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Learning management system
A learning management system (LMS) is software that helps you design, track, and deliver educational courses and training and learning programs. It enables you to organize all the educational processes and allows students to prioritize their workload.
In this video, a product manager at LIKE.TG covers the features of the LIKE.TG course creator, talks about the differences between free and paid plans, and explains how to create a course step by step.
In this article, you’ll discover why you should consider implementing LMS and unveil its benefits. We’ll alsoanalyze its essential features and review the best LMS platforms.
Why use a learning management system?
As of 2021, Coursera, an online learning service, reported 20 million new sign-ups— online learning seems to be the new black. People can gain new knowledge, refine their critical thinking, and master almost any job online. It’s convenient, time-saving, and accessible. Modern tech-savvy users can discover new professions and take onmore skills with the help of the internet and a laptop. People can manage their time, obtain technical skills, and show self-motivation.
To ensure seamless eLearning experiences, brands leverage learning management systems. They store all their materials in one place, so companies no longerhave tosharethe necessary informationvia various devices and drives. This way, they reduce the risk of data loss. When businesses upload online courses toan LMS platform, their participants can access these materials anytime.
Online course creators enable entrepreneurs to save time and money on on-site rentals, printed documents, video and photo reports, etc. They also save the time ofcompanies’teams and students. Moreover, brand managers and instructors can access students’ progress and performance. This way, teachers can check whether people meet their performance milestones.
Now that you know why you should use a learning management system, let’s explore its pros. In this section, you’ll decide whether this system will come in handy for your business.
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Benefits of Learning Management Systems
A learning management system is a crucial part of every learning process that entails communication between teachers and students. It helps structure learning materials, improve lessons, and develop tests. If you leverage anLMS platform, it will help you:
store all your learning materials, documents, and lessons in one place;
provide users with access to courses;
monitor your students’ progress and evaluate their performance;
reduce costs and save time;
add new compliance standards to your online courses;
integrate withother platforms;
improve your courses and trainingor learning programs.
Now that we’ve done a quick look-through on the advantages of LMS, it’s time to delve into specific features your system should have to help you achieve your objectives.
7 Essential Features of Learning Management Systems
To provide learners with quality knowledge and fantastic experience,you need to mull over your choice of an LMS system thoroughly. Below we’ll list themost crucial features your online course platform should cover. They will protect your materials from piracy, provide a flexible reporting system, and offer a great experience.
Personalized user experience.Choosing alearning management system that provides a personalized user experience based on their interests is an excellent idea. It’ll help you draw students’ attention to the topics related to their fields of interest. For example, if a person is interested in digital marketing, you can offer them related materials or courses. By conducting quizzes, you’ll be able to reflect on the user’s performance and the shortcomings that need your attention.
Scheduling tools. With scheduling tools, you can offer your studentsto set the date and time of their lessons themselves. This flexibility will enable learners to select the time that’s best for them. As a result, more students will joinyour course.
Unifiedmaterials. Your learning management system should allow you to manage your documents in one place. WithLMS platforms, you can store your learning materials, such as videos, presentations, instructions, guides, infographics, etc. Users can study and gainnew knowledge and skills while being more organized if they have access to all the unified and structured data.
Data tracking. The system should provide your instructors with permission to track students’ performance. This way, they will ensure that learners obtain the necessary knowledge and demonstrate progress during their learning process.Having this informationon hand allows you to enhanceyour courseand ensure a personalized training experience.
Analytics. Flexible reporting helps evaluate the effectiveness of your program. You should align your reporting with your business goals to see if you managed to reach them. With its help, you’ll identify students’ problems and improve your online course.
Automated notifications. Notificationsare an integral part of any LMS,as they help keep managers and instructors updated on coursecompletion, students’ needs, and completion rates. Learners also receive automated notifications when they have to meetspecific deadlines and leave feedback.
Integrations. A good LMS should be able to integrate with other systems tocomplement the course with all the necessary information. Both startupsand big enterprises in various niches need integrations like Zoom, Slack, Salesforce, etc. They help your team keep everything under control. Some tools will allow you to automatically collect and send candidate data and provide course updates to instructors, and some will help you schedule meetings and send notifications.
Now that you know the features you should look for, we’ll walk you through the best LMS solutions and finda suitable option for your company.
5 Best Learning Management Systems
The effectiveness of any eLearning process depends not only on teachers and materials but also on your learning management software. It’s a place where you store, deliver, and track yourcourse content. Since the system is a vital part of your success, we’ve prepared a list of five well-performing services for you to consider.
LIKE.TG
LIKE.TG is a universal tool that will come in handy for business schools, development centers, industry experts, HR managers, and anyone who wants to teach. The platform’s visual builder helps you create online courses and lessons and modify them based on your requirements. With its help, you’ll be able to improve your lessons by adding videos, infographics, and audio lectures.
LIKE.TG also cares about the visibility of your online course. You can design a landing page to promote your product and add a registration form to enroll students in your course. Better yet, you can add a custom domain to your online course for free. With its help, users will find your course easily. Once students enroll in yourcourse, you can assign an instructor to take care of the process. This person will collect customer feedback, customize lessons, develop tests, address students’ inquiries, assess the quality of the learning process, and create certificates.
Since the course builder automatically synchronizes with LIKE.TG’s CRM, you can guide and support your students anytime. LIKE.TG enables you to communicate with learnersusing email, chatbots, or SMS.
Once learners complete a lesson or course, you can create tests to check their skills and knowledge. After completing the test, they will obtain a certain number of points. At the end of the course, students will receive certificates of completion. With LIKE.TG’s builder, you can customize the certificates you issue by changing their text styles and images and adding instructors and dates.
Below you can see how to create a lesson from scratch. You need to drag and drop the necessary elements from the left panel to theworkspace and edit them on the right panel.
Free plan: 200 students, 3 courses, 1 instructor, and 1 GB of storage space.Paid plan: From $42 per month for 1,000 users.
Thinkific
Thinkific provides vital tools for setting up, launching, and scaling your online courses without any coding knowledge or skills. With the platform, you canoffer a live or on-demand online course. The company’s site builder allows you to develop a personalized online school to demonstrate your courses and their benefits. Besides, Thinkfic helps you sell courses and accept payments viapopular payment systems. The platform has 0% transaction fees.
The service is very flexible. You can offer your product in different formats: courses, memberships, bundles, or digital downloads. Create quizzes, surveys, and assignments to evaluate students’ knowledge. After completing the course, useThinkific’s builder to design a certificate.
If you have a site, mailing list, and CRM system, consider integrating them.Thinkific also allows you to connect with ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and Zoom. The brand empowers you to stand out with its amazing website themes. Moreover, you can add your own domainto personalize your course and help students find it faster.
Below you can see how to add and create the contentofyour first lesson usingThinkific.
Free plan: limited courses, unlimited students, 1 site admin account.Paid plan: From $49 per month.
SkyPrep
SkyPrep allows you to upload different types of documents and use them many times to create your online course. The service provides customizable permissions, automated email notifications, certificates of completion, deadline reminders, user grouping, and all the necessary reports in just a few moments to ensure smooth online course management.
With visual and spreadsheet reports, you’ll always stay in the know about your students’ progress. SkyPrep’s report features cover multiple reporting levels, course and user performance profiles, certificate awards, and more.
When you design your online course with SkyPrep, you can customize the platform to match your brand identity. Use your company logo and colors, custom URLs, certificates, email notifications, and CSS to make your design recognizable and related to your brand. The platform’s open API enables you to add the most useful integrations, including PayPal and Zoom. SkyPrep’s security model keeps all your data highly secured.
When developing a course, you can use gamification elementslike award points, a leaderboard, and customizable badgesto increase users’ engagement.
Below you can see how to create a new course: insertyour course name and introduction and add a course image.
Free plan: 14-day trial.Paid plan: From $299 per month for 100 users.
TalentLMS
TalentLMS helps you reach different business purposes. You can design online courses and training programs, such as remote, onboarding, compliance, and sales training.
With the service’s drag-and-drop builder, you can design interactive courses. TalentLMS enables you to buildyour course from scratch or reuse the uploaded content. Creating a course from scratch won’t take much time since you can add different media formats like videos, docs, and presentations. The platform empowers you to host live sessions. You can invite participants and send them automatic reminders about the upcoming event.
Once you need to evaluate the effectiveness of your course or assess students’ knowledge, create quizzes, tests, assignments, and surveys. You can alsocraft a certificate to acknowledge your students’ efforts upon their successful completion of your onlinecourse.
Setting up a structured course is crucial for users. The platform enables you to guide your students by splittingyour content into categories. This way, they will easily find the necessary materials. Besides, you’ll be able to give permissions to users with special statuses so that they can perform their roles efficiently.
Below you can see how to create an online courseusing TalentLMS.
Free plan: 5 users, 10 courses, and unlimited email support.Paid plan: From $89 per month for up to 40 users.
Teachable
Teachable is a perfect solution for those who want to start an online business. You can link your website to the platform under a custom domain. The service is easy-to-use because itsbuilder enables you to create engaging courses by simply dragging and dropping visual elements like videos, images, and infographics. The course you design with Teachable can include multimedia lectures and coaching sessions. To create a quality course, you can invite your team to join you on the platform. Set permissions and roles so that they can contribute to your course development.
You can use unlimited features when you purchase a paid plan. With its help, you’ll be able to have no limit on the number of courses, video bandwidth, and students. You can run one-on-one sessions to communicate with your students live.
Evaluate your students’ progress with quizzes. Theplatform allowsyou to design a certificate and congratulatestudents on completingyour course. After the course completion, Teachable enables you to receive feedback from learners. The platform uses third-party platforms to gather student feedback.
Teachable allows you to createthe “Pricing” tab for your product and set your prices to receive payments from students. Once you set everything up, users will have several payment options: credit/debit card, PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay.
Below you can see how to create the first lesson for your coursewithTeachable.
Free plan: Unlimited students, 1 course, and unlimited coaching services.Paid plan: From $39 per month.
Congrats, now you know the top-performing learning management platforms. Choose one that suits your business goalsto design an excellent course for your students. Make use of LIKE.TG’s course creator to develop your online course fast with our ready-to-go templates.
Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process of engaging prospective customers by providing them with appropriate content at each stage of the sales funnel to earn their business at the end.
The HubSpot Academy lecturer considers the importance of lead nurturing and explains how to do it.
Lead nurturing is all about listening to the needs of prospects and giving them information that adequately addresses their concerns regarding the products and services offered by a particular business. To nurture sales leads successfully, marketers should provide content that depicts their brands as the best choice from the others in the same niche. By elevating the profile of a business in the eyes of a potential customer, marketers significantly boost the chances of consumers purchasing a product or service from their brands when the time for buying comes.
Why is lead nurturing important?
More sales at lower costs
Better decision making in businesses
Builds a business reputation
Boosts engagement
Identifies upsell and cross-sell opportunities
More sales at lower costs. With lead nurturing, a company stands to benefit from more sales conversions while spending considerably less on traditional marketing strategies. This approach thus offers any brand better ROI. A Forrester Research survey concluded that brands that did well in lead nurturing generated 50 percent, sales-ready customers, at a 33 percent lower cost.
Better decision making in businesses. Lead nurturing helps companies focus their energy appropriately. On the one hand, through this approach, brands can identify legitimate “hot” leads and send them directly to the sales team. In turn, this ensures that the sales department invests its energy and time on solid prospects. On the other hand, lead nurturing helps identify “warm” leads, which are then sent to the marketing team and nurtured to the point of purchase.
Builds a business reputation. Through lead nurturing, brands develop and strengthen their presence by providing useful educational content to their subscribers. Moreover, lead nurturing allows a brand to show its customer base that it understands their concerns and can offer permanent solutions.
Boosts engagement. With automated lead nurturing, a business can easily maintain engagement with leads who have already interacted with it. In case a specific lead has stopped viewing a brand’s offerings or visiting its site, lead nurturingis an excellent wayto remind the lead about the business.
