Lead generation

Lead generation is a marketing process that involves capturing and stimulating people’s interest in a specific product or service to develop a sales pipeline. This process involves various marketing techniques designed to spark consumer interest in a business's offerings, ultimately increasing the number of prospects and converting them into loyal customers.

In this video, Alex covers different lead generation tools. Watch it to get inspired!

Why is lead generation important?

Lead generation is an integral process for business development and growth. Each business and marketing strategy covers this aspect. Below, you can unveil why.

• Company growth. By converting prospects into paying customers, you contribute to the overall growth of your business and your revenue. Effective lead generation helps you reach more potential clients and encourage them to purchase your products.
• Cost efficiency. Unlike traditional advertising, inbound marketing strategies prevent you from spending significant upfront costs. They enable you to save costs and allocate them to other areas of your business requiring close attention.
• Customer insights. Lead generation techniques empower your company’s team with all the necessary data, including customers’ preferences, behaviors, and needs. With these insights at hand, you can improve your marketing strategy, tailor your messages based on this information, and deliver more personalized offers.
• Relationship building. During lead generation campaigns, you can build strong relationships with potential customers so that they will trust and choose your brand over others. Consistent communication and crafted offers will help you interest prospects, provide them with relevant solutions, and encourage them to buy your products.
• Brand awareness. An effective lead-generation strategy can increase brand awareness and visibility. More people will notice your brand, and some might consider purchasing products.
• Market expansion. If lead generation works right, you can reach new markets. By identifying and communicating with the right prospects, your business can diversify its target audiences.

Now, let’s find out how lead generation works.

How does lead generation work?

To apply lead generation correctly, you need to understand how it works first. This section will explain this process briefly.

Within the inbound marketing methodology, lead generation comes in at the second stage. The process unfolds as follows.

• Discovery of a business. A visitor learns about a company via the various marketing channels a brand employs, such as blogs, social media, pages, or business websites.
• A customer clicks on a call to action (CTA). A CTA is a button, message, or image that prompts a potential customer to take action.
• The customer visits a landing page. By clicking on the CTA, the visitor is redirected to a landing page that captures useful information about the lead in exchange for a delightful offer.

Note that the offer refers to something valuable that is provided on the landing page. It could be a course, a template, or an eBook. You can add these lead magnets to subscription forms designed to gather contact data and send email campaigns. These forms can be anywhere on the website but are usually placed on the landing page.

Now, let’s discover what a lead generation process is.

What is a lead generation process?

Lead generation is a complex process requiring close attention and effort for better results. We’ll describe it further in this section.

With lead generation, the marketer aims to warm up target customers and get them on a path that leads to buying. It also involves reaching out to users and converting them into people naturally interested in what a particular brand provides.

Leads are sourced from different avenues. For instance, from personal referrals, telephone calls by telemarketers or the company, events, advertisements, and the internet. According to statistics, 90.7% of companies use their sites, 89.2% of marketers use blogs, 69.2% use email campaigns, and 53.7% of businesses incorporate PPC ads to generate leads.

Lead generation is an essential process for the success, growth, and profitability of every business. Every business owner should know what it is and how it works. However, since people often misinterpret lead generation and demand generation, it is crucial to differentiate the two concepts. So let’s find out their main characteristics.

Demand Generation vs Lead Generation

The two concepts are integral parts of your company’s marketing strategy, but they have different purposes and execution. Below, you can check out the difference between demand generation and lead generation.

Demand generation is the process of driving interest and establishing awareness about your business’ products or services. It stimulates demand and encourages customers to buy these items. For this purpose, marketers use various marketing strategies, including content marketing and social media marketing, different events and webinars, ads and PR, and optimization of the created content. Companies publish educational content, use Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others to build awareness and boost visibility, and run ads using search engines and social media platforms to establish brand recognition.

You can measure demand generation using the following metrics: brand awareness, website traffic, social media engagement, content downloads and views, event attendance, and others. These indicators will help you assess the demand for your product or service.

Lead generation is the process of capturing prospects and converting them into clients using a sales funnel. It targets specific audience segments interested in your product or those needing it. To achieve these goals, companies build dedicated landing pages with subscription forms to gather leads’ contact data, send targeted email campaigns with offers, add lead magnets to get new subscribers, use paid ads, and add CTAs to encourage prospects to take the desired action.

You can pay attention to the number of leads generated, conversion rate, cost per lead, lead quality and scoring, email open and click-through rates, and many others to evaluate the effectiveness of your lead generation strategy.

Shortly put, demand generation focuses on establishing brand awareness and interest while lead generation aims at capturing the contact data of prospects. The two processes also strive for different outcomes: demand generation seeks brand awareness, engagement, and site traffic, while lead generation helps attain more qualified prospects and higher conversion rates.

