focus on just getting contacts and random leads online, so converting them becomes an even higher expense. This post will show you how to acquire sales-qualified leads online for long-term business growth.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is simply the process of identifying your ideal customer profile and getting their data so you can further build a relationship with them. 

Since the process of converting from a prospect to a customer takes time, especially for B2B companies, the data collected is a great way to start a conversation, tailor your offerings to their needs, and stay in touch until they convert into actual paying customers.

How to generate leads online

The most important rule in generating leads online is to not buy contact lists. They are often generic, not verified, and most likely not people who will purchase your product/service. Instead, find high-quality prospects using any of the following methods; 

1. Launch a cold outreach campaign on social media

Your customers are on social media and for B2B businesses, they are most likely very active on Linkedin and Twitter. Rather than sending emails and hoping they interact with them, take the initiative to find them and build a relationship on these networking channels. 

To generate leads on Linkedin, you can do this manually by using the search function to find people in specific industries, locations, companies, or based on job titles.  

‍

LinkedIn groups are also a great way to answer questions and spark conversations that will position your brand as a thought leader. 

Generating leads on Twitter is also similar. Simply use the Twitter advanced search to find prospects. Engage with their content, leave comments, and build a relationship from there on.

These are not feasible options especially if you want to generate a large number of leads on LinkedIn and Twitter. So instead, use a tool like lemlist designed to help you find these users, send automatic connections that won’t get you banned, send messages, leave comments and so much more. 

2. Use webinars to educate and capture

The conversion rate for B2B webinar attendees is 55% which is why you should be taking advantage of this method. Provide an opportunity for your prospects to ask questions and learn, you can position your business as a solution. 

Start by doing research on what topics your ideal customer profile would most engage with. Next, flesh out the topic and create a very engaging landing page that communicates the benefits of the session. It’ll also be to capture their details for follow-up. 

After this, build a relationship during the webinar by asking questions and nudging them to ask their questions. Remember that this period, your end goal is to educate so don’t start pitching your product. Instead after following up post-webinar, you can then introduce your business.

Also, after the event, you can host the webinar on your website for future prospects who might be interested in the topic. Provide an option for them to download it in exchange for their contact information.

3. Offer free valuable content and tools

Everyone likes free stuff that can help them at work. So think about content at the intersection of what you do and what they need. For example, if your customers love to use statistics and data, they will love a resource like industry reports. 

Work with your team to create free templates, whitepapers, infographics or even a free tool. To allow your prospects access to this content or tool, use a lead generation form to collect and verify their details. 

With their consent, you can include them in your email marketing campaigns and nurture them until they convert. 

4.  Set up tripwire lead-gen PPC funnel

Setting up tripwire funnels with PPC ads is a great way to attract high-quality leads. While you’re still offering a resource that’ll alleviate their pain points, the difference here is that it is low-priced. 

So we recommend using digital products like ebooks, mini-courses, and similar resources since they offer instant value. Just make sure you include irresistible items when creating it so that the low price will look like a steal and make it even more valuable. 

Once you have your product, create highly targeted and compelling ads that’ll link to a personalized landing page for lead capturing. After getting the resource, you will have already set workflows designed to upsell to these leads. 

Since it’s ads, you want to constantly track and optimize them to get the best ROI. So evaluate everything - the copy, resource, ads, landing page, and even pricing.

5. Become a thought leader on YouTube 

If your business model requires you to have a consultation with a client, investing in your YouTube channel is a great place to start. Create a video answering all the questions potential clients might have and then reel them into your sales funnel by offering a consultation they can book using your link. 

DM Mortgages is a real-estate business that targets homeowners or first-time property buyers. To reach people who are already interested in their service, they created a YouTube channel offering advice. 

‍

They then link to their website and offer consultation services to capture these leads. This already positions them as a thought leader in the real estate business and keeps them at the top of mind for their prospects

6. Optimize your business with SEO 

For starters, if you’re a SAAS company, add your product on review sites and listings like Product Hunt and G2. This is because many prospects go there to decide on options for their needs. So include your value proposition, software images, and more. 

Then nudge your current satisfied customers to leave positive reviews that will boost your credibility and ranking.

You should also invest in SEO content. Do this by identifying high-volume keywords that are related to your B2B business. Then using these keywords, optimize your homepage and landing pages to improve your ranking on search engines.

We also recommend creating informative blog posts that address your ideal client’s challenges and that’ll showcase your expertise as a business.

7. Partner with other complementary businesses 

Partnering with complementary businesses can help you reach more prospects and acquire more leads. A great example is Hubspot’s Academy and Chatfuel’s partnership. By creating a mutually educative resource for one campaign, both companies generated leads and got conversions.

To replicate this for your B2B business, identify your ideal partners. Look out for businesses that complement yours but don’t directly compete with you. Then together develop valuable content and marketing campaigns that will feature both of your solutions. 

Once you launch the campaign, use each other’s resources to reach an even wider audience. This could be social media pages, email marketing lists, communities and so much more. 

During this campaign include UTM parameters in your links so you can track the leads generated from this partnership. Over time, you can also use it to analyze what is working and what isn’t to improve your collaboration terms. 

8. Post your templates on Pinterest

While B2C companies mostly focus on using Instagram to generate leads, B2B and SAAS companies use Pinterest. For example, if your business creates multiple templates, you can add them there and get links back to your platform. 

Formplus is a form-building software that offers form templates to generate leads. In addition to its template pages, the company has a Pinterest account that links to these templates.

So people looking for inspiration find these templates and use the software to edit them. 

9. Answer questions on Quora and other discussion forums

People go on Quora and other discussion forums to get solutions, especially around work. So it’s a great chance to build thought leadership. Answer questions that are related to your business and link back to your platform as a solution. 

An example is how this finance coach is reeling in leads by answering questions relating to finance on Quora.

Businesses that also use Quora ads have seen up to 4x more conversions. So you can experiment with running these ads and measuring how effective they are for your business. 

10. Invest in lead-generation software

There’s only so much you can do manually. To increase your efficiency and scale your lead generation, you need to invest in lead generation software like lemlist. These tools help you automate manual tasks like targeting high-quality leads, capturing them, verifying their contact information and even the initial contact you make. 

Depending on what option you choose, you can create automated campaigns to ensure they are sales-qualified to improve your sales conversion rates. With a lead generation software, your sales team can focus on closing deals rather than prospecting. 

It also offers valuable data analytics and insights to help you improve campaign performance, understand lead behavior and improve your strategy for increased ROI. 

Conclusion

Finding high-quality leads might seem like a lot at first, but investing in the channels you know your ideal customers use and providing valuable resources is what will get them interested in what you have to offer. 

But pairing these tactics with an AI-powered tool that’ll help you find an ideal buyer using advanced filters and search is a sure way to widen the top of your sales funnel. Learn more about it here.