Identifies upsell and cross-sell opportunities. When dealing with existing customers, companies can use lead nurturing to inform consumers about other goods or services provided.
How does lead nurturing work?
Score all leads
Identify the ideal buyer
Develop a lead nurturing program
Evaluate campaign results and adjust where necessary
Score all leads. Lead nurturing starts with lead scoring, the process of identifying where a particular lead is within thesales cycle. For this strategy, a marketer can rely on various lead scoring tools to assess leads based on a set of demographic and behavioral scoring data. Marketers can also tap into past experiences with different types of customers to create lead scores.
Identify the ideal buyer. Once a marketer identifies the target customers, they should proceed to define the profiles of all perfect buyers. With this information, a business can focus its lead nurturing strategies.
Develop a lead nurturing program. After identifying the target consumer segment, a brand should create a program by looking at how often it wishes to communicate and what content offers (webinars, case studies, white papers, and so forth) to share. It also makes sense to segment the customer listby buyer personas and create targeted campaigns based on industry, location, job function, buyer cycle, and so on.
Evaluate campaign results and adjust where necessary. After the program is set up and put into action, all that is left is to evaluate its effectiveness. Here, one can measure the engagement of users: email open and click-through rates, the time it takes to move a lead within the sales cycle, and the number of leads that made actual purchases. After that, a marketer can analyze all of the results, determine trouble areas in your lead nurturing process, and try out new solutions like providing new communication channels or fresh content.
Lead Nurturing Strategy
A lead nurturing strategy is a particular approach adopted by a brand aimed at attracting and engaging customers while retaining existing ones. That said, here is how to develop one.
How to create lead nurturing strategy
Align sales with marketing. Identify both marketing and sales leads at the very start. Marketing leads are sent to the nurturing process where they are “weaned” until they are sales-ready. Sales leads are redirected to a salesperson where they are handled in the CRM.
Set up a lead management process. This process ensures that the sales department only handles “hot” leads while the “warm” leads are sent to the nurturing process.
Collect useful data. For effective lead nurturing, a marketer should gather information regarding target buyers and what they require throughout the purchase process. This info can be attained through interviews, surveys, doing keyword research, and so forth.
Develop a content plan. Marketers should create lead nurturing content plans to understand their timelines better and know when to send out appropriate content.
Communicate your message via email. Seeing as email offers the most ROI compared to other marketing tactics, it makes sense for a marketer to get the message out to the target customers.
Keep tabs, measure, and analyze. Once the strategy is rolled out, the marketer should track various metrics to know if the endeavor is worthwhile or not. It is also vital to measure leads to determine how many are sent to the sales or marketing teams. Lastly, the brand should gauge the content that generates the most leads to help to improve the process.
Lead Nurturing Tactics
Create your buyer persona
Build your customer base
Outline your buyers’ journey
Score your leads
Create targeted content for each stage in your buyers’ journey
Follow up leads with automated campaigns
Combine marketing channels
We've collected a list of the proven and most effective tactics that will help you bring your lead nurturing to the next level. Check them out.
Create your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal client. It implies creating a portrait of your fictional customerthat reflects your entire target audience. It will help you better understand your consumers and discover the right strategies and techniques to reach them. To create a buyer persona, research your target audience thoroughly taking into account its gender, age, location, needs, interests, pain points, budget, etc. After that, you'll be able to answer the question "How can we help them?". You'll realize what barriers stand in your clients' way and prevent them from making a purchase. Then, manage to eliminate them. Follow this guide on our blog to create a customer profile.
Build your customer base. To organize your workflow, we recommend you to choose a customer relationship management system (CRM) where you will store all the information about your leads. A professional CRM system will help you track all users’ interactions with your company. So, you’ll have a customer profile for each lead. It will help you easily find information about them such as demographics, the way and date they joined your community, channels they prefer, most visited site pages, the content they mostly engage with, etc. LIKE.TG provides a built-inCRM system to automate sales and communication with your customers.
Outline your buyers’ journey. It allows marketers to deeply analyze their consumers’ path from identifying a problem to solving it by purchasing their products. Creating a buyer journey implies developing a customer journey map. It helps you understand a lead’s behavior at each stage. With this map in the front, you’ll get to know which benefits and solutions your target audience is looking for, how they make decisions, which troubles they have when working with your service, what stops them from buying, and a lot more valuable information that will help you meet their needs.
Score your leads. Lead scoring is the process of assigning your leads points from 1 to 10 which means evaluating the level of their interest along with their potential to buy your product. This technique allows you to identify which leads are ready, able, and willing to buy, and which ones still fall from your sales funnel. The results of lead scoring will help you realize that some leads are a complete waste of time for your business, while others just need more education and nurturing.
Create targeted content for each stage in your buyers’ journey. Valuable content is crucial to nurturingyour leads effectively. Depending on a user’s stage in your sales funnel and the results of lead scoring, develop targeted and relevant content for each lead. It will help you educate them and move them further down the sales funnel. For example, top-of-funnel leads need articles that answer their common questions. You can discover them by looking for popular search queries using AHrefs. Leads who are the consideration stage need more proof and high-quality content that will help them realize why your brand is the best choice. Such content includes comparisons, case studies, webinars, etc. Bottom-of-funnel leads just need the last push since they’re ready to buy. Provide them with a free trial, demo, FAQs, etc.
Follow up leads with automated campaigns. You can lay back in your chair and leave educating leads to email marketing automation. With such email services like LIKE.TG, you no longer need to send each lead a different message manually. Automation 360 allows marketers to set automated email sending based on subscribers’ actions. This way, every lead will receive a personalized and relevant email according to their position in the sales funnel. For example, after a new user joins your mailing list, they receive an onboarding email series based on their engagement. If a user added a product to their shopping cart without buying, you can send them an abandoned cart email with a special discount.
Combine marketing channels. You can’t ignore such an abundant amount of channels available today. Combine them to personalize your approach to each customer and increase your outreach. You can send automated campaigns, SMS, web push notifications, help customers via chatbots, boost engagement on social media, run retargeting campaigns, utilize PPC ads, and much more. You need to be where your customers are.
Lead Nurturing Campaign
Given that we have already covered what lead nurturing is and why it is essential, let’s now look at how to develop an excellent campaign.
How to create an effective lead nurturing campaign
Highlighted below are useful tips for creating a nurturing campaign:
Segment the target audience.
Send out high-quality and valuable content.
Set up email marketing automation.
Make the sale.
How LIKE.TG Helps Nurture Leads Effectively
LIKE.TG is a service that helps online marketers, business owners, online marketing experts, and anyone operating an online brand to generate, nurture, and convert leads through sound marketing tactics. LIKE.TG helps companies build relationships with buyers at different stages of the sales funnel in the following ways.
Email, SMS, and web push notifications marketing
Using email, SMS, or web push notifications to talk to prospects and customers can significantly help to gain exposure for a brand.
Email
LIKE.TG offers email marketing services for all types of businesses. By signing up, one can make subscription forms, place them on their website, and collect subscribers. Then, using the drag and drop email editor, one can create professional-looking marketing email templates lightning fast. To start an email campaign:
Upload a mailing list
Create a preferred email template
Send email
SMS
With LIKE.TG, it is easy to set up bulk SMS automation.
Go to LIKE.TG features and then SMS.
Input the recipient’s name/ID, message, and date and time the messages should be sent.
Send SMS campaign
Web push notifications
With LIKE.TG, sending web push notifications to leads is possible in all major browsers and smartphones as well. The service offers easy personalization options, and one can also segment subscribers based on specific criteria and set up web push automation.
Add your website.
Add the generated code to your website.
Create a push campaign.
Send.
Email marketing automation
Marketing automation is a way of reducing repetitive tasks while making their execution more effective. With the Automation 360 feature, brands can nurture leads at every stage of the sales funnel. Automation 360 allows one to:
Create and send emails to a new subscriber or customer, welcoming them to the website.
Dictate and manage the time and frequency of sending emails to a mailing list.
Identify and focus on the most relevant offers. By monitoring prospects’ behavior, one can identify which offers are doing well and concentrate on them more.
Send automated reminders to customers who have added a product to their cart but have not completed their purchase (abandoned cart).
Send an order confirmation email to a customer confirming an order they have made.
Set up milestone emails. A milestone email is a personalized message sent to an existing customer on specific dates such as birthdays and anniversaries.
Combine multiple channels — SMS, web push notifications, and email — in an automation flow to get more customers.
Track conversions and follow up on those who fall through the cracks.
CRM
With our CRM system, you can monitor the success of your lead nurturing strategy. The system allows you to manage the sales process and automate communication with the audience in one place. Create deals with different statuses depending on the stage the client is at. For example, "New", "In progress", "To assign" and so on. The kanban board allows you to visualize the process of closing a dealand see the results. For each transaction, you create a deal card that stores information about its history, the client, and comments. You can also send an email campaign and contact the client directly from the card. This way you can move them down the sales funnel.
Look below to see how the deals are organized on the kanban board according to their statuses.
You can find out more about working with a CRM system in our Knowledge Base.
Live chat
With a live chat, you can grab visitors' attention on your website. Let them know more about your brand, assist in choosing the best product, handle their objections, and provide the necessary support. You'll start building long-lasting relationships, nurture leads with valuable information, and convert more prospects into customers. With LIKE.TG, you can create a live chat for your website for free without any coding skills.
Lead Nurturing Examples
Take a look at how Airbnb is nurturing leads via email campaign
And now a push notification for lead nurturing from MakeMyTrip
Lastly, a lead nurturing SMS from Uber
Lead Nurturing Best Practices
Set goals wisely. Every strategy starts with establishing a goal. Lead nurturing is no exception. You may want to drive as many leads as possible through your sales funnel, re-engage passive leads, or get more data about your existing leads. You should set a single realistic and measurable goal for each campaign. Consider the KPIs in advance to measure the effectiveness of each campaign. If you re-engage passive clients, you should monitor the number of cold leadsthat converted; if your goal was to gather more data, track both information quantity and the value it brings to your business.
Create clear CTAs. If you want to convert a lead, they should clearly understand what they need to do. Make sure that the next step in their buyer journey is logical and obvious. By logical we mean that it should correlate with the stage your leads are in now. Create different CTAs for each stage. For example, if a user is not yet familiar with your service, ask them to “Get started” or “Learn more.” If a lead is qualified enough and ready to buy, use the following CTAs as the last push “Grab my discount” or “Buy now.” You can motivate them with a time-limited offer.
Personalize your emails.Sending the same email to your entire mailing list is a thing of a past, especially when considering lead nurturing. Sharp competition for subscribers’ attention makes marketers do their best to engage users. Personalization allows you to provide your lead with an individual approach with minimal effort. Collect personal data about subscribers and use it in your email campaigns. This includes their name, gender, location, interests, and hobbies, etc. Follow this guide to send personalized campaigns with LIKE.TG.
Run retargeting campaigns. They are focused on leads who have already interacted with your brand. They are users who visit your site pages, view products but don’t buy. With a retargeting campaign, you can win them back and remind them about the product they liked. This will help you increase sales and brand recognition. You can set up such campaigns using Facebook pixel and Google Ads.
Collect information about leads from marketing, sales, and support teams. Don’t delegate this task to your marketing or sales team alone. Users often address their questions and troubles to a support team, so this team knows pretty much about your clients. Theycan easily tell you about the problems your leads face when using your product, as a result, you can regularly improve it.
Use paid ads. This form of online advertising is also known as PPC. It means that you pay a search engine a fee each time a user clicks on your ad. Paid ads are placed above the organic results on the SERP. For better performance, we recommend you to research and find out the keywords which people use as search queries to find your product and use them in your ads. This way, you’ll increase your site traffic and sales.