Now you know what lead generation is and how it works, but before choosing the strategy, it is important to understand the types of lead generation. Each business should have a personalized approach that works for prospects. So, let’s take a look at them.

Types of Lead Generation

Depending on your business model, target audience, and marketing strategy, you can execute various types of lead generation. In this section, we’ll unveil the most popular of them for you to decide which one is a perfect fit for your business.

B2B Lead Generation

Business-to-business lead generation is the process of attracting potential business clients through various marketing channels and tactics. This type is relationship-driven since company representatives have to search for high-value clients and contact them, building trusting relationships and encouraging them to purchase. They look for customers with the help of social media platforms, particularly LinkedIn and Facebook. When incorporating B2B lead generation, brands apply targeted ads, sponsored content, and direct outreach to decision-makers and industry professionals using the mentioned social media networks.

There are even more channels and marketing strategies companies use to reach decision-makers. They create video content (product demos and customer testimonials), industry events, webinars, trade shows, account-based marketing (targeted outreach and personalized content), partnerships, referral programs, and many others.

B2C Lead Generation

B2C (business-to-customer) lead generation is the process of attracting prospective customers to the company’s products and services and encouraging them to purchase shortly. To capture leads, marketers use various channels and techniques. They create quality educational content addressing consumer needs, share how-to guides, product demos, and customer testimonials, post interactive content on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms, send email campaigns with updates and valuable content, etc.

Inbound Lead Generation

Inbound lead generation implies using content tailored to customer preferences, needs, and problems. These messages are valuable and informative, addressing prospects’ pain points rather than pushing customers toward purchases. This type of lead generation is focused on building strong, trusting relationships with potential customers and providing solutions crafted to their specific needs. This way, you provide value before selling your products.

Inbound marketing involves sharing engaging blog posts, providing valuable resources in exchange for contact data, sending automated email campaigns with personalized offers, hosting webinars and other online events, adding positive customer reviews and testimonials, etc. With highly targeted content and offers, companies are more likely to lead prospects toward action.

Outbound Lead Generation

Outbound lead generation reaches potential customers through advertising, direct mail, phone calls, email outreach, offline events, webinars, and many others. With this approach, brands usually strive to reach specific demographic segments and companies. When done right, outbound lead generation can bring new customers to a business.

For cold calling, marketers develop lists of prospects that match their buyer persona, write a good script with an introduction, value proposition, and a call-to-action, and provide training to the team. All these steps are necessary for effective and successful phone calls resulting in conversions.

Email outreach implies creating personalized email campaigns resonating with prospects’ needs and preferences. Then, marketers send follow-up emails to interact with leads and provide interesting offers.

Online Lead Generation

Online lead generation uses digital channels to attract, reach, and convert prospects. These channels include social media platforms, websites, search engines, webinars, chatbots, referrals, etc. Companies can combine several online channels to reach and resonate with their target audience. Blogging, video content, social media engagement, and email marketing are only a few of the numerous ways to interact with leads and encourage purchases effectively.

When doing online lead generation, companies often use special tools and services for better efficiency. These cover CRM, email marketing services, analytics tools, landing page builders, etc. Consider using LIKE.TG for your lead generation success and have all the mentioned tools at hand.

Offline Lead Generation

Offline lead generation uses traditional non-digital channels to reach prospects. In today’s marketing environment, this approach can be used as complementary to online lead generation techniques as the majority of leads use the internet to search for brands. Offline lead generation channels include trade shows, networking events, direct mail, phone calls, print advertisements, public speaking, community events, seminars, referral programs, and many others.

Now that you know the types of lead generation you can incorporate into your business, it’s time to find out how to do it.

How to do lead generation?

Lead generation can help you reach your goals regarding leads, conversions, and sales. yet it should be executed right for the best results. In this section, we’ll show you how to do lead generation step by step.

