Leads Generation Guide

THE EXECUTIVE’S GUIDE
Top 10
The Science of Generating
Online Leads

Contents
1. Use social proof in your marketing and sales.
2. Get your business information listed in right places online.
3. Commit to creating content for prospects and customers.
4. Calls-to-action and landing pages covert leads.
5. Social media as a lead generation tool.
6. Use email marketing to close more customers.
7. Marketing automation tools save time and money.
8. Use mobile marketing to reach more people.
9. Measure all initiatives using analytics.
10. Invest in technology and software.

1 OF 10
Use social proof in your
marketing and sales.
What works best?
Using various types of social proof is most effective. What’s
great about digital marketing is you can test and iterate quickly
to find what will work best for your business.
In the battle for customer attention in a world flooded with
competition. Is there a truly cost-effective way to generate
more leads and sales? Social proof is still a relatively
untapped goldmine in the age of the social web. What is
social proof? In short, It’s the positive influence created
when someone finds out that others are doing something.
A
B
B
B
Types of social proof
C
A) Celebrity social proof: Up to 25% of U.S. TV commercials have
used celebrities, however this is too costly for most businesses.
B) Wisdom of crowds: Highlighting popularity, large numbers of
customers or online reviews implies many people are satisfied
with your products and services.
C) Customer social proof: Use client testimonials, success stories
and case studies to show real world examples of what your
product or service can do for people.
D) Wisdom of friends: Learning from friends through the internet
is likely the top form of social proof in terms of 1:1 impact and
potential to grow virally. Dropbox has perfected this.
E) Expert social proof: Approval from a credible expert, like a
magazine or blogger, can have incredible digital influence.
C
E
D
E

2 OF 10
Get your business information
listed in right places online.
Where to sign up
Focus on the most popular platforms first: Google, Yelp, Bing,
Yahoo, Yellow Pages, CitySearch, Localeze and Superpages.
Simply having your business listed and appropriate
information completely filled out on popular search
engines and directories will make it easier for prospects to
find and reach your business no matter where they are
searching from.
FREE
Do it your self
While doing it your self is free, each platform takes roughly 20
minutes to complete. You should prepare your self for a lot of
copying and pasting.
Moz.com/local
$50 PER YEAR
Use an online tool
If you’d prefer to manage your listings from one locations and
easily push your information to major data aggregators at one
time, we recommend using Moz Local to get the job done
quickly.

3 OF 10
Commit to creating content for
prospects and customers.
A
B
C
Intelligent marketers are realizing traditional marketing is
no longer effective. With content marketing, businesses
create and distribute valuable, relevant and consistent
content to attract and acquire prospects and leads – with
D
the objective of driving profitable customer action. It
focuses on owning media, not renting it.
The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we,
as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable
information to buyers, they ultimately reward us
with their business and loyalty.
E
F
Effective forms of content
A) Ebooks & Whitepapers
E) Blog Posts
B) Surveys & Studies
C) Infographics
F) Email Newsletters
G) Photos & Videos
G
H
D) Webinars & Presentations
H) Social Media Updates

4 OF 10
Calls-to-action and landing
pages covert leads.
Want to convert people on your website into measurable
leads? That’s where calls-to-action (CTAs) and landing
pages come in. Using CTAs you direct website traffic to a
specific content offer on your website called a landing
page. To make sure you’re doing everything to optimize
your CTAs and landing pages for conversions, follow the
best practices below.
Visitors
A
B
E
F
1. Someone visits your website or blog.
C
2. They click on a
CTA which sends
them to a specific
landing page.
D
I
A) Attention grabbing, interesting headline
B) Relevant, supporting visual
C) Bright, obvious button for visitors to click
D) No top navigation on landing page
E) Action oriented headline that matches CTA copy
F) Sub-header that explains the content’s value proposition
G) Concise, search engine optimized copy
H) Relevant, supporting visual that matches CTA
I) Lead information capture area (should be linked to CRM tool)
J) No “submit form” button copy
K) Trust symbols that establish credibility with visitors
L) Be sure landing page is optimized for mobile devices
K
G
H
Copyright © 2014 Your Business
3. Your lead form should be
linked to your CRM tool, so when
visitors complete the form, they
become a lead you can nurture.
J
L
Leads

5 OF 10
Social media as a lead
generation tool.
B
A
Did you know social media is one of the most effective
C
D
E
ways to generate leads? In fact, you can generate more
F
leads for far less money compared to traditional channels.
G
While there are certainly nuances for each social network,
to ensure your social networks are optimized for lead
generation follow the best practice on the right.
When posting on social media, use a mix of direct and
indirect lead generation content. Direct content are things
like guides and checklists that directly generate leads.
Indirect content are photos, blog posts, videos and thirdparty
content that are used with the goal of educating or
entertaining followers to create opportunities future to
convert them in the future with direct content.
Lastly, be sure your social accounts don't seem like they
are managed by a robot, you need to engage and interact
with your audience if you want to be successful on social
media. Make sure responses to follower comments and
shares are timely and personalized.
Social Media
- BEST PRACTICES -
A) Engaging header image (if social network allows one).
B) Your logo as your profile picture or avatar.
C) Company name as the user/profile name with complete
descriptions and contact information.
D) Appropriately frequent posts.
E) Call out relevant users in posts. This can be accomplished by
typing “@“ before typing their user name.
F) Shortened links that you can measure and track clicks.
G) Use high quality, engaging and visual content in your posts
to capture attention in followers’ news feeds.