Start lead nurturing
Lifecycle marketing
Lifecycle marketing is an approach that brands useto assist and satisfycustomersat any stage of their buyer journey. This conceptrevolves around the idea that keeping an existing audience loyal is easier and cheaper than acquiring new prospects. Sometimes, this term iscontrasted with asales funnel, a more aggressive way of closing sales.
Whether you communicate with a prospect, a warm lead, or a returning customer — lifecycle marketing should help you achieve the highest level of engagement from each user. It requires a genuine knowledge of your target audience, stepping in their shoes, and a little bit of patience when they decide whether or not to buy from you.
Watch this video where a marketer from Automation Ninjas gives inspiring insights on lifecycle marketing.
Benefits of Lifecycle Marketing
Builds long-lasting relationships
Improves brand image
Increases chances to get brand advocates
Builds long-lasting relationships.It allows customers to willingly choose to buy from you, without feeling aggressive marketing techniques have influenced their choice. Such a respectful approachcreates an image of a brand people can trust.
Improves brand image.Using amore personal approach will help you gain the reputation of a brand that cares not only about revenue, but provides customers with value. The statement“all good returns” illustrates thelifecycle marketing practices.
Increases chances to get brand advocates. These are people that spread the word about your brand because they enjoy communicating with and buying from you. Supporting people at every step of their customer journey makes them return to you.
Lifecycle Marketing vs. Sales Funnel
Fundamentally, these are two opposed approaches to doing business, selling things; and the crucial difference is the attitude towards people.
A sales funnel means usingmarketing techniques to make a sell as many goods as possible, as fast as possible. It may be under the of providing users with what they need, but mostly, it is making users feel they need something and then sell.
Lifecycle marketing, in its turn, is a more humane way of doing business aimed to help the target audience solve their problems. It is a way todevelop the buyer journeyyou would like to experience yourself. Such an approach results in mutually beneficial and respectful relationships.
In reality, the linesmay blur between these terms since any marketing tactic is at least a little persuasive to attract traffic and win over competitors. At the same time, pushy sales are an outdated model because users have more control over communication with brands today and able to stop it anytime.
Both styles work, but differently. Choosing one is instead an ethical question.
Lifecycle Marketing Model
Attract attention
Gain leads
Nurture
Convert
Retain
Develop relationships
Some marketers consider a lifecycle marketing model to be a basic three-stage strategy:
Attract attention > Convert > Fulfill
It means that you need to gather users’ attention first, then show why owning your product is a privilege, and fulfill the need in that product in the end.
But what if you’d like to create a more exclusive customer journey, a one you’d like to experience yourself? You can add more stages tothat system, making it more fundamental and robust:
Attract attention > Gain leads > Nurture > Convert > Retain > Develop relationships
Let’s now view those stages in detail, taking the dog supplies shop as an example.
Attract attention
First of all, you need to reach everyone interested in dogs: dog owners, breeding experts, vets, people who plan to adopt a dog. Then you can utilize various types ofFacebook adsthat can be highly targeted. In the ads, promise some value, like “learn everything about dog diet here.”
Search engine optimization is also a useful tool for promoting your services on the internet. The article where you show your expertise in the field will show up high in search results page (SERP) if the page is well-optimized and relevant to specific keywords like “dog diet,” “nylon dog collar,” or “how to choose a breed.”
Another way to reach the top of SERP is to run PPC ads, based on the auction. The more relevant your content is, and the more significant is the bid your offer for the ad to be shown, the more traffic you’ll driveto your site.
Gain leads
After people clicked on your ad leading to your website, you need to find out how to continue communication and keep them engaged. Ask for their email address in exchange for even more value than promised in the ad — videos from dog training experts, insights on the dogs’ health, vaccination information, etc. The tools, handy for acquiring new leads, are lead magnets and subscription forms.
Here’s how to create a subscription form with LIKE.TG for free.
Nurture
At this stage of the customer lifecycle, you need to provide the content to meet the audience’s expectations regularly. Now, you can slightly knit in the sales element, in a non-pushy way like “check out our new collection of safety dog collars.” For this purpose, use any channels where your leads are — emails, SMS, chatbots, or the mix of them in your multichannel marketing strategy.
Some warm leads will ideally convert at this stage.
Some people are still not ready to buy, so you need to nurture them, providing alluseful details about your product. Support your non-aggressive offers with other customers’ feedback since social proof is crucial for decision making.
Nurturing is the best way to bridge your audience’s doubts. Keep on using those channels, that your subscribers are comfortable with.
Convert
This is a core stage of marketing because if your efforts don’t pay off, doing business is worthless. Make the buying process as smooth, intuitive, and straightforward as possible. While closing the deal via email, mention all necessary details about shipping and taxes to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Make the physical package from recycling materials and add a bonus — a sticker with the dog or “best dog” stripe to make that purchase special and ensure a positive experience.
To speed up the process, createchatbots for Facebook Messenger and Telegram to answer users' questions, collect orders, and promote your products.
Retain
The lifecycle marketing cornerstone is that a sale is onlyabeginning of relationships. After your customers trusted your brand and made a purchase, support them byanswering their questions and help out if they have any issueswith the wrongcolor or size of the collar, provide returns and refunds.
Develop relationships
It looks like we made it to the most exciting stage.
After a person becomes your customer, there are various ways of keeping your relationships. You can upsell and cross-sell more products, give a bonus card, a membership status, a referral link to engage more people, aside from sharing more and more valuable content.
As the core idea of lifecycle marketing is to keep users engaged after the purchase, so don’t stop communicationand keep on adding value to increase the numberof loyal customers and brand advocates.
Lifecycle Marketing Best Practices
Get some work automated on lifecycle stages
Add your clients to your CRM system
Personalize communication
Identify churn risks
Use segmentation
Get some work automated on lifecycle stages. Some marketing channels can be automated. For instance, you can create email workflows to cover processes like onboarding, upselling, purchasing, etc. Achatbot is a handy instrument, too, which allows customer support to focus on more complicated issues without answering FAQs from day to day.
Add your clients to your CRM system.To build long-lasting relationships with your customers, you need to know them well: their needs, wants, preferences. Their buying history will unveil some important data about these people. So, you'll manage to create highly targeted offers, hence, increase revenue. To bring this to life, make use of a CRM system. The LIKE.TG CRMallows brands to automate sales, monitor their progress, collect information about customers, and communicate with them in one place. So, don't miss this chance to streamline sales with our free CRM.
Personalize communication. Today, people expect a personalizedexperience, and many of them are ready to share their data in exchange for a more personalized unique customer experience. Send personalized emails and SMS, segment your audience during the conversation in a chatbot to solve particular issues.
Identify churn risks. Find out the weak points in the customer journey you’ve created. Perhaps, it is not apparent where to register or emails load for too long, or the shipping cost turns to be surprisingly high for distant countries. Once you’ve found out the churn risks, fix the issues right away.
Use segmentation. You need to segment all your clients in lifecycle marketing. Use segmentation based on milestones like abandoned shopping cart, the first purchase, the fifth purchase, a year together, to be able to celebrate and strengthen your relationships.
Link building
Link building is an SEO strategy that aims to acquire links from other websites to yours.
In this article, we'll explain why link building is important, consider several types of links, and share some effective strategies.
Why is link building important?
Link building is helpful for search engines, your business, and online users. Let's consider its benefits in more detail.
Search Engines
PageRank was created by one of Google's finders Larry Page. This system evaluates the quality of all pages on the web and link quality is one of its major factors. Google was the first search engine to use such algorithms, so it was a huge step forward. The idea is the following: if an authoritative site places a link to your page, it means that it can vote for it and its quality. Besides, there's no point for an established company to link to the content of poor quality, since this reference may damage its reputation.
As far as many SEO specialists unveiled Google algorithms, they started to manipulate search engine results. This way, lots of low-quality links were on the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Google took measures to provide online users with high-quality content answering their questions and started to launch regular updates preventing manipulation and overoptimization. Although Google doesn't reveal its full algorithm, we know that links do play a crucial role when crawling and ranking pages.
Your Business
The most important thing to remember when optimizing your site is to avoid getting links just for the sake of building your link profile. If you are about to release a new product on the market or to launch your business, establishing brand awareness and searching your target audience will be your top-priority tasks.
To promote your brand, you can work with influencers and opinion leaders, build partnerships with established brands, create valuable content and share your expertise on relevant resources. Choosing this or that strategy, getting links to your site is inevitable. The more links you get naturally (without asking for them) from trusted websites, the higher Google will rank your page. It's a holy grail for every business.
Online users
Providing users with answers that fit best their search queries is Google's true purpose. The mission of each new algorithm update is to ensure the best experience when searching for the information. Google wants people to find helpful and expert answers as soon as possible and without much hassle. So, the search engine does its best to make the top 10 search engine results the most reliable source of information.
If users tend to leave a site soon after they land on it and go on to the next one from the SERP, Google sees this as a red flag meaning that this page failed to answer their question. As a result, this page gets a high bounce rate and loses its high ranking.
So, search engines do extensive work to provide all the parties with the best experience, and links help them do this job efficiently.
To understand how link building works, you need to know 3 types of links.
3 Types of Links
An effective link-building strategy is not only about acquiring links from other websites to yours but a combination of different types of links. Let's take a closer look at each one.
Backlinks
They are also called inbound links. This type of link provides the most significant impact on ranking your website. Backlinks are links that you get from other websites. The more links you obtain, the higher your reputation and authority. Although, quality prevails the quantity. You'd better have fewer links from high-quality and relevant to your business sites, than a huge amount of links from one low-quality site. Google believes that a well-established site with a good reputation can place links only to relevant pages. Besides, if a site adds a link to yours, it shares its traffic and reputation.
You should thoroughly analyze your backlink profile regularly since it's the most significant ranking factor. If you get to know that a poor-quality site links back to your site, contact its owner and ask to remove the links or disavow these links with the help of Google Search Console. This is the way to tell Google to ignore these links when ranking your site.
We'll share some effective strategies on how to get high-quality backlinks in the next section.
Outbound Links
They are the opposite of inbound links meaning that you place a link on your site leading a user to another website. Site owners often underestimate the power of outbound links considering them a waste of their organic traffic. This type of link can power up your link-building strategy.
Remember writing scientific papers at the university. The last section includes references where you add the links to authoritative resources that inspired you to write this or that section. This part of the paper adds value and authority to your work. Outbound links on your site do quite the same. It's useful not only for your rankings but for your readers as well. You may add a link to the research or a more in-depth guide where they'll get more insights into the topic. So, you'll manage to improve your ranking and provide site visitors with the best user experience.
Internal Links
These are links that lead users to other pages of your website. This type of link also helps both your readers and search engines. They help users navigate your site and perceive information in moderate portions. For example, if you write a blog article and mention a topic you have written about before, it will be wise to put a corresponding link. This way, a user will be able to learn your site content step by step.
Internal links let search engines understand the architecture of your site. Check out your most visited pages regularly and put links to other relevant articles, landing pages, or a homepage. This way the search engine will realize the relations of different pages and the logic behind interlinking.
Now that you know the power of link building, it's time to learn some effective strategies.
5 Link Building Strategies
Start guest blogging
Work with influencers
Make use of broken link building
Look for mentions without links
Search resources
The main thing to remember when using any strategy is the quality. Look at the link from the user's point of view. It should help them understand the topic and bring value. So, to cope with this task follow the efficient strategies below.
Start Guest Blogging
Guest posting is an old but effective way to get valuable links. To make it work, you should find blogs from your industry and offer them to write an article. Take into account the blog’s organic traffic and Domain Rate to ensure that this is a high-quality place to mention your brand. First and foremost, your articles should be written by experts, be unique to bring value to the readers. So, learn the blog before offering to write a post for it. Make sure that you can be useful for its target audience.
To find such blogs, you can either contact authoritative websites you know or look for new ones with the help of Google search operators. Using the following query, you can look for sites ready for collaboration.
topic + intitle:"write for us"
For example, you want to speak to the audience interested in creating chatbots for its business goals. Make use of this query.