1. Define your target audience. Consider creating buyer personas containing details about your ideal customers, covering demographics, behaviors, needs, and concerns. You should also conduct market research to understand the preferred channels, challenges, and needs.
2. Develop high-quality content. To encourage site visits, you need engaging and valuable articles, blog posts, and videos. You can create any content format your audience prefers, such as webinars, blog posts, videos, infographics, whitepapers, ebooks, etc.
3. Optimize your site. Your landing page should contain a clear value proposition, CTA, and subscription form. These elements ensure proper conversion of site visitors into leads and consequently into customers. Ensure that your forms are concise and user-friendly, allowing users to sign up for your email newsletters from laptops and smartphones. Besides, consider optimizing your site for search engines by using the right keywords, improving website speed, writing the right meta descriptions, and improving images.
4. Use social media platforms. Use social media advertising, partnerships with influencers, and social media trends to your advantage. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are perfect for boosting brand recognition, awareness, visibility, and reach. The right social media strategy will help you capture more leads.
5. Leverage email campaigns. Encourage sign-ups by adding lead magnets to subscription forms. It can be anything from free guides and templates to discounts. After site visitors subscribe to your email newsletter, consider sending them automated email campaigns with relevant content and offers resonating with their behavior and interests. You should also personalize your emails by including the recipient’s name, preferences, and past interactions. It will help you improve engagement.
6. Consider using paid advertising. With pay-per-click ads, you can bring more prospects to your website. Search engines, social media networks, video, and e-commerce platforms are the most popular channels to use PPC advertising effectively. You’ll improve visibility, website traffic, and conversions.
7. Collaborate with reputable blogs, opinion leaders, and event organizers. Consider creating guest posts for reputable blogs related to your industry to expand your reach. You can also improve visibility by collaborating with opinion leaders. They can share information about your products in their blogs and recommend them to a wide audience. When collaborating with event organizers, you can participate in various industry events, bringing together businesses and potential customers. It’s a great opportunity to show that your product stands out and attracts more leads.
8. Encourage word-of-mouth promotion. When you provide your existing customers with excellent shopping experiences, seamless customer service, incentives, referral, and loyalty programs, you encourage word-of-mouth promotion. This is the best way to reach qualified leads who are interested in your products.
9. Evaluate performance and improve your lead generation. Consider using analytics tools to assess the performance of your metrics and identify issues. When your lead generation process experiences problems, it’s necessary to review it and adjust.

Besides knowing how to do lead generation, you should also have effective strategies at hand to successfully bring new prospects into your business. That’s why we’ve gathered the best of them into a list.

Well-thought-out lead-generation strategies are essential for attracting new prospects. We’ll provide you with the most effective strategies suitable for different channels.

SEO lead generation

SEO lead generation brings multiple benefits to business owners. It helps boost visibility and organic traffic, spend less for each lead, build trust and credibility, ensure seamless user experience, stand out from the competition, obtain higher ROI, and make data-driven decisions. If you want to implement this strategy into your business successfully, you should do the following:

• use Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to determine relevant keywords with low competition people use;
• include keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and content naturally;
• use ALT tags for images;
• create high-quality, relevant content for different channels;
• focus on earning backlinks;
• ensure mobile-friendly layout;
• constantly explore the latest SEO trends to optimize your website and strategy;
• combine multiple marketing channels;
• use Google Analytics to find out how effective your SEO lead generation strategy is;
• identify areas for improvement after tracking SEO lead generation strategy.

Below, you can see how Zapier creates its blog posts. When users search for the best free CRM platforms, they will instantly notice the company’s article because of its top ranking in Google. It’s mobile responsive and has relevant keywords.

Social media lead generation

Social media lead generation enables you to reach a wider audience, improve engagement, establish brand awareness and trust, effectively distribute content, build visibility, and create communities. You can reach various business goals using platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

Facebook lead generation

Generating leads through Facebook is effective because of its large audience and the advertising options available. You need to implement several steps for more effective and successful lead generation through this social media network. Consider leveraging the tips below for more effective implementation:

• develop a business Facebook page that communicates your brand identity, includes a compelling cover photo and a link to your company website;
• leverage Facebook Lead Ads to gather lead contact data through Facebook;
• write high-quality quality, relevant, and engaging content;
• include appealing visual elements;
• engage in Facebook groups and communities;
• add chatbot to Facebook Messenger to provide instant responses and assistance;
• use Facebook Ads to target the right audience segments;
• improve landing pages users land on after clicking the link in your Facebook bio;
• develop posting schedule;
• maintaining consistent branding across your Facebook page.

Below is an example of Kayak’s Facebook page with the company’s branding, a link to its website, and all the details potential customers need to explore.

LinkedIn lead generation

If you have a B2B business, it’s essential to use LinkedIn to search for leads and attract them with your products and services. The platform provides you with a professional user base and allows you to reach them in various ways, including ads, communities, direct messages, and others.

There’s a list of tips for you to check out:

• share visually appealing and valuable content;
• create professional headlines and compelling summaries;
• share your comments and thoughts under posts from your connections;
• join LinkedIn groups;
• use the platform’s advanced search filters to search for leads based on specific criteria;
• send direct messages to decision-makers with a clear and relevant offer;
• follow up with your connections, help them, and send valuable content;
• use LinkedIn Analytics to adjust your strategy to prospects’ preferences and needs;
• use LinkedIn Ads to target leads that match your buyer persona and product;
• take advantage of LinkedIn’s sponsored content feature.