6 OF 10
Use email marketing to close
more customers.
PRO TIP
If you have never done email marketing, we
highly recommend MailChimp. It is free, has
great features and is easy to use.
Email marketing is the quickest, most direct way to
communicate with leads and customers. It empowers you
to reach your most valuable audience and build stronger
relationships with them over time by moving conversations
about your business to a more personal location (their
inbox)
A
B
D
C
Staying in your leads’ and customers’ inboxes will keep
your business relevant and top of mind which works to
convert leads and create post-purchase value to help
facilitate repeat sales.
E
A) Catchy, concise and clear subject line.
B) Recognizable “from” name and email address.
C) Opt-in only lists..
D) Company branding
E) Compelling, scannable copy.
F) At least one call-to-action
G) Social sharing links
H) Optimized for mobile devices.
I) Add to address book and unsubscribe links
I
F
G
H

7 OF 10
Marketing automation tools
save time and money.
There are countless automation tools online that allow you
to schedule series of emails and social media posts. This
allows you to do weeks, even months of continuous
marketing in just a couple of hours. It is one of the best
ways for you to save time and money on digital marketing.
1. Use social management tool like Buffer or HootSuite.
2. Spend 1-2 hours per week “scoping” (curating your
content and content from around the web) put post
ideas into a document for future reference.
3. Put content in management tool for future posting
on appropriate networks.
4. Analyze each networks’ analytic tools every other
week to make adjustments and maximize ROI.
Social Media
There are some great online tools you can use for free that
allow you to manage, schedule and post to multiple social
networks from one location while providing useful analytics
and insights.
Email Marketing
Most email marketing tools allow you to schedule one time
emails as well as series of emails called a “workflow.”
For example, every time someone downloads a specific
ebook, you can automatically send 12 emails every 30 days for
one year with any copy and content you’d like. This
significantly reduces the time needed to nurture leads.
1. Segment your email lists based on lead or customer
type, behaviors, interests and engagement.
2. Target email content base on audience persona that
you create for different lists.
3. Create each email that will be used in your workflow.
You can create different workflows for different lists.
4. Analyze results and optimize low performing emails
for better results.
5. Scale your workflows over time with new content.

8 OF 10
Use mobile marketing to reach
more people.
Mobile Lead Generation
- - TIPS & IDEAS -
According to Delloitte’s mobile influence report, $159
billion in retails sales were influenced by mobile in 2012
and that number is growing.
When most people hear mobile marketing, they think app.
While that’s a great thing to give prospects and customers,
you should probably start with your mobile strategy,
specifically responsive design. This will create an optimal
viewing experience for your website and blog on mobile
phones, tablet, laptops and desktop computers.
❖ Keep lead generation forms short.
❖ Design and employ simple calls-to-action with clear,
readable text.
❖ Provide redeemable discounts and customer loyalty
benefits. For example, “review us on Yelp for 10% off.”
❖ Optimize content for mobile screens so that it can be
quickly digested by readers.
❖ Make your contact information clickable on your
website so visitors can easily reach you.
❖ Try a text campaign.“Text this # to receive $15 off.”
Then use the phone numbers you collect to send
offers and discounts in the future.
Doing this makes it easier for visitors to navigate your
website, ensures visitors stay on your website long enough
to convert and even gives your website higher search
engine rankings.
In order to increase your overall lead and customer
conversion rates, you need to optimize your website and
content for mobile devices.

9 OF 10
Measure all initiatives using
analytics.
Metrics You Should Monitor
- CHECKLIST -
Simply put, analytic reporting is a decision making tool for
your business. Using analytics you can measure and
analyze marketing performance to maximize its
effectiveness.
Once you understand your visitors’, leads’ and customers’
behaviors you can optimize your business/marketing to
improve those results.
Instead of setting vague goals, like “increase brand
awareness,” or relying on your gut to decide how well your
ideas are working, use analytic data to dissect campaigns,
and glean true insight into your marketing’s effectiveness
and return on investment.
✓ Number of website visitors
✓ Number of leads generated
✓ Visitor and lead conversion rates
✓ Traffic sources and referrals sources
✓ New visitors vs. returning visitors
✓ Bounce rate and exit pages
✓ Top performing pages and content
✓ User demographics
✓ Search engine and SEO rankings
✓ Email campaign engagement
✓ Social media engagement
While Google Analytics is the go-to option for most
businesses, there are tools like KissMetrics and Hubspot
that allow you to dive deeper into metrics. Every social
network and email platform has analytic tools built in.