Remember that not every blog speaks openly about the chance to collaborate. The most successful sites receive hundreds of offers daily, and not that relevant. So, you can contact any blog you like. Let the owner know that you have something really valuable to offer.
Work with Influencers
Contact opinion leaders from your industry who share the same values as you do and offer them to try your product. If they like it, they can recommend it to their audience. Alternatively, you can communicate with your loyal customers and micro-influencers who have already bought your products. Offer them to share their reviews and testimonials with their followers on social media or ask them for an interview. The most important thing here is that influencers should be sincere when recommending your brand.
Dog food and cat food supplier “I and love and you” collaborated with popular Instagram puppies to promote their product. This is a great example of influencer marketing since the audience of an influencer is interested in dog food.
Make Use of Broken Link Building
This technique means that you look for a site with lots of links, find 404 ones and contact the owner or a webmaster to inform them about broken links. Then, you can offer to replace a broken link with a link to your page that might be valuable for the readers. This is a win-win for both parties since you help another website remove broken links and build your backlink profile.
With the help of SEO tools such as Semrush, Backlinko, and the Check My Links extension, you can find the broken links of your competitors and email the publishers immediately to offer them help. Alternatively, if you have come across a broken link, check whether it was used in several articles. This way, you may find some sites linking to the 404 page. It means that all these sites provide you with potential chances for conversion.
Ahrefs provides the option to monitor a backlink profile and broken links to benefit from this strategy.
Look for Mentions without Links
Some websites may mention your brand without linking when providing their readers with effective solutions. The good news is that you can easily find such mentions and email the publisher with the offer to add a link, or even start a partnership.
With Ahrefs, you can reap the benefits of this strategy. Go to the “Content Explorer”, type in your brand name, tick “One page per domain” and click “Highlight unlinked domain”. You will see a list of all the pages mentioning your business without linking.
Search Resources
This strategy allows you to look for link lists and resources pages to add your link with valuable content to that list. These are pages that offer a list of authoritative resources a reader might visit if they want to get more insights into the topic.
To find such opportunities, use the following Google search operator:
keyword(intitle:"resource" | intitle:"resources" | inurl:"resources")
Check out an example below.
These are link-building strategies tested through practice. There are many more effective techniques that you can use such as the skyscraper technique, reciprocal linking, adding your links to citations and directories, relevant blogs and forums, etc. Consider them but mind Google can find them spammy if you choose one of the methods as your primary one.
So, mix different link-building strategies and make use of special SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Backlinko to have access to accurate data.
Lead nurturing email
A lead nurturing email is an email that marketers send to move users from the consideration stage to the decision stage of the lead funnel. These emails aim to show more details about a product or service and highlight its best features.
Lead nurturing emails often appeal to emotions by using social proof and user-generated content. Sometimes, they simply offer considerable discounts to add more incentive for making a purchase. Marketers develop a lead nurturing strategy to influence decision-making and sell the idea that it’s best to buy specific products from their brand. Without nurturing, users may decide to purchase elsewhere or change their mind and not shop at all.
Email campaigns are widely used in the lead nurturing process since this medium is flexible and allows brands to create all sorts of messages depending on their goals. Let’s find out why sending these emails is worth your while.
Why are lead nurturing emails important?
Increased sales
Cost-efficiency
Automation options
There are a few reasons to actively use these emails in your lead nurturing strategy. Here they are:
Increased sales. According to Invesp, nurtured leads bring 50% more sales than non-nurtured.
Cost-efficiency. Email marketing campaigns have one of the highest ROIs in digital marketing. This channel brings up to $40 in revenue for each dollar spent.
Automation options. You can set up a series of lead nurturing emails once, and every new subscriber will receive nurturing emails automatically.
Let’s check some examples of such emails sent by notable brands.
3 Lead Nurturing Email Examples
We’ve collected and described a few lead nurturing email examples for your inspiration.
Below is a nurturing email from Postable. Once a user subscribes, the brand sends an automated email to thank them for sharing their email address and offers an irresistible 20% discount for their first order. That’s a great incentive in the early stage, and it must have a high conversion rate.
Grammarly also uses a quality lead nurturing email. The company offers users to upgrade to a Premium plan by grabbing a massive 40% discount. It provides a comparison of the features available on Free and Premium plans. The brand works with YouTube and contextual advertising, so it’s hard to resist this offer.
Here’s a lead nurturing email from Zara. This straightforward message promotes an upcoming sale that starts in the mobile app an hour before on their online store. It is a killer incentive to download the app and do some brisk morning shopping with time-limited discounts.
The email’s design is as simple as the offer. It’s made of three fancy photos of a woman, a man, and a kid. Each photo represents clothes from the catalog and leads to the relevant product pages.
As you can see, there are different ways to nurture leads. Some prefer to use a big incentive to provoke a spontaneous decision, while others regularly remind subscribers about the value their brand provides.
Let’s check out some universal tips that fit any business’s lead nurturing program.
4 Best Practices for Creating Lead Nurturing Emails
Personalize your emails
Test different types of content
Track email engagement
Combine emails with other channels
We’ve collected some simple yet useful tips to help you make your lead nurturing emails more effective.
Tip 1. Personalize your emails
If you collect subscribers with LIKE.TG’s subscription forms, you can ask them to share different data. Don’t ask users for a lot of personal information but focus on one or two details in addition to an email address and name. A little detail, like location or gender, may help you create more personalized content and better nurture your leads in the future.
Here’s Brooks email with dynamic content. The message set up as one email campaign offers different content to satisfy all subscribers based on their location.
Here’s some more about email personalization with LIKE.TG.
Tip 2. Test different types of content
We mentioned earlier that companies from various industries nurture leads a little differently. There’s no standard recipe to convert leads into customers, so you should find types of content that work best with your audience. To promote an electronic gadget, you can send an email with professionally-made photos, detailed descriptions of all features, feedback from customers, and, ideally, user-generated content.
Here’s a killer email from Apple that promotes a red iPhone model. It nurtures clients by inviting them to participate in anti-HIV fundraising (they just need to buy that exact model), offering a $315 credit for a purchase, and showing the smartphone’s durability features.
Tip 3. Track email engagement
It helps a lot if you always track users’ responses to your lead nurturing emails. There is no specific metric to monitor email engagement, but you can track the open rate, CTR, unsubscribe rate, etc., and make realistic estimations based on these metrics.
Here’s how the statistics page looks in LIKE.TG. Aside from the metrics mentioned above, you can see a click map, opens by location, and opens by device.
Tip 4. Combine emails with other channels
It’s best to use various types of media to communicate with your subscribers. Since some people prefer one channel over another, you need to be present where users are most likely to engage with your company. Each channel has its own benefits. For example, email is a one-way communication, while chatbots allow for two-way communication to help you build an engaging dialog with your customers.
With LIKE.TG’s Automation 360, you can create a flow of triggered messages and connect with your subscribers via email, SMS, and web push notifications. You can also create a chatbot for Facebook Messenger and Telegram without breaking a sweat with LIKE.TG.
Congratulations, you’ve learned why it is necessary to send emails to nurture leads after they subscribe to your brand.
Lead routing
Lead routing is an automated process of assigning incoming prospects to sales representatives. It helps distribute leads from your list to the most appropriate salespeople and reach them.
In this article, we’ll unveil why implement lead routing and review 4 best practices.
Why should you implement lead routing?
Studies show that initial contact with your prospects is critical for establishing mutually beneficial relationships. The faster you make the first call or send an email, the higher the chance of a conversion. Marketers recommend contacting leads within five minutes after they show interest in your product and leaving their emails and phone numbers through web forms on your website. When you manage to respond to potential clients’ activity on your website, you increase the likeliness of these people to convert into consumers. Moreover, your lead response time influences customer decisions on whether to purchase with your brand or find a substitute.
According to statistics, the conversion percentage is high if you reach your prospects within five minutes. Within this time, competitors won’t manage to build communication with your potential customers. Your leads won’t switch to other brands for the same product. So, ensure to make lead routing your priority. Find the right sales representatives and delegate prospects to them. Make sure that your salespeople reach your leads as soon as they can.
When your business grows, it’s essential to ensure that every prospect gets your attention. To win many deals and convert potential clients into loyal customers, you need to establish communication as soon as possible. Lead routing lets you distribute prospects and tasks among your sales representatives and reach prospective customers quickly. This way, you can prevent the decrease in conversion rates and the reasons for prospects churning out.
By instantly assigning leads to different sales representatives, you can ensure that every person gets your attention and help. Salespeople will listen to the leads’ challenges and provide them with solutions. If potential clients find your product helpful, they will purchase with your sales representative and become customers.
Let’s sum up the main benefits of using lead routing. It helps
effectively distribute prospects among your sales reps;
encourage company success;
establish good relationships with potential clients;
promote trust and loyalty;
provide excellent customer service;
quickly respond to leads’ inquiries.
Now that you know why to implement lead routing, let’s review some effective best practices.
4 Lead Routing Best Practices
We can discuss dozens of recommendations when it comes to lead routing. However, we’ve decided to uncover the most essential for your business. So let’s see these tips one by one in detail.
Determine criteria for lead routing. Depending on the relationships with your prospects, you need to assign them to different teams. If prospects that come to your company have no history with your brand and connections with your customers (companies), consider delegating these individuals to your sales development team. This way, you can qualify your potential clients and identify their needs. It’ll help you make sure that they meet your buyer persona. However, when a prospect comes from a company that is your customer, you need to select a customer success manager. The customer success manager has a clear understanding of relationships with current clients. Such a person on your team enables you to make successful upsells and cross-sells. The customer success manager helps you analyze the current situation with the customer and provides personalized offers.
Find the right sales reps for these prospects. All sales representatives are different. They have strengths and weaknesses. Some might succeed in converting prospects into customers in a specific industry, while others might be good at working with decision-makers. If you know who will manage certain tasks excellently, consider assigning new leads to these individuals. Determine your reps’ strengths and use them to your advantage. It will help you effectively reach your prospects and make them convert.
Assign leads based on geography. Time zone matters since it influences smooth communication with potential clients. If you want your sales representatives to reach prospects at the right time, consider choosing your salespeople from the same time zone. As a result, the response rate will be higher, and time scheduling will be smoother.
Check the technology side of your lead routing strategy. Before distributing prospects among your sales department, ensure everything works properly. To automatically assign leads, you need to find ways for them to come. Find out whether your web forms and other channels meet your requirements and work properly. Once potential clients leave their data through a web form, make sure to store it in a secure place. Consider using a CRM. With LIKE.TG’s CRM, you can automate sales and communication with your prospects.
Congrats, now you know what lead routing is and why it’s crucial. Hope our guide will help you assign prospects to the right departments of your company.
Lead tracking
Lead tracking is the process that entails identifying the sources of prospects, evaluating the stages of the sales funnel, and taking certain actions to close the deal. It helps marketingteams obtain more qualified leads, create effective marketing campaigns, andboost sales.
In this article, we’ll uncover the importance of tracking leads and talk about howthis process works. Next, we’ll review someexcellent lead tracking software examples.
Why is it important to track leads?
Lead tracking allows companies to receive the information they need to close deals and increase revenue. It includes prospective customersources and their locations. As a result, marketing teams can work more effectively: improve marketing campaigns, personalize their offers and messages, enhance customer base, and increase sales volumeand revenue. According to statistics, 75% of marketers report difficultieswhen estimating ROI since they don’t have a detailed picture of campaigns’ results.
The process allows entrepreneurs to improvecustomer retention, assess the effectiveness of marketing efforts, improve the customer acquisition process, and have a clear understanding of sales and marketing departments’ performance. Businessowners can increase the efficiency of their organizations, develop personalized sales pitches, and obtain clear performance reports.
Now that you know why many businesses track their prospective customers, it’s time for you to explore the process itself and find out how it works.
How does lead tracking work?
To obtain conversions, you should address your potential customers’needs fast. Lead tracking helps you manage your prospects and get more paying customers. So, let’s find out how lead tracking works.