Below you can check out Amazon’s LinkedIn. Prospects can explore posts with all the necessary information about the company, visit its website, and sign up for events available on the page.

Instagram lead generation

Since Instagram is a visual platform with a vast user base, high engagement capabilities, and various tools, it is a good choice for brands striving to showcase their products. The platform enables effective lead generation using storytelling, multiple advertising options, collaboration with influencers, shoppable posts, giveaways, and others.

Here’s a list of valuable tips once you decide to generate leads through Instagram:

• create Instagram business profile if you don’t have one yet;
• write an engaging bio communicating who you are and what product you offer, and including a clear CTA;
• add a strategic link in the bio leading your potential customers to your landing page;
• use high-quality visuals for your posts, stories, and ads;
• leverage sponsored content;
• provide followers with valuable content;
• create engaging and useful reels;
• use Instagram Stories for your limited-time offers, essential information about your working hours, important announcements, etc.;
• add important Instagram Stories to your highlights;
• collaborate with influencers for product promotion;
• conduct giveaways to attract more leads;
• create a unique hashtag associated with your brand.

Below is an example of a boxing studio conducting a giveaway to reach more potential clients and get comments, likes, and shares.

TikTok lead generation

Using TikTok now is a must due to its growing popularity among young people. The platform offers many benefits for companies, including high engagement rates, various advertising options, user-generated content, and more.

We’ve listed some effective tips for you to consider below:

• create short, engaging videos;
• optimize your TikTok profile by writing a concise and clear bio, including a call to action button and a link to your latest offers;
• create relevant branded hashtags;
• respond to users’ comments under your videos;
• partner with opinion leaders;
• create sponsored content with influencers promoting your special offers;
• user TikTok in-feed ads;
• encourage user-generated content by providing some rewards;
• add lead magnets to your videos;
• promote discounts and special offers for first orders.

In the example below, The New York Times recommends the best restaurants in New Orleans. This information will be useful for travelers or locals exploring new spots.

Email lead generation

Email lead generation is highly effective for gathering contact data of potential customers. When using email segmentation, you can analyze subscribers’ data, including their age, occupation, needs, problems, and behavior, and divide them into groups based on these criteria. Then, you can personalize your email campaigns using the information you have about behavior, items in shopping carts, and product views. This data will help you deliver highly targeted offers. You can add some enticing discounts, promotions, and special deals to encourage action.

You can check out the tips and tricks below to successfully implement email lead generation and have more conversions:

• use limited-time offers;
• add countdown timers to drive fear of missing out;
• write engaging subject lines;
• add a profile photo to look more reliable, credible, and recognizable;
• craft a compelling email copy;
• create attractive lead capture forms;
• add a lead magnet to your subscription form;
• use double opt-in;
• provide valuable content in your emails;
• make your emails feel more personal by adding subscribers’ names and content they are interested in.

Below is an example of a limited-time offer presented as a fullscreen pop-up from SurveyLegend. The countdown timer establishes fear of missing out and encourages users to take action. This is a great lead magnet for a subscription form, allowing you to get site visitors’ email addresses.

Chatbot lead generation

Chatbots can be successfully implemented into your lead generation process because they help provide personalized recommendations, instantly respond to questions, and ensure support 24/7. By strategically placing chatbots on your website or social media platforms, you can interact with users and capture prospects in real time. They assist you with lead qualification, content recommendations, FAQs, automated follow-ups, etc.

Here’s a list of tips for you to consider when using chatbots for lead generation:

• identify criteria for qualifying leads and use your chatbot for lead generation;
• add chatbots to high-traffic pages and set up proactive chatbots when users are about to leave your site;
• craft an appealing opening message;
• ensure instant responses 24/7;
• assist and help when prospects have questions about your product;
• incorporate personalized product recommendations;
• send exclusive offers and discounts for the first purchase through the bot;
• use chatbots for lead scoring;
• collect prospective customers’ contact data through your chatbot;
• send reminders about items in abandoned carts, time-sensitive offers, and upcoming events;
• add a human handoff button to your bot so that leads can talk to human reps.

Below you can see how HubSpot’s chatbot collects email addresses of potential customers in case there’s no sales representative available at the moment.

If you strive to implement these strategies efficiently without overloading your team with tasks, it’s essential to use AI for lead generation. It brings various benefits to your business and team members. You’ll find out about this and more in the section below.

How to use AI for lead generation?

AI for lead generation is the process of using artificial intelligence technologies and algorithms to find, attract, and interact with people who can potentially become leads. AI enables you to automate specific tasks, analyze large amounts of information to identify specific patterns, ensure actionable insights, and contribute to the overall success of your lead generation strategy.