10 OF 10
Invest in technology and
software.
If the rest of this guide wasn’t already a good indicator, I
really want to drive this point home: In order for your
business to stay competitive, relevant and most
importantly, in business, you need to start investing more
time and money in technology.
In just the past 5 years you’d be amazed how many tools
have been created for business owners to save time and
money while becoming more efficient at their jobs.
From accounting software that automatically tracks
expenses and prepares your taxes to photo and video
editing tools that can make anyone with a camera look like
a pro. You have plenty of fantastic, usually free, tools at
your disposal.
Finding the right tools starts by understanding your
companies goals. Do you need to foster greater employee
collaboration or do you simply want to start accepting
credit cards in your store? Start with your priorities then
go from there.
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Conclusion
With the internet, search engines, social media and mobile
devices, today’s customers are turning their attention away
from traditional forms of marketing.
Which is why we hope that you were able to take some new
ideas away from this guide that help to spark some new
marketing initiatives. We are 100% positive you’ll be
satisfied with the results!
Your next steps is to prioritize the ideas listed in this guide
based your company’s goals and needs and get started as
soon as possible.
“THE COST OF BEING WRONG
IS LESS THAN THE COST OF
DOING NOTHING.” - Seth Godin

10
Ways To
GENERATE
LEADS Online

NUMBER ONE
Create opt-in
content offers
1

The easiest way to
generate subscribers and
leads is to create opt-in
content offers.
Email Series
Authoritative eBooks
Opt-in offers should
require visitors to enter
their contact information
to access the offer.
Videos & Webinars
Original Research
Checklists & Guides
Case Studies
Here are some examples:
Product Demo
Content Upgrades

NUMBER TWO
Use combination
of content offers
& opt-in forms
2

Using multiple opt-in
options on your site gives
you a higher chance of
converting visitors into
subscribers and leads.
Aside from opt-in content
offers, add opt-in forms
to your top performing
Test variations of opt-in forms:
Hello Bar, PopUps, SlideUps and
PopOvers.
pages like your blog,
home and about us
pages.

NUMBER THREE
Use CTAs to
direct traffic
ThisWay!
3

If you want to generate
more leads, you need to
strategically place
enticing calls-to-action
on your website.
Use these calls-to-action
to direct website and
blog visitors to your
offers and opt-in forms.

NUMBER THREE
Build effective
landing pages
4

Landing pages are
specific locations that you
send website traffic.
✓ Get strait to the point
✓ Use contrasting colors
✓ Use your logo & branding
✓ Avoid visual clutter
✓ Use proper formatting
✓ Add social proof
Your landing pages
should include an opt-in
form and content offer
to convert visitors into
subscribers and leads.
✓ Keep landing pages consistent

NUMBER THREE
Capture the
right information
5

Collecting basic contact
info on your landing
pages like names and
emails are mandatory.
But you also need to
consider other
information that your
landing pages need to
collect so you can
effectively qualify and
prioritize leads.
Hubspot is a B2B company. Which is why
they ask leads for website URL, job title
and business challenges.

NUMBER THREE
Utilize autoresponders
6

Autoresponders are
simply automated emails
that are sent after an optin
form has been
completed.
It’s a great way to drive
leads to other relevant
Decision stage content offers like
buying guides and product demos
should always include links to speak
with your sales team.
offers and move them
through your sales
funnel.

NUMBER THREE
Optimize thank
you pages
7

After a website visitor
opts-in, they need should
be brought to a “thank
you page.”
Use this page to provide
the content they
requested, encourage
social sharing and
include a secondary CTA
to send them to a relevant
As a management consulting firm, we
use our Thank You pages to connect
new subscribers with our consultants
for a confidential discussion about
their business challenges.
offer.

NUMBER THREE
Consider an
online contest
8

Online contests are a
great way to collect a
large number of
contacts quickly.
Providing a consolation
prize in the form of a
Base your contest on content
submissions like photos and
videos to crowd-source content
from your audience like Starbucks
cup contest.
discount will convert
contest entries who
didn’t win.

NUMBER THREE
Use a CRM tools
to manage leads
9

A customer relationship
management (CRM) tool
allows you to collect and
store information on
prospects, leads and
customers.
This will help prioritize
your pipeline, utilize
closed loop reporting as
well as better align
marketing and sales.
If possible, integrate your
marketing software and CRM
tool, so they can easily share
lead intelligence.

10
NUMBER THREE
Align marketing
& sales teams

The most important thing
to do is create a Service
Level Agreement (SLA).
Here’s a few bright ideas:
✓ Enable and promote marketing/
sales communication
✓ Measure and hold teams
accountable
✓ Define how you will qualify and
handoff leads
✓ Identify actions that represent
sales-ready leads
A SLA defines the average
amount of leads
marketing has to send the
sales team every month,
as well as how many leads
generated by marketing
the sales team will work
with each month.