Lead trackingrevolves aroundmarketing actions that help identify a lead’s stage in the sales funnel. To do it, marketers collect the necessary data on each prospect and categorize them based on specific actions and characteristics, and sales reps manage leads based on their status. Tracking allows companies to determine the likelihoodof closing a deal with a particular customer.
Some entrepreneurs assume that lead tracking requires hiring experts in the field or having special skills and knowledge. However,everything is much more simple nowadays. You just need to decide on the platform that suits your purpose and get the ball rolling. Let’s walk you through the most popular and convenient lead tracking software examples.
3 Lead Tracking Software Examples
All companies need to track their leads to improve customer retention and acquisition andidentify theirprimary prospect sources.You might think that to do it, you need some special skills and knowledge. However, there is a wide choice of software thatcan help youin the process. Next, we’ll review the best and most effective lead tracking platforms. Let’s start with LIKE.TG.
LIKE.TG
LIKE.TG enables users to monitor the sales processes and establish strong relationships with leads for free. Its CRMallows you to collect data about your prospects in one place. As a result, your marketing and sales teams will have all the necessarydetails to move your prospective customers down the sales pipeline. With the right information, you’ll be able to provide customers with a personalized experience.
The platform allows you to have a clear picture of open deals, give tasks to the sales team, and track the progress of each lead. You can add your leads manually, import them by uploading files in CSV or vCard formats, or receive a customer’s data afterthey make an order via your chatbot. Besides, you can create a live chat for your website and add all new leads automatically to the CRM. All their data will be stored in the system. Each card can include a customer’s name, email address, phone number, company, description, position, date of birth, and rating.
LIKE.TG enables you to see the history of previous interactions. You can also reach your prospects the same way they contact you. Get in touch withyour potential customersvia WhatsApp, Telegram, or Facebook Messenger.
Below you can see a deal card in LIKE.TG’s CRM.
Free plan:up to 5 account users.Paid plan:From $37per user per month.
You can check out our article to find out how to manage leads in LIKE.TG’s CRM.
Pipedrive
The platform is a perfect solution for those who strive to have a visual representation of their sales leads. You can see a pipeline and decide what actions to take next to gain conversions. The CRM enables you to add deals, close dates, and track your leads’ progress. Different deals are marked with different colors so that you know whichonesyou need to manage first. To gather information about sales and categorize it, you can make use of custom fields.
Gather all your contacts in CRMusing several ways: by manually adding them to your lead box, importing them from a spreadsheet, andimplementing a chatbot and web forms. You can also track the most active web visitors and add them to your list of potential clients.
Pipedrive allows you to keep all your leads in one place and focus on deals. You can add prospects, qualify them, and create labels. The labels are necessary to prioritize certain prospective customers, retain them, or close deals. To startan interaction, you can schedule a call, email, or other action to get in touch with your potential customers. If you want to contact your hot or new prospects right away, you can use a live chat. Besides, Pipedrive’s chatbot can qualify them automatically.
You can see the available deals and their value and mark your won and lost customers.
Free plan: 14-day trial.Paid plan: From €15 per user per month.
Capsule
The software is useful for those who want to nurture leads, collect essential data in one place, control conversations, and ensure a personal experience for leads and customers. The platform enables you to see the history of communication with each lead so that you don’t need to bother users with the same questions twice. You can also easily export your contacts. In Capsule, you can add contacts manually and import them from Outlook, CSV files, or vCard.
If you need to find information fast, you can make use of quick search. Some additional featureslike the “Attach files” option, custom lists and fields, data tags, mail dropbox, and the opportunity to share contacts with your team may also come in handy.
Below you can see a dashboard where you can add prospects and their value and status.
Free plan:14-day trial.Paid plan: From €18 per user per month.
Congrats, you’ve unveiled the importance of lead tracking and can now use the examples above as your source of inspiration. Make use of this information to develop and implement a lead tracking strategy for your company.
Lead management
Lead management is the processof tracking and recordinga company’stouchpoints with itsleads. Analyzing your customer acquisition strategy andlead qualificationand nurturing will help you create a lead funnel that converts.
In this article, you’lldiscover why lead management isvital and get some tips on how tobuild an effective lead management process for your business.
Why is lead management important?
Every startupneeds to think about the quality of its lead generation strategy when its prospectsdrop off. Marketers often blame different communication channels, targeting the wrong audience, or insufficient warm-up. When they make the appropriate changes to the strategy and see little or even no result, lead management comes into play.
Lead management allows business owners to have a 360-view of their customers’ position in the sales funnel. Using a CRM system for managing leads provides companies with a holistic picture of their sales funnel effectiveness.
Lead management helps marketers cope with the following tasks:
reveal top-performing marketing channels that are worth the investment;
single outthe most effective lead acquisition instruments;
identify the most qualified leads and sort them later based on their demographics, buyer journey stage, level of interest, and engagement;
nurture leads individually based on their qualification;
assign leads to sales representatives;
keep the history of interaction with every lead in one place and access it on demand;
build and maintain long-lasting relationships with clients;
automate sales and communication with leads;
streamline sales.
Long story short, lead management is a must for every company. When listing its advantages, we’ve mentioned several core stages of this process, so let’s take a closer look at them.
5 Steps to Implementing an Effective Lead Management Process
The main goal of this process is to provide leads with the necessary information on time to ensure that they move down your sales funnel smoothly. It’s essential to come up with valuable content when leads are ready to go to the next level. Avoid being too pushy, and try not to slow down the process at the same time. Now let’s consider each step of the lead management process in more detail.
1. Lead generation
This is the beginning of your relationships with leads. They may have known your brand for a long time but are onlystarting tobuy from you now. Your main goal at this stage is to engage and inform them that your company can solve their problems, which is why you should do your best to get their personal datato personalize your further communication.
The choice of channels and instruments depends on your niche andtarget audience. You can reach your leads via email, social media, website, online and offline events, partnership campaigns, etc. Make use of subscription forms, lead magnets, website widgets — everything that won’t let your leads fall through the cracks. Mind that prospects should be automatically added to your list or CRM system.
With LIKE.TG, youcancreate a subscription form with a lead magnet in half an hour without any coding skills for free. This way, a user gets an additional incentive to join your mailing list. You can offer anything that can bring value to your potential client.
Follow these instructions to create a subscription form with a lead magnet using LIKE.TG.
2. Lead enrichment and tracking
Once yourleads are captured, your CRM collects and records their personal data. Depending on the system you choose, you can get different types of information. You can fill in your customers’ profiles with datato approach each clientbetter and provide personalized offers. Some CRM systems allow companies to keep track of their leads’site activities and conversions. This data helps sales reps understand every prospect better.
LIKE.TG provides a built-inCRM that enables companies to automate communication with clients and streamline sales. You can create a card for each deal, store and review clients’personal information anytime you need it, see the source of a deal, view the interaction history, and connect with clients via several channels.
Follow this step-by-step guideto figure out how to manage your contacts with the LIKE.TG CRM.
3. Lead qualification
At this stage, you can identify the most qualified leads who are very likely to convert. This will help you set your priorities correctly and invest money in the most promising prospects. Some CRM systems provide predictive scoring models that help qualify leads effectively based on the lead scoring criteria you set. This way, you’ll allocate your budget wisely and only work withthose who are interested in your services.
4. Lead distribution
Now that your leads are qualified and prioritized, it’s time to distribute them among your sales reps. If your company is small and your sales department has up to three people, it’s not a difficult task, but if you’re growing fast and have ten or more agents, it becomes a real challenge. The more time you need to delegate tasks, the faster you lose potential clients, so make use of a CRM system that provides automated lead distribution opportunities based on thecriteria you set.
Some services allow companies to assign leads round-robin, assign phone numbers to territories, transfer calls, let your most experienced sales reps work with VIP clients, etc. These opportunities help ensureyour team’s smooth workflow.
5. Lead nurturing
This stage is about providing your leads withvaluablecontent and resources that will help them make a purchase. All your leads are at different qualification stages: some of them are almost ready to buy but needa final push, while others are not ready yet and need to make sure that you will help them solve their issues. Your task is to approach every lead individually and make personalized offers using their personal data and interaction history.
You can nurture your leads with the help of checklists, guides, webinars, courses, other clients’ reviews and testimonials, and case studies. Make sure toidentify their level of engagement correctly and provide the necessarytype of content. For this purpose, you need to fullyunderstand your buyer’s journey.
Congrats, now you know why lead management is essential and have a how-to guideon hand. Make use of LIKE.TG’s CRM to manage your leads effectively and build long-lasting relationships with them!
Lead qualification
A lead nurturing email is an email that marketers send to move users from the consideration stage to the decision stage of the lead funnel. These emails aim to show more details about a product or service and highlight its best features.
Lead nurturing emails often appeal to emotions by using social proof and user-generated content. Sometimes, they simply offer considerable discounts to add more incentive for making a purchase. Marketers develop a lead nurturing strategy to influence decision-making and sell the idea that it’s best to buy specific products from their brand. Without nurturing, users may decide to purchase elsewhere or change their mind and not shop at all.
Email campaigns are widely used in the lead nurturing process since this medium is flexible and allows brands to create all sorts of messages depending on their goals. Let’s find out why sending these emails is worth your while.
Why are lead nurturing emails important?
Increased sales
Cost-efficiency
Automation options
There are a few reasons to actively use these emails in your lead nurturing strategy. Here they are:
Increased sales. According to Invesp, nurtured leads bring 50% more sales than non-nurtured.
Cost-efficiency. Email marketing campaigns have one of the highest ROIs in digital marketing. This channel brings up to $40 in revenue for each dollar spent.
Automation options. You can set up a series of lead nurturing emails once, and every new subscriber will receive nurturing emails automatically.
Let’s check some examples of such emails sent by notable brands.
3 Lead Nurturing Email Examples
We’ve collected and described a few lead nurturing email examples for your inspiration.
Below is a nurturing email from Postable. Once a user subscribes, the brand sends an automated email to thank them for sharing their email address and offers an irresistible 20% discount for their first order. That’s a great incentive in the early stage, and it must have a high conversion rate.
Grammarly also uses a quality lead nurturing email. The company offers users to upgrade to a Premium plan by grabbing a massive 40% discount. It provides a comparison of the features available on Free and Premium plans. The brand works with YouTube and contextual advertising, so it’s hard to resist this offer.
Here’s a lead nurturing email from Zara. This straightforward message promotes an upcoming sale that starts in the mobile app an hour before on their online store. It is a killer incentive to download the app and do some brisk morning shopping with time-limited discounts.
The email’s design is as simple as the offer. It’s made of three fancy photos of a woman, a man, and a kid. Each photo represents clothes from the catalog and leads to the relevant product pages.
As you can see, there are different ways to nurture leads. Some prefer to use a big incentive to provoke a spontaneous decision, while others regularly remind subscribers about the value their brand provides.
Let’s check out some universal tips that fit any business’s lead nurturing program.
4 Best Practices for Creating Lead Nurturing Emails
Personalize your emails
Test different types of content
Track email engagement
Combine emails with other channels
We’ve collected some simple yet useful tips to help you make your lead nurturing emails more effective.
Tip 1. Personalize your emails
If you collect subscribers with LIKE.TG’s subscription forms, you can ask them to share different data. Don’t ask users for a lot of personal information but focus on one or two details in addition to an email address and name. A little detail, like location or gender, may help you create more personalized content and better nurture your leads in the future.
Here’s Brooks email with dynamic content. The message set up as one email campaign offers different content to satisfy all subscribers based on their location.
Here’s some more about email personalization with LIKE.TG.
Tip 2. Test different types of content
We mentioned earlier that companies from various industries nurture leads a little differently. There’s no standard recipe to convert leads into customers, so you should find types of content that work best with your audience. To promote an electronic gadget, you can send an email with professionally-made photos, detailed descriptions of all features, feedback from customers, and, ideally, user-generated content.