Besides improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability of your marketing efforts, AI carries even more benefits for lead generation. It uses predictive analysis to find out what prospects have the potential to become high-quality leads and allows sales teams to focus on leads who are likely to convert. With lead scoring, AI assigns potential customers scores to assess their likeliness of conversion based on various metrics, including past interactions, behavior, demographics, and engagement. As a result, the company's team can prioritize high-quality leads.

AI also provides leads with personalized content crafted according to their preferences, requirements, pain points, and behavior. It enables you to provide a relevant and engaging experience with your brand, encouraging purchases.

AI for lead generation is very helpful when you know how to apply it right. You can do it only with a special tool. We’ve listed the 10 best lead generation platforms for you to consider because of their ease of use, pricing, and features. So, let’s dive in.

There are many lead generation tools, yet it’s essential to choose based on your business, goals, budget, and skills. We’ll list the best 10 lead generation tools in terms of pricing, features, and user experience.

1. LIKE.TG

LIKE.TG is a powerful all-in-one marketing solution that allows you to generate leads using email campaigns, subscription forms, chatbots, automation, landing pages, pop-ups, and many other tools. Due to its affordable pricing and multiple marketing channels, the service will be a great fit for companies of all sizes.

The platform has a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to create landing pages, email campaigns, chatbots, and subscription forms worry-free without special skills required. You can build subscription forms with lead magnets and add them to your website as a form or web push notification.

The platform offers the following features for pop-ups: overlay, floating, horizontal, video, modal window, and online chat widget forms; 22 pop-up scenarios; pop-up appearance customization; various pop-up target actions; adaptive to all screen pop-ups; a rich library of templates.

Below, you can see how to create a pop-up with LIKE.TG’s drag-and-drop editor.

Pricing: The service offers a free plan covering 10,000 unique visitors monthly, 3 projects, 10 active pop-ups per project, 30+ pop-up launch scenarios, and pre-made pop-up templates. If your business needs more pop-ups, you can buy a paid plan for $ 6.40 monthly if paid annually. It includes 10,000 unique visitors monthly, an unlimited number of projects and pop-ups, 10 domains per project, and Google Analytics.

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster empowers you with lead-capture pop-up forms that grab attention and help convert site visitors into subscribers and, subsequently, into clients. The service provides visually appealing templates, enabling you to create compelling, nonintrusive forms in minutes.

The solution offers the following features: lightbox popups, floating bars, inline forms, scroll boxes, fullscreen overlays, drag-and-drop builder, 300+ designed templates, AI popups, countdown timers, animations, sound effects, and others.

Below, you can find the process of developing a subscription form with OptinMonster.

Pricing: The platform has no free plan, yet you can enjoy its benefits after purchasing a paid plan starting at $9.97 monthly if billed annually. It covers 2,500 pageviews, unlimited subscribers, no subscriber fees, lightbox popups, floating bars, inline forms, scroll boxes, full-screen overlays, page-level targeting, time on site, scroll tracking, etc.

3. HubSpot

HubSpot is a multipurpose solution that generates leads through landing pages, subscription forms, pop-ups, and ads. The platform's drag-and-drop builder enables you to create pop-ups easily without knowledge of the code.

With HubSpot, you can create an embedded, standalone page, pop-up box, dropdown banner, slide in the left box, slime in the left box, and exit-intent pop-up forms. The service allows you to set up your offer to appear based on the user’s behavior and actions. Even more, you can scroll depth time triggers and page targeting to provide a better experience with your brand and boost conversions. Once potential customers give you their email addresses, you can use the platform to send follow-up emails.

Below you can see how to create a subscription form in HubSpot.

Pricing: The service has a free plan enabling you to create an unlimited number of forms. To use other marketing tools from HubSpot, you’ll need to pay $15 monthly, billed annually.

4. Popupsmart

Popupsmart is a multi-channel lead generation solution that automatically captures the information necessary for relevant conversations with your leads. The service allows you to develop multi-step forms, capture leads using personalization, design yes/no forms, and invite users to register for events.

Popupsmart has exit-intent triggers that track cursor behavior and display pop-ups encouraging users to share their contact data and preventing them from leaving. You can also set up your pop-ups to appear when site visitors scroll your page to a specific point. If you have different offers based on prospects’ location, you can leverage the platform’s geolocation feature. It helps you display different campaigns and offers based on leads’ location. You can also use traffic source targeting to provide different options for users from different platforms.

