6 Nuggets of Wisdom to Help You Devise a Lead Generation Strategy

Lead generation is not a project that you approach lightly.

In fact, it's not a project at all. 

You see, projects normally have a start date and an end date, and effective lead generation is continuous. 

In order to ensure a steady stream of leads each month, it's important that you put a strategy in place that supports sustained growth. 

The follow 7 quotes serve as guiding principles behind the implementation of a lead generation strategy that hits all the right notes. 

6 Nuggets of Wisdom to Help You Devise a Lead Generation Strategy:

1. "Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days." - Zig Zaglar [Tweet this]

It's no secret that lead generation relies heavily on high quality content marketing to facilitate conversions. 

Trouble is, many marketers attempt to put the cart before the horse. They argue that they don't have enough time to create content, yet they are easily frustrated when their lead generation efforts fall flat. 

In order to get your numbers up, you need to focus your time and resources on building out a library of resources that can be used to drive conversions first. (The leads will follow.) 

As for the time crunch, don't let it derail your plan. If you're just starting out, try curating some content rather than starting from scratch. 

For example, you can create a blog post with little heavy lifting by simply rounding up and organizing a list of the "Top 20 [insert industry here] Influencers to Follow on Twitter Right Now" or "10 [insert industry here] Blogs You Should Be Reading."

2. "The lead generation process starts by finding out where your target market ‘lives’ on the web.” – Wayne Davis [Tweet this]

Your lead generation initiatives mean very little if no one is finding them. 

Before you start throwing CTAs out there in the wild, set aside some time to research where your ideal audience is actually spending their time online. 

If you have well-developed buyer personas, now is a good time to pull them up. 

Let's say, for example, that you know Maggie the Marketer subscribes to The HubSpot Blog, Copyblogger, and The Convince & Convert Blog. If Maggie is getting these updates in her inbox every morning already, wouldn't it be valuable for you to inquire about a guest blogging opportunity?

That could be you in her inbox.

3. "Having calls to action that go beyond contact us help to make a site successful." - Bernie Borges [Tweet this]

Too often we hear prospects complain that they aren't generating enough leads, yet their website only employs one call-to-action.

Usually it's hard to find, unclear, or promoting an action (request a consultation/free trial) that people simply aren't ready to commit to right off the bat. 

In order to warm people up, it's critical that you have blog content and gated resources like webinars, ebooks, and whitepapers that aim to educate people in exchange for their contact information. 

4. "Nobody wants a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole." - Len Markidan [Tweet this]

Getting a visitor to click on your CTA is a step in the right direction, however, if the page it carries them too is weak, it essentially means nothing. 

Sure, clicks are cool, but at the end of the day, conversions fill the funnel.

To ensure conversions, you'll need to employ highly persuasive landing page copy that makes it hard for visitors not to convert.

Like Markidan's quote suggests, people don't care about your product or service as much as they care about what it can do for them. 

They don't want your marketing automation software, they want more conversions on their website. Make sense?

When writing landing page copy, focus on benefits rather than features. 

5. “Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you” - Mark Cuban [Tweet this]

Don't alienate your mobile visitors.

Considering 40% of people will choose another result if it is not mobile friendly, failing to create mobile responsive pages will put you at a serious disadvantage. (Source: iAcquire) 

 If that's not reason enough to get you motivated, you should know that 70% of mobile searches lead to action on websites within one hour. 

 Yup. One hour. 

6. “It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic.” -Jeff Eisenberg [Tweet this]

Converting the visitors that you already have is far more logical than struggling to double your traffic.

 (It's more cost effective too.)

In order to do so, you should start be identifying gaps on your website. What is keeping people from converting? Where are you missing opportunities?

Work towards making the conversion process as painless as possible. There are a ton of small considerations that have a serious impact on a visitor's decision making.

For example, if you don't need to ask for 10 form fills, don't.