Here’s a killer email from Apple that promotes a red iPhone model. It nurtures clients by inviting them to participate in anti-HIV fundraising (they just need to buy that exact model), offering a $315 credit for a purchase, and showing the smartphone’s durability features.
Tip 3. Track email engagement
It helps a lot if you always track users’ responses to your lead nurturing emails. There is no specific metric to monitor email engagement, but you can track the open rate, CTR, unsubscribe rate, etc., and make realistic estimations based on these metrics.
Here’s how the statistics page looks in LIKE.TG. Aside from the metrics mentioned above, you can see a click map, opens by location, and opens by device.
Tip 4. Combine emails with other channels
It’s best to use various types of media to communicate with your subscribers. Since some people prefer one channel over another, you need to be present where users are most likely to engage with your company. Each channel has its own benefits. For example, email is a one-way communication, while chatbots allow for two-way communication to help you build an engaging dialog with your customers.
With LIKE.TG’s Automation 360, you can create a flow of triggered messages and connect with your subscribers via email, SMS, and web push notifications. You can also create a chatbot for Facebook Messenger and Telegram without breaking a sweat with LIKE.TG.
Congratulations, you’ve learned why it is necessary to send emails to nurture leads after they subscribe to your brand.
Lead scoring
Lead scoring is a method of rating leads to help you better understand how much benefit they can bring your business and how to treat them. This technique allows marketing and sales teams to analyze and divide leads into groups based on their buyer journey stage, email engagement, behavior, company information, etc.
In this video, Alex explores 4 effective strategies to streamline lead scoring, helping you optimize your sales process and boost conversion rates.
Why is lead scoring important?
Lead scoring can help you understand how to work with different parts of your audience. By analyzing user data and assigning a score, you can find out which leads are most likely to become customers and which ones need nurturing from your business. At every stage of the buyer’s journey, prospects require different kinds of treatment. If you learn to assign the correct score to them, it will make your sales and marketing teams work more efficiently.
Lead scoring also helps you save time and money by tailoring the most relevant content and offers to specific segments of your audience. This, in turn, can improve your relationships with the audience.
Lastly, lead scoring helps you sort out the least active part of your audience, the cold leads, which allows you to send them more personalized messages. Let’s figure out how to make up a lead scoring strategy.
How to Build a Lead Scoring Plan
Identify Your Problem
Design a Scoring Model
Set Thresholds for Your Lead Scoring
Choose a Lead Scoring Service
Decide How to Engage with Leads after They Reach Thresholds
You need to take five steps to make a lead scoring plan for your business.
Step 1. Identify Your Problem
Several problems can make you think about implementing lead scoring:
you may have a volume issue when you need to drive more qualified leads to your sales team;
you may have a quality issue when your sales team wastes time on leads who are yet not ready to purchase;
you may have a long sales cycle that needs to be shortened.
The problem that you need to solve is the foundation of your lead scoring strategy.
Step 2: Design a Scoring Model
Identifying a problem will help you design the lead scoring model to achieve your business objectives. It’s also necessary to align sales and marketing objectives to identify which demographics and behavioral patterns are worth tracking and assign a score to each.
For example, subscribers who clicked through your last email campaign may get 10 points, while those who only opened the email get 5 points. When users visit your pricing page, their score may increase by 15 points and only 7 points when they visit your brand’s homepage.
Besides, you should prioritize channels that attract traffic to these pages. For instance, one user may visit your landing page after clicking a link in your email, while another may be redirected from a PPC ad on Google. The prospect who used the search engine to find information is warmer than an email subscriber because, in the first case, they’ve willingly searched for information and not simply received it in their inbox. It’s best to assign points accordingly.
It’s also important to care about score decay. This means that you should take points away from leads who have changed their intentions or stopped engaging with your content.
Step 3: Set Thresholds for Your Lead Scoring
Decide upon the score ranges that will coincide with leads’ readiness to buy. For instance:
a lead with a score 0-20 can be considered a cold lead or even a non-fit, which allows you to remove them from your program;
a lead with a score 21-49 can be classified as a warm lead, who isn’t ready to buy and needs to move along in your nurturing program;
a lead with a score 50 and above is a hot lead, so it’s best to hand this contact over to the sales team.
Step 4: Choose a Lead Scoring Service
You need to choose a service that will meet your functionality requirements and budget. You can overview some lead scoring companies here.
If you run a small business and only work with a few digital marketing channels, you may not need to have a universal service to cope with a lead scoring task. For instance, when sending your email campaigns with LIKE.TG, you can have two ways of scoring leads: by rating and by activity.
LIKE.TG automatically assigns subscribers a score from 1 to 5 stars based on their activity in the last 60 days. It depends on the open rate, click-through rate, and the total number of campaigns sent to a specific user.
Rating based on user activity also helps you understand whether your subscribers have active email addresses or not.
Step 5: Decide How to Engage with Leads after They Reach Thresholds
Think about the ways to deal with leads when the lead scoring system identifies their readiness for shopping. It’s best to automate communication so you can put your business in front of your leads with the most relevant content when they are most likely to engage with you.
For example, you can send automated emails with exclusive offers and discounts to close deals with hot leads and emails with more product information to warm leads who need nurturing.
Here’s a series of automated nurturing emails that start with a welcome message to greet new subscribers. It’s easy to setup: register with LIKE.TG, create an event that will trigger email sending, create some templates, and connect them in a workflow. Here’s a guide to creating automated emails.
You can also send relevant campaigns via a Facebook chatbot based on the leads’ buyer journey stage.
Let’s finish this guide with some best practices.
5 Best Practices to Succeed at Lead Scoring
Review your lead scoring system
Use negative scoring
Disqualify dead-end leads
Set up different lead scoring models
Notify your sales team about new MQLs
We’ve collected five actionable tips so you can enrich your lead scoring strategy. Here they are:
Review your lead scoring system. Your target audience may change over time. New behavioral patterns may appear, and demographics may change as your business increases its market share. Lead scoring is not something that you can set once, hoping it will work forever on its own. Review the score of your leads at least once a quarter to be able to adjust your scoring tactics to any changes.
Use negative scoring. This is necessary for keeping the score relevant to users’ behavior and engagement with your brand. Negative scoring will help you send the right types of content at the right time, especially when leads have lost interest in your brand.
Disqualify dead-end leads. It’s best to save time and effort on communication with leads who are not interested in your brand. Your lead scoring system will help you identify their status and enable you to take action.
Set up different lead scoring models. It’s okay to have a few criteria for lead scoring at once. The number of lead scoring models you use depends on how vast your demographics are. For example, it’s okay to rank users by their activity, the number of purchases they made from your shop, the amount of money they spent, etc.
Notify your sales team about new MQLs. It’s best to immediately inform your sales department about new hot leads coming. Automated notifications will do just that, avoiding human error and any delays. This will make your business more likely to keep the leads in your funnel.
Congratulations, you’ve learned the basics of lead scoring. Now you are ready to develop your lead scoring system!
Lead generation email
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 magnetsto 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
8 Lead Generation Strategies and Examples That Work
SEO lead generation
Social media lead generation
Facebook lead generation
LinkedIn lead generation
Instagram lead generation
TikTok lead generation
Email lead generation
Chatbot lead generation
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.
10 Lead Generation Tools
LIKE.TG
OptinMonster
HubSpot
Intercom
Leadpages
monday.com
Pipedrive
Mailchimp
Unbounce
ConvertKit
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Perform lead scoring. This approach involves using marketing automation software to prioritize leads based on their levels of engagement with content.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lead magnet
A lead magnet is a special offer that you promote to your audience in exchange for their email address. The results of an effective lead magnet is typically an email list with the addresses of the existing and potential customers.
Why Are Lead Magnets Important for Your Business?
It is simple: a lead magnet is helpful for effective lead generation. Leads are your potential customers. Lead generation is an important content marketing goal.
People are not willing to share their contact information unless they are offered something valuable in return. Users will not subscribe without a good reason unless they realize that you won’t be spamming them. Only send useful information, focus on the problems of your customers and offer fast and effective solutions!
How Can I Create a Lead Magnet?
Build your buyer personas
Define the value of your proposition
Analyze your competitors
Choose a type of a lead magnet
Don’t start working on your lead magnet until you have clearly defined its goal. Why do you need it? How can you benefit from it? If you have answers, let’s start creating a lead magnet.
Stage 1: Build buyer personas
Every business needs to create buyer personas – no matter whether you use email marketing or something else, you should really understand who you are selling to. Unlike a target audience, which means a group of all the customers possibly interested in your offer, a buyer persona is a particular individual who may become your client.
A buyer persona is a representation of the “perfect client” based on market research and data about the customers that your business already has. The things to include in your buyer persona are:
age;
gender;
social status;
job;
behavior patterns;
motivations;
goals and demands.
Do not try to appeal to everyone – it’s impossible even if your product is perfect. Remember that a lead magnet should target a single buyer persona per time.
Stage 2: Define the value of your proposition
Now, why would you choose your offer if you were in your clients’ shoes? What can you promise to your leads? It is much easier to develop a powerful value proposition if you know your target audience and the benefits of your product.
Think about things that your buyer persona may actively need, to avoid being too pushy with your offer. Then, think of a couple of features to make your offer the best offer available.
For instance, you may look at the SEO positions of different pages of your blog to identify the top pages— they will show the topics and keywords that your users are most interested in. Sort by traffic, and make a list of ideas for your future offers that relate to the highly searched keywords.
Stage 3: Analyze your competitors
Never copy the strategies of your rivals, but be aware of them. They may inspire you to do things better, taking the best from both your offer and their products. Define ten competitors using SEO tools like Ahrefs and Moz. Insert their primary lead magnets in an Excel sheet and get inspired, proceeding to the next stage of lead magnet creation.
Stage 4: Choose a type of a lead magnet
Think of a title that corresponds to your value proposition. This process may remind you of creating an email subject line.
The next step is selecting the type of lead magnet to use. First of all, make it simple and concise. Focus on your strengths and reveal them to your leads. Finally, prioritize speedy consumption – show that you can solve their problem very fast, for example, deliver the required goods quickly via the fastest shipping method.
Specific types of lead magnets include:
guides and reports;
a free trial or a demo version;
a resource list;
a quiz, survey, poll, questionnaire, mini-game;
a cheatsheet
a video tutorial;
a discount or special offer;
sales materials.
That is it! The last stage is creating a lead magnet. Once you complete the first four steps, you’re ready to create your lead magnet. Don’t sweat it, having a plan will make the process even easier.
Lead Magnet Ideas and Examples
Checklists and bullet points
Quizzes and polls
Toolkit
Tutorial or a video lesson
Discounts for sales promotions
Giveaways and competitions
Expert advice
Free trial
It is simpler to understand how something works when you have an example. We have collected the best lead magnet ideas and supported them with visual examples for you.
Checklists and bullet points
How-to guides are better off when they are presented as checklists. For example, they are great for students to ensure that they have completed every step of an essay writing or business people who want to check whether they have considered all the necessary steps for launching a marketing campaign.
Quizzes and polls
Quizzes or polls are used to define how well the users know a specific topic. You can also offer tips and recommendations in return for users completing your quiz or poll. Other common types are psychological tests or just fun quizzes. You can even use a beauty quiz to help customers detect the best cosmetics for them!
Ipsy suggests taking a beauty quiz before completing your subscription. Based on their results, users receive personalized tips and offers. To finish creating a profile, users have to share their email address.
Toolkit
It is always great when a successful person shares their secrets with you. Several tips are not enough – it’s better to attach an entire toolkit to develop. It works well for businesses that offer training and coaching, for instance.
Free trial
Companies that offer digital products and services may benefit from allowing their users to “test drive” their offer for free. Free trials boost your customers’ confidence in your brand. It’s a good idea to provide a free sample of your product instead of a 30-day free trial. Both alternatives work well when it comes to capturing email addresses from potential leads.