There are also in-activity sensors, smart success, returning visitors retargeting, and device-based targeting. They enable you to target inactive site visitors with relevant digital campaigns that might interest them and encourage action. With the platform, you can display personalized campaigns with enticing offers on any device potential customers use.

Below you can see the process of pop-up creation in Popupsmart.

Pricing: You can start with a free plan covering 1 pop-up and 5,000 pageviews. The paid plans start at $32.5 monthly if billed annually. This plan includes 50,000 pageviews and unlimited pop-ups.

5. Leadpages

Leadpages is a perfect fit for startups because it allows them to build landing pages and forms for turning site visitors into subscribers and eventually converting them into customers. The tool will help you effectively attract more leads with subscription forms.

The service has a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to add custom fields, including drop-downs, radio buttons, reordering fields, and checkboxes. While using the platform, you’ll also enjoy the benefits of field customization, meaning that you can add fields required or not, hidden values, and drop-down field choice label adjustments.

Below is an example of building a lead generation pop-up with Leadpages.

Pricing: The service offers a 14-day free trial. After the trial expires, you’ll need to pay $37 monthly to access all the tools for lead generation, including pop-up forms, alert bars, analytics, and real-time optimization tips.

6. Poptin

Poptin is a platform allowing businesses of all sizes to create pop-ups and forms and send autoresponders to subscribers. With this tool, you can design engaging pop-ups in minutes and attract new prospects without any coding skills.

The service lets you capture leads using Lightbox, gamified, countdown, full-screen overlays, slide-in, social widgets, and top and bottom bar pop-ups. it also provides you with advanced triggers and targeting options, meaning that you can trigger your pop-up forms exit-intent, time delay, scrolling, or on-click. Besides, you can target specific audience segments based on their traffic source, countries, dates, time of day, and specific website pages. Moreover, you can set up your forms to appear only to new users while hiding them from existing customers.

The example below shows how to create a pop-up with Poptin when using a pre-built template.

Pricing: The platform allows you to create an unlimited number of pop-ups and forms for 1,000 visitors monthly for free. If you have a bigger business with more site visitors, you better purchase a paid subscription starting at $20 monthly if paid annually.

7. Claspo

Claspo is a platform that empowers you to design pop-up forms and generate more leads for your business. It is suitable for different business sizes and industries and doesn’t require any special skills or knowledge to use.

The service allows you to create a lightbox, slide-in scroll box, floating bar, inline, informer, fullscreen, content locking, multistep, and launcher pop-ups. You can choose the type and set up display conditions using triggers. There are scroll, exit-intent, click, and JavaScript triggers. The platform lets you set up pop-ups based on UTM parameters, time limits, frequency, and user status (new visitors). With this tool, you can display your email newsletter pop-up only to new subscribers without showing it to those who have already signed up. This way, you’ll prevent annoyance among your existing customers.

Below, you can see how to create a pop-up using Claspo.

Pricing: The service allows you to create 3 active widgets with 30,000 page views. If you need to create more pop-ups for your company, consider buying a paid subscription starting at $8.33 monthly, paid annually.

8. MailChimp

MailChimp is a versatile solution that enables you to create lead-capture forms, send lead-nurturing email campaigns, and use automation to keep up with your prospects. It also offers a website builder, social media tools, and all the necessary analytics and reporting for seamless lead generation.

You can encourage potential customers to subscribe to your company updates and collect contact data by creating subscription forms. The easily customizable subscription forms and pop-ups can be tailored based on your brand style and embedded in your site’s sidebar, footer, or any place you need. Its drag-and-drop builder will help you adjust the layout, text, and images to match your brand style.

With behavior-based triggers, you can craft pop-ups and show them only when users perform specific actions. The tool enables you to create exit intent, time spent on a page, or scroll pop-ups to collect potential customers' data after they explore specific elements of your website. You can also add pop-ups to specific pages of your site and use site visitors’ locations to build more relevant and personalized pop-ups.

In the example below, you can see how to develop a pop-up form using MailChimp.

Pricing: With the platform’s free plan, you can send 1,000 emails to 500 subscribers, one seat, forms, and landing pages. If you need to send more emails, consider purchasing a paid plan that starts at $13 monthly for 500 contacts, 10X contacts email sends, 3 seats, and 3 audiences.

9. Unbounce

Unbounce is a platform for creating AI-powered landing pages. The service offers a drag-and-drop builder and ready-to-go templates to customize your landing page based on your requirements quickly. After building your landing page, Unbounce allows you to design popups or slide-in sticky bars with enticing offers to generate even more leads.

With the dynamic text replacement feature, you can make your pop-ups and sticky bars’ copies match users’ search terms automatically. This allows you to generate more leads and convert them into customers faster. Besides, Unbounce enables you to create two-step pop-up forms. Any image, link, or button placed on your site can easily turn into pop-up forms and show these forms once users click any of the elements.

