It's no secret that lead generation is difficult, whether in person or online. Sending cold emails and scraping together lists can be difficult because, well, people don't want to take the time out of their schedules to chat.

What if you could reach your lead generation goals using methods that actually add value for your prospects? And what happens when traditional lead generation methods no longer work?

This lead generation ideal we’re describing is a possibility. To walk you through achieving this for your business, we've detailed several creative ways you can add to your lead generation strategy. These ideas provide valuable information that helps prospects rather than simply pushing them to make a purchase.

So without further ado, let's unpack our top creative lead generation ideas to spark activity on your content offers, email lists, websites, conversion rates and more.

1. Share success secrets

Want to provide unique value in your content? The best way to do this is to reach out to the thought leaders/ high achieving individuals in your industry or even your company and interviewing them. By interviewing an expert, you are able to uncover their secrets and must-knows for your area of business, proving to potential customers that you're dedicated to delivering the best advice and insight possible.

2. Leverage the power of customer reviews

When you encourage customers to leave reviews on a third-party platform — like TrustPilot, Yelp or Google — you increase the chances of being found by qualified prospects in search, without paying a dime. SEO GOLD! Why? Because Google recognises the independent role of these sites in helping people find what they’re looking for and seems to favour review sites in search engine results.

So how so SEO influence/ increase lead generation? More than 3.5 billion people are online and the majority of these people use Google to find the businesses, products and services they want. The searches these people carry out ensure they are keen to purchase there and then. If your website is optimised with the correct keywords and phrases, you will appear on their searches which makes you in the right place, at the right time... enabling you to catch their interest right away.

Also ask customers to leave reviews on your website and social media pages like Facebook, LinkedIn etc. Again, this is SEO GOLD you can't be missing out on if you want to reach your target audience and increase business like never before. Not sure how to ask for reviews? Check out our blog 'Should You Encourage Your Customers to Leave Reviews?' - there you will find some tactics that will help you build social proof online, whether that's on your website, social media or third party platforms.

3. Create helpful videos to solve issues for your target audience

You should be creating all kinds of content, things like social media posts with images, blogs, downloadable content, eBooks etc. One of the top forms of content you should be producing is video content. Creating helpful videos that explain how to solve a real problem commonly found in your industry, for your target audience/potential customers, in a format that's both entertaining and easy to digest works wonders on lead generation. Have fun with it and be creative, video content is the way forward. Bonus tip: add subtitles to every video you create, publish and post - this is so your videos can be watched by anyone, anywhere, with or without sounds.

4. Host a giveaway

Giveaways are one of the most successful forms of lead generation. However, a giveaway can also result in a bunch of junk leads and waste your time if not done properly. So how can you offer a giveaway the correct way? Make sure what you're giving away is something your target audience wants. So make sure you understand who you're reaching out to and what your target audience wants, then utilise that information in your giveaways.

5. Offer a deep-dive answer for a tough question

You can find the answer to any question you have on the internet, right? But how many good/ accurate answers are out there? By taking the time to create in-depth content - whether that's blogs, step-by-step articles, eBooks etc - that answers a burning question for your prospect serves as an opportunity to generate more leads than ever before. After all, the company that provides the best answers will often get your business, right? It's the same for everyone else, don't overcomplicate it.

6. Create a list of useful tools or resources

It's easy to brag about the things you and your business can offer, but when you take the initiative and explore other helpful resources your audience could be using, it proves you prioritise their success over your own self-promotion, and this works incredibly well on your lead generation. Why? In return, you attract the kind of audience that's looking for solutions like yours — which gives you the potential to drive leads. 

7. Offer a free trial or a freemium product

Free trials of a service you provide or a free product to introduce new things happening in your business help get a prospect's foot halfway through the door. If the free trial or the freemium product helps them and provides great value, they're more likely to purchase the full product and become a customer. Therefore, improving lead generation.

8. Compile real-life examples with actionable takeaways

A list of best practices or real-life examples in your area of business is an excellent way to drive prospects to a guide or offer where they can opt-in (generating leads). As long as your list has valuable takeaways, it'll work for your lead generation - we promise.

9. Create a template to simplify an everyday task

There are certain templates you use every day in business — employee schedule, content calendar, market research sheets — that can be a pain to build yourself. If you're looking for lead generation ideas, creating those templates for your customers is a great way to begin a strong relationship that can end in the prospect buying your product and/or service.

10. Offer a handy checklist

Now this links nicely to our next idea, offering a handy checklist to your target audience. Who doesn't have a running to-do list that sometimes gets a little bit too long? If you're planning an upcoming webinar, you can be sure there's a lot that goes into it. So why not create a handy checklist that your audience can download and use to make sure they don't miss anything ever again.

Final thoughts

Whichever lead generation strategy you experiment with next, the foundation of them all is to make sure the content is useful to your audience. Useful= them returning to your website again and again. Give at least 2 of these a try over the next couple weeks and let us know how you get on. For any help or advice, contact us TODAY.