Tutorial or a video lesson
You may come up with a valuable piece of content in the form of a blog post or a video guide. What you may do is to use a so-called exit-intent pop-up. It is a pop-up that predicts when the user is going to leave your page and shows a relevant offer. It is not annoying or disturbing at all, unlike constant, and permanent pop-up windows that irritate visitors.
Discounts for sales promotions
Consider offering free shipping or generous discounts for your goods. In most cases, a 15-20% discount is great for making your brand look trustworthy. High-quality goods are usually not offered at 50% off or more. It is possible to simply inform a user about a discount or encourage them to sign up or enter their email address to get their discount.
Giveaways and competitions
Mostly, companies that offer specific products like beauty goods or mobile devices make use of competitions. Giveaways are also a popular theme among game developers and online casinos. The idea is to gain more subscribers and likes in social networks by offering something to win.
A $1,000 giveaway might seem like a pricey option, but it will bring your business back more if used wisely.
Expert advice
Show that you have experts on your team, and make them visible to customers! Insert photos along with names and positions and provide brief descriptions of your experts. Either briefly explain that your experts will consult and help customers and share their stories of success. Making qualified and successful people visible and available to your customers will significantly increase your credibility.
How Can I Create a Subscription Form with a Lead Magnet with LIKE.TG?
To create a form with a lead magnet, follow the four steps below.
Select a type of a form. Register with SendPulseand go to “Subscription forms.” You can find a pop-up window as well as embedded, floating, and fixed forms to choose from. You may test several kinds of forms and choose the most appropriate one. You can also use a pre-designed form.
Pick a mailing list. After users give you their personal information to receive your lead magnet, their email addresses will be added to your mailing list. It will significantly ease the process of working with your customer base.
Design the subscription form. Use a convenient drag and drop building solution to create your design. Come up with a heading, add images, and insert various fields to gather the info you need. Visual elements are important!
Decide the criteria to display the form. Select the time for your form to show up on the site. Then, choose the specific page and location to display your form. You may decide to hide it from mobile users.
That’s it! Once you are done, add the subscription form with a lead magnet to your website. Save the link from LIKE.TG to use the form for any purpose.
Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to creating a unique subscription form with LIKE.TG.
Tips to Сreate an Effective Lead Magnet
Make sure your lead magnets are targeted
Stress the speed of your work or shipping
Only ask relevant questions
Do you need a couple of extra tips on creating an efficient lead magnet?
Make sure your lead magnets are targeted
If your business offers a generic free feature on your form, you risk gathering leads that have nothing to do with your industry. For instance, it does not make much sense to release your guide on how to look after your beard or mustache on Pinterest, as almost 80% of this platform's users are females. It is better to implement something like Unbounce offers below.
Stress the speed of your work or shipping
No one likes to wait – keep it in mind because you can benefit from this fact! The best idea is to specify the time that it takes your team to write a piece of content.
Just like in the example, provide an approximate estimation. The phrases like “We do it /faster than anyone else” will not work anymore.
Only ask relevant questions
In the subscription form, make sure you ask all the questions required for productive cooperation with your clients. For example, B2B businesses might want to know more than only your name and email address – industry, company name, and website information are often required.
In summary, a lead magnet is an integral part of marketing content. We have provided some of the top examples from successful online companies and offered a bunch of effective tips, so get inspired and rely on LIKE.TG!
Landing page creator
Landing page creators are tools for creating websites without coding. They help marketers build customized landing and squeeze pages easily and swiftly.
Watch this video to learn how to create a professional-looking landing page for free in 15 minutes with LIKE.TG visual landing page builder.
Better yet, most landing page creators allow users to not only build pages but also to maintain leads the whole way down the lead funnel. Thus, they often offer additional built-in services or integrations.
If you struggle to find a service that matches your needs, read further. We’ll explain how to pick one and unpack the seven most interesting options.
What should I look for in a landing page creator?
The short answer is whatever features you need. To figure out what they are, try to describe your future landing page. If getting your head around it is still hard, check out the list below for some hints:
Free plan or trial. Testing the creator before paying for it helps reduce the odds of wasting your budget on an inconvenient tool.
Friendly intuitive interface. Most of the page creators on the market are based on a drag-and-drop principle. However, they have tons of differences; test several options, and go for the one you like the most.
Responsiveness to various devices. Roughly 52% of all traffic is mobile; your potential customers are likely to view your landing page on their phone screen. So, choose a page creator with a constructor for mobile versions of a page or that auto adapts page sizes for various devices.
Design freedom and templates. Ready-to-use designs allow you to build landing pages at a fast clip. On the other hand, the lack of customization won’t always yield the result you need. Try to find the perfect balance between design freedom and pre-made templates.
A customizable domain name. Regular links with the landing page creator’s name don’t look good. Go for builders that allow you to use custom domains.
Analytics. Professionals who use five or more analytics tools are 39% more likely to improve their marketing performance. To keep track of your landing page results and refine them, consider creators with built-in or integrated analytics tools.
A/B testing. Little things have the power to make or break your landing page performance. For instance, changing a CTA button’s color can increase your conversion rate by up to 21%. So, always look for a split test function in your landing page creator.
HTML, JS or CSS editor. Sometimes, even the most robust set of design features doesn’t give you enough freedom for website customization. You can solve this problem by adding your custom code if the landing page creator has an HTML, JS or CSS editor.
SEO options. 70% of marketers consider SEO to be more effective than PPC ads. So, what is the point of neglecting this opportunity to attract leads and increase your ROI?
The good news is that the landing page creators we’ve picked for you have all of these features and more. Let’s look at our list closer to find out what opportunities are available for landing page building.
8 Best Landing Page Creators
The core of most landing page creators is a simple drag-and-drop editor allowing you to construct websites in minutes. However, builders on the market differ tremendously; they offer various degrees of design freedom and sets of features. We’ve picked seven services from straightforward to highly customizable to help you create killer landing pages.
LIKE.TG
LIKE.TG is a multichannel marketing platform that provides an easy-to-use landing page builder. It enablesyou to create a landing page, an online store, or link page for your social media bio. You need less than half an hour and no coding skills to design a responsive page. Just drag the necessary elements to your layout and edit them to your liking.
You can either choose a ready-made landing page template or create your own one from scratch. Add an image gallery, video, subscription form for users to opt-in for your emails and chatbots, live chat for your website, links to your chatbots and any other resources, connect payment options, design colors, fonts, and background to your liking. Make use of reports to track the views and clicks of your landing page and optimize it for a search engine.Followthis step-by-step guideto get started.
Free plan:Available forever. No paid features.
Google Sites
The landing page creator from Google offers an easy-to-use editor for building landing pages step by step. Despite its limited functionality, this tool is handy for creating simple web pages. Not to mention it’s completely free.
Out-of-box customization is restricted to only nine landing page templates and six design themes. Each of them is responsive to various devices. However, you can widen these opportunities by adding custom HTML and JS code. Among other helpful design options, the header auto-adjusts for readability.
Google Sites supports integrations with other Google’s services: Analytics, Slides, Forms, Charts, and more. Also, it allows you to map your site to a custom domain name.
Free plan: Available forever. No paid features.
Unbounce
This simple landing page creator resembles Photoshop both visually and logically. So, if you’re familiar with Photoshop, using Unbounce will be a breeze.
The tool allows you to create desktop and mobile pages, pop-ups, sticky bars, and AMPs. For each of them, Unbounce offers a huge variety of templates. The service has integration with Unsplash, allowing you to find images in-house.
Whatever you go for – using a pre-built template or creating your page from scratch – Unbounce gives unbounded customization opportunities. You can take advantage of them by using the service’s tools or your custom HTML, JS, or CSS code.
Thanks to the Dynamic Text Replacement function, Unbounce helps to match a PPC ad with a landing page on the go. A smart traffic feature increases personalization by automatically adjusting landing pages to a visitor’s attributes: location, type of device, visitor behavior, and more.
Unbounce allows you to publish landing pages on your domain or WordPress site. For lead nurturing, the tool has integrations with 1000+ marketing services, including Google Analytics, Zapier, Slack, and more.
Free plan: 14-day trial.
Paid plan: From $72 monthly.
Wix
This service allows you to create both landing pages and multi-page websites. Wix is easy to use, and the editor is intuitive.
For an easier creation process, Wix offers users to start with one of its 500+ pre-built optimized themes. To reduce the odds of spending hours choosing a template, try Wix ADI. This tool will create a website for your business automatically – all you have to do is answer a few questions. In return, Wix will offer three adjustable landing page designs.
The customization options are colossal. You can add animated and video backgrounds, go for scroll effects, choose from 100+ fonts or upload your own, and use pre-designed blocks.
Apart from landing page creation, Wix takes care of attracting and nurturing leads. The service provides you with a personalized SEO plan and analytics, social and email marketing tools, and visitor analytics. Also, Wix supports integration with extraneous platforms, such as Hubspot, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Crazyegg, and more.
Free plan: Available forever.
Paid plan: From $13 monthly. Includes extra bandwidth and storage, domain connection, Wix ads removal, Google Ads vouchers, site booster, visitor analytics, payment acceptance, and more.
Instapage
This tool is perfect for teamwork and collaboration. It includes five workspaces and five team members on a free plan and even more on paid ones.
The simple-to-use editor allows you to build a landing page from pre-designed instablocks. They imply several adjustable variants for each type of page block – headers, showcases, testimonials, and more. Once you’ve tailored a block to meet your needs, you can save it as a template. To get your site online quickly, Instapage offers 500+ customizable layouts.
Apart from abundant design options, Instapage has other advantages. Taking care of your mobile presence, the service forbids you from publishing your landing page without creating a mobile version. To boost conversions, Instapage has the Thor Render Engine; it allows speeding up a landing page’s loading times.
The service claims to have the largest integration ecosystem on the market. It includes advertising, analytics, call tracking, CRM, eCommerce, email marketing, automation, and other types of services.
Like Unbounce, Instapage supports the technology for matching your PPC ads and landing pages and personalizing the post-click experience. Also, it offers A/B testing and multiple campaign management tools.
Free plan: 14-day trial.
Paid plan: From $149 monthly.
KickoffLabs
This service positions itself as a tool for creating landing pages that go viral. How does KickoffLabs achieve that effect? Each lead gets credits for the number of friends they share your page with. Their Advanced Fraud Protection tool prevents mucking up your campaign.
The KickoffLabs’ editor requires some time to get familiar with it and adjust to its mechanics. The service offers 45+ highly customizable templates. To tailor them further or apply your design, go for the CSS or HTML editor. All pages are responsive, so you don’t have to build a second version of your website for mobile devices.
KickoffLabs provides users with A/B testing, exit intent pop-ups, and other types of widgets to bring in more leads. Apart from this, the service offers an email marketing tool, CRM, viral boost analytics, and a lead demographic data tool.
Free plan: Available forever for one campaign and 500 unique visitors per month.
Paid plan: From $79/month for five campaigns and 20,000 unique visitors per month. Includes custom domain URLs, unlimited entries, no KickoffLabs branding, viral boost, email marketing tool with various templates, SMS contests, A/B testing, lead notifications, integrations, Advanced Fraud Prevention, custom email domains, API access, and more.
Tilda
The service has a manageable interface, which makes website creation no brainer. With Tilda, you construct web pages from 450+ pre-designed customizable blocks. Can't find the one you need? You can create a new block with the zero block option. To customize the page even more, embed HTML, JS, or CSS code.
All Tilda landing pages are adaptive to various devices by default – there is no need to create a stand-alone version for mobile devices and tablets. Also, the service is search engine friendly. To reduce page load times, Tilda hosts images on geographically distributed servers.
The service offers A/B testing to refine your webpage results, a form builder to create custom forms, and a UTM tag builder to instantly create links for ads, social networks, and other resources. Also, you can use Tilda’s built-in CRM and an email campaign builder.