Moreover, the service helps you create action-triggered pop-ups appearing when site visitors perform specific actions and identify pop-up frequency. When you have some seasonal offers, you can take advantage of scheduling, and pop-ups will automatically emerge at a specific time and date. You can also use location targeting and set up pop-ups for leads in specific countries, regions, or cities.

Below, you can see how to create a lead generation form using Unbounce.

Pricing: There’s no free plan available, but you can instantly start with a paid plan, which will cost you $99 monthly. It covers unlimited landing pages, pop-ups, sticky bars, 20,000 monthly unique visitors, and 1 user.

10. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a service suitable for those who strive to generate leads through forms. It helps business owners encourage site visitors to subscribe to their email newsletter, share freebies, add exit intent pop-ups, and send relevant email campaigns with enticing offers. ConvertKit is a user-friendly service, meaning that no training or skills are needed to start using it.

The platform allows you to build inline, modal, slide-in, and sticky bar forms, provides access to the library of templates, adds custom fields, creates double opt-in, and includes checkboxes for consent.

Below, you can see the process of creating a sticky bar form with ConvertKit.

Pricing: The service offers a 14-day free trial. After the trial period ends, you can purchase a paid subscription starting at $9 per month. This subscription includes unlimited forms, tagging and segmentation, and access to a visual automation builder.

After creating lead capture forms using one of the platforms, you should track and evaluate the performance of your subscription forms, pop-ups, web push notifications, and others. You can do it by tracking the metrics. Since you should know what KPIs exactly to keep an eye on, we invite you to explore the key lead generation indicators.

Lead Generation Metrics and KPIs

Assessing the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts is a must if you want to find out how successful your strategy is. For this purpose, you need to track specific lead generation KPIs. We’ll list the most crucial metrics below, together with formulas, so that you can calculate them for your business.

Total leads generated

This is the total number of prospects obtained during a specific period. You can calculate it by summing all the leads you received during a certain timeframe.

Qualified lead rate

This metric estimates the number of qualified leads — potential customers likely to complete purchases in the future — that the business has obtained. You can calculate it using the following formula.

Qualified Lead Rate = (Number of Qualified Leads / Number of Total Leads) * 100%

Let’s say you have a business with 120 leads, 90 of which are qualified. Let’s estimate your qualified lead rate for these numbers.

Qualified Lead Rate = (90/120)*100 = 75%

So, your qualified lead rate is 75% in this case.

Landing page conversion rate

The landing page conversion rate indicates how effective your landing page is in converting prospects into customers. After estimating this measure, you can easily identify the areas that need your close attention and improvement. Let’s check out the formula to calculate it for your business and evaluate the effectiveness of your landing page.

Landing Page Conversion Rate = (Number of Conversions / Total Site Visitors) * 100

Let’s say you have a startup with 50 website visitors per month, 16 of whom converted into customers. Let’s calculate your landing page conversion rate.

Landing Page Conversion Rate = (16/50) * 100 = 32%

Form conversion rate

Form conversion rate helps find out whether your forms convert leads into customers. This percentage shows the number of site visitors who have completed and submitted forms on your landing page.

Form Conversion Rate = Number of Form Submissions / Total Number of Form Views/Visitors) * 100

Let’s say you have 120 visits, but only 54 visitors completed and submitted your form. So let’s make calculations.

Form Conversion Rate = (54 / 120) *100 = 45%.

Email open rate

Email open rate indicates the percentage of subscribers who open your email campaigns. It helps you evaluate the effectiveness of email campaigns and their elements, including subject lines, timing, sender name, and copy.

Email Open Rate = (Number of Unique Opens / Number of Delivered Emails) * 100

Let’s say your total number of unique opens is 78, while the number of delivered emails is 104. Let’s find out how high your email open rate is.

Email Open Rate = (78 / 104) *100 = 75%.

If you want to achieve good lead generation performance based on the KPIs mentioned above, it’s crucial to use our tips for effective lead generation. It's time to check them out.

12 Lead Generation Tips

Brands have their unique approaches to lead generation. Some of them are very effective but some can also underperform. We’ve listed the best practices for successful lead generation you should consider. You can check them below.

1. Understand your target audience. Consider creating buyer personas defining your ideal customer to understand your customers’ pain points, preferences, needs, requirements, age, demographics, occupations, etc. Segment your leads based on specific criteria for more targeted messages. All these details will help you find the right marketing approach and develop the strategy for attracting and converting these prospects.
2. Optimize your site. Ensure that your site is prospect-friendly. This means that it contains all the necessary elements for lead generation, including clear and visible call-to-action buttons, a clear value proposition, user-friendly subscription forms, and valuable content. Besides, your site should have a mobile-first design because users may visit it from smartphones.
3. Ensure valuable content. Content marketing plays an important role in lead generation. That’s why it’s crucial to provide high-quality educational content that encourages conversions. These blog posts, social media posts, webinars, articles, infographics, and images should resonate with prospects’ needs, problems, and preferences and stimulate website traffic. Consider sharing additional resources like whitepapers, videos, ebooks, guides, and checklists using relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and internal links to take the top positions in search engine results and boost organic traffic.
4. Improve lead capture. Use special deals, discounts, and flash sales to capture more leads. Enticing offers will always be a great reason for potential customers to open your email campaigns, SMS, messages on messengers, etc.
5. Use a lead magnet. This tool offers value to prospective customers in exchange for their details, such as social media follows, opt-ins, and subscriptions. Examples of lead magnets include webinars, free trials, eBooks, whitepapers, bonus trips, interviews with experts, and training videos.
6. Perform lead scoring. This approach involves using marketing automation software to prioritize leads based on their levels of engagement with content.
7. Send personalized email campaigns. When using email marketing to generate leads, make sure to deliver email based on prospects’ behavior and preferences. Automated email follow-ups with relevant and timely content will help you establish strong relationships with leads and encourage them to interact with your brand. For better results, apply segmentation. By dividing potential customers into groups based on specific criteria, you increase the chances of conversions.
8. Engage with leads through social media networks. Share informative content, respond to users’ questions, and actively engage in discussions. To reach a wider audience, you can use paid ads. Sponsored content on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook will help you attract new prospects and invite them to your social media account or website. To showcase your brand reputation and the effectiveness of your products, share customer testimonials, reviews, and case studies.
9. Use paid ads on Google. With Google Ads, you can easily reach users looking for a similar solution. This approach lets you become more visible in search results and invite users to your website. Consider using retargeting to reach leads who have already interacted with your brand but haven’t performed any purchases.
10. Implement referral programs. A referral program will encourage customers to bring their friends to your company. It’s a very effective way of attracting qualified leads ready to make purchases. Ensure that your clients can easily refer new customers and obtain their rewards afterward.
11. Collaborate with influencers and industry experts. Partnering with influencers and industry leaders in your niche enables you to reach a new audience of prospective customers and communicate your message. Since many people trust influencers’ recommendations, this strategy increases the likelihood of more sales. Additionally, you can increase your following list and engagement.
12. Conduct giveaways. Contests and giveaways are excellent ways of capturing new leads and boosting engagement with your social media account. More people comment, like, and share your posts to win the prizes, enabling you to expand your reach, attract more potential clients, and improve your brand visibility.

Now, let’s find out how famous brands use these tips to their advantage and attain their primary lead generation goals.

Lead Generation Examples

Since all companies develop lead generation strategies, there are numerous examples of successful techniques from brands. In this section, we’ll discover some of the most effective approaches to inspire you. So, let’s dive in.

Webex One

Webex uses email campaigns to announce its offline events. Below, you can see the company encouraging subscribers to register now. When potential participants receive the email, they can explore the highlights from the previous event and find out what to expect. Webex also entices subscribers with discounts for buying tickets right now.

Neil Patel

When leads visit Neil Patel’s website, they not only have access to its content but also encounter web push notifications that appear as they are about to leave. This lead magnet effectively collects prospects' contact information. By offering a 7-week action plan in exchange for the visitor's company URL, Neil Patel's website gains valuable insights, including contact data.

Innisfree

Innisfree, a Korean skincare brand, uses subscription forms to gather email addresses of potential customers. They also use web push notifications to encourage users to provide their emails and get a 10% discount on the first order. The company also establishes the fear of missing out by mentioning that the offer ends soon.

TOMS

TOMS, a famous shoe brand, uses gamification to attract leads. Once you land on the website, you’ll instantly see a web push notification encouraging potential customers to spin the wheel and get a discount on their first order. It lets the company get users’ email addresses and entices them to explore products. After receiving site visitors’ emails, the brand can send personalized offers, special promos, and discounts, which contribute to the customers’ desire to buy.

Yoga Barn

Yoga Barn, a yoga studio, sends its subscribers email campaigns informing them about attractive offers, including discounts for online subscriptions and a free trial. The company also provides subscribers with a special promo code that yoga students can use to redeem the offer.

Congrats!! After exploring the process, tips, strategies, and examples, you now know what lead generation is. We hope that our guide will lead you through this process and help you successfully implement all the effective tips and best practices into your marketing strategy.