Tilda supports integrations with a robust set of services, including Google Analytics, SlideShare, Trello, Pipedrive, AmoCRM, PayPal, and LIKE.TG. Apart from it, the service has an on-site analytics service, which allows you to track the number of visitors, their activity, and see your most popular pages.
Free plan: Available forever for one website and a limited set of features.
Paid plan: From $10 per month. Includes custom domain support, Google Analytics integration, Facebook pixel, SEO recommendations, Google search console, HTTPS settings, page redirects, favicon editing, websites export, form data collection services, payment services, custom CSS-code, and more.
Carrd
This landing page creator allows you to build websites insanely quickly by using dozens of templates. The interface is minimalistic, and most tools are intuitive. Others, however, are a bit trickier. For instance, text can be customized by applying markdown language. It’s ok if you don't know anything about this format – Carrd will give you easy instructions.
Design options are restricted with many pre-made themes only allowing you only to reorder the blocks. However, you can always add a new block by clicking the “+” button and choosing a container. Or add text, visuals, timers, and more to existing blocks. Carrd automatically adjusts new blocks and visuals to match the main theme.
The service allows adding audio, videos, widgets, custom code, and IFRAMES. Landing pages made with Carrd are responsive and look great at every screen size out of the box.
Carrd supports integrations with MailChimp, GetResponse, Stripe, PayPal, Typeform, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and other services.
Free plan: Available forever for three websites.
Paid plan: Roughly $1.5 a month ($19 a year). Includes custom domains, forms, additional landing pages, widgets and embeds, Google Analytics integration, Carrd branding removal.
A Quick Overview of the Best Landing Page Creators
We’ve unpacked quite a few popular landing page creators with various functionalities and pricing. Let’s sum up the key information about them in the table below.
Landing page creator
Free Plan
Paid Features
Starting Price per Month
LIKE.TG
Available forever
–
–
Unbounce
14-day trial
Up to 500 conversions;
up to 20,000 visitors;
one connected domain.
$72
Google Sites
Available forever
–
–
Wix
Available forever
Extra bandwidth and storage;
domain connection;
removing ads;
Google Ads vouchers;
site booster up;
visitor analytics;
accepting payments.
$13
Instapage
14-day trial
Thor Render Engine;
post-click score;
AdMap;
multi-step forms;
A/B testing;
heatmaps;
conversion analytics;
dynamic text replacement;
integrations;
SSL encryption;
GDPR compliance;
Google single sign-on (SSO).
$149
KickoffLabs
Available forever for a mini-campaign with 500 unique impressions a month.
Custom domain URLs;
unlimited entries;
KickoffLabs branding removal;
viral boost;
autoresponder emails;
reward level emails;
influencer emails;
SMS contests;
A/B Testing;
lead notifications;
standard integrations;
Advanced Fraud Prevention;
custom email domains;
custom email templates;
API access.
$19
Tilda
Available forever for one website and a limited set of features.
Custom domain;
Google Analytics integration;
Facebook pixel;
SEO recommendations;
Google search console;
HTTPS settings;
page redirects;
favicon editing;
websites export;
form data collection services;
payment services;
custom CSS-code.
$10
Carrd
Available forever for three websites and a limited set of features.
Custom domains;
forms;
additional landing pages;
widgets and embeds;
Google Analytics integration;
Carrd branding removal.
Roughly $1.50 per month ($19 a year).
Landing page creators are handy tools for making websites in minutes without coding. To get great results for a reasonable price, test several services and find one that matches your needs. Chances are you wouldn’t need a builder with the most robust set of features right away.
Without post-click communication and lead nurturing even the most attractive landing page will fall flat. Get started with LIKE.TG to drive your leads down the funnel via email marketing and boost ROI with other tools — SMS messages, web push notifications, and chatbots.
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 magnetsto 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
8 Lead Generation Strategies and Examples That Work
SEO lead generation
Social media lead generation
Facebook lead generation
LinkedIn lead generation
Instagram lead generation
TikTok lead generation
Email lead generation
Chatbot lead generation
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.
10 Lead Generation Tools
LIKE.TG
OptinMonster
HubSpot
Intercom
Leadpages
monday.com
Pipedrive
Mailchimp
Unbounce
ConvertKit
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Perform lead scoring. This approach involves using marketing automation software to prioritize leads based on their levels of engagement with content.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lead conversion
Lead conversion is the marketing process of turning leads into paying customers. It entails all the marketing practices that stimulate a desire to buy a product or service and push a lead towards a purchasing decision.
To become a client, each lead has to go through the lead funnel, which has following these stages:
Awareness
Interest
Decision
Action
To drive a lead down the sales funnel and transform them into a customer, you can use a variety of strategies. Read on to learn about the strategies you can leverage for lead conversion.
Lead Conversion Strategies
Use landing pages
Build content marketing
Go social
Apply email marketing
Try push notifications
Proceed to call
Consider chatbots
Retarget through PPC
On average, companies spend $198.44 to generate one lead. To get a return on these investments, you have to take care of converting a lead into a customer. We’ve picked eight strategies for you to stick to crush your ROI goals.
Use Landing Pages
Marketers consider website home pages dead because they lack personalization. Thus landing pages have gained a foothold in driving better lead conversion. They address narrow audiences and capture leads more effectively.
To nail the lead conversion via landing pages, define your audience precisely. Pinpoint their pain points and concerns to show how your product solves their problems. For better results use our guide on creating a high-converting landing page.
The cornerstone of every landing page is a subscription form. It allows you to get leads and convert them into customers. To get more leads, make your forms easy to fill in – numerous fields scare customers away and perform poorly.
To create appealing and good-looking subscription forms, try LIKE.TG’s free builder. With this tool, you can create various types of forms from scratch. Our robust editor enables you to customize the design, choose various fields, add lead magnets, and more, without the need for any technical knowledge.
If you don't have a landing page yet, create it with oureasy-to-use drag and drop landing page builder. It's free and requires no coding skills. You can design a landing page, online store, or link page for your social media bio from scratch or use a ready-made template. Add images, galleries, videos, subscription forms, links to your social media profiles and chatbots, payment options.
Check out below how the process of creating a landing page looks like. Choose the necessary elements and drag them to your layout. Edit their design with the toolbar.
Look for more information in this guide.
Start Content Marketing
Content marketing is the go-to tool for both generating leads and moving them down the funnel. This strategy involves creating content to educate your leads about your product or service, engage them, and help them make a purchasing decision.
Each of these tasks requires a different type of content. For instance, you can engage a reader with a blog post on how to solve their problem, educate them about your product with an eBook or webinar, and affect their purchasing decision with a case study.
Approach your content not as stand alone pieces, but as flows that drive a lead from awareness of your product to making a purchase. Providing your leads with useful content relevant to their position in the buyer’s journey yields 73% higher conversion rates.
The efficiency of your content marketing boils down to keeping your leads’ best interest at heart. Make your content concise and engaging. Don’t overdo the selling component and CTAs – they should be your suggestion, not the main points of your content. Lastly, maintain a regular publishing schedule and updating your content often.
Go Social
With 3.8 billion users worldwide, social media is a great way to attract and nurture leads. Use social media to get to know your customers better – who they are, what they like, what they are interested in. To nail your SMM efforts, follow these tips:
Create a content plan for every platform. Find the perfect posting frequency, types of content, and themes. Use services for auto posting to maintain all of your pages.
Include hashtags to increase brand awareness. They help your content appear in search results and on trending lists.
Always use visuals to boost engagement. Users share visual content more readily than text. For instance, they retweet posts with images or videos 1.5 times more than posts without them.
Remember that 43% of internet users research products through social media. Thus brands should provide them with the opportunity to purchase without leaving a social network page. Facebook and Instagram already allow businesses to do so through Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping tools.
Use Email Marketing
This way of converting leads to customers has proven its efficiency time and time again. 80% of business professionals consider email marketing their primary customer retention channel.
To convert leads via email marketing, stick to these rules:
Use different types of emails in your strategy. Marketing emails help nurture leads. Triggered campaigns – abandoned cart or re-engagement emails – boost conversions in the lower stages of the funnel.
Segment your mailing list and personalize your content. According to 51% of email marketers, list segmentation is the most effective way to personalize lead nurturing. Provide each lead with customized content. Make offers based on their browsing history, gender, or region.
Make your emails appealing. Create catchy headlines, attractive designs, and concise and interesting to read copies.
To compile perfectly looking, personalized, and automated email campaigns, try LIKE.TG for free.
Employ Push Notifications
When it comes to working with leads on the bottom of the funnel, web push notifications are nothing to sneeze at. The average reaction rate of push notifications is 7.8%. It makes them the perfect complement to other lead conversion strategies.
Rules for using this tool resemble email marketing rules: apply a good-looking design, make appealing offers, and create clear calls to action. Segment your leads and create personalized notifications for the best results. Sending web push notifications to a segmented audience increases their CTR by up to 218%.
Segmenting your leads and creating personalized notifications is a piece of cake with LIKE.TG. Add the lead’s name, region, or favorite products to your messages and send them automatically.
Proceed to Call
41.2% of sales representatives believe phone calls are the most effective sales tool. So, it's worth using calls for lead conversion if it makes sense in your niche. For instance, phone calls work well in the B2B sector or selling complex products, such as business software.
Be wary of timing with your phone calls. Avoid calling too early – 60% of leads want to have a chat with a salesperson after they’ve researched the market and made a shortlist. To avoid unwanted calls, encourage your leads to book a call from you when they’re ready.
To make your phone sales more efficient, try following the SPIN selling technique. S stands for situation, P – problem, I – impact, N – the need for a solution. These are the topics to talk about with your lead. Find more tips on selling products and services in our direct sales guide.
Consider Chatbots
57% of businesses agree that chatbots deliver high ROI with minimal effort. To leverage lead conversion goals, teach the bot to understand your audience’s needs. In the beginning, it can ask about the problems a lead wants to solve and offer some solutions.
Make the chatbot sound like a human. Although the audience knows they are dealing with a robot, they still like it to resemble humans. The chatbot’s style of conversation should reflect your company’s tone of voice.
Make your first steps in chatbot marketing by creating a Facebook or Telegram chatbot with LIKE.TG. Send up to 10,000 messages a month to an unlimited number of subscribers for free.
Retarget through PPC
75% of people consider paid ads to be helpful in finding what they need. 26% clicked on an ad because they were familiar with the brand. That makes PPC advertisements effective in interaction with interested and loyal customers.
To leverage lead conversion through PPC, target your ads at those who’ve already visited your website or landing page. Make sure your offers are relevant to your lead’s interests and location. Create ads that stand out with visuals and copy. Make sure your calls to action are clear.
You can show PPC commercials several times, but remember to stock a variety of them. Otherwise, your leads will get bored with seeing the same old ad.
Whatever strategy you choose for lead conversion, keep track of its efficiency. Rely on lead conversion metrics to get credible and clear results.
Lead Conversion Metrics
Metrics help you evaluate how successful your marketing efforts are in achieving your goals. And when it comes to lead conversion metrics, you can encounter a myriad of them. We’ve picked several indicators to help you understand the effectiveness and cost of your lead conversion.
Lead conversion rate helps check your ability to attract the audience and turn them into leads.
Time to conversion enables you to spot how long it takes for a visitor to become a lead.
Cost per conversion shows how much it costs to get a customer.
Lead value allows you to estimate how leads are valuable to the success of your company.
Lead-to-sale conversion rate shows you how likely it is that a lead will turn into a sale.
Conversion ROI helps track the return on investment per conversion.
Follow the table below to calculate these metrics.
Metrics
How to calculate
Lead conversion rate
Total number of new customers / Number of leads*100
Time to conversion
Total time spent by all visitors / Total number of leads
Cost per conversion
Total cost of advertising / Number of conversions
Lead value
Total sales value / Total leads
Lead-to-sale conversion rate
Converted Leads / Total Lead Volume
Conversion ROI
(Lead value - Cost) / Cost
What is a good lead conversion rate?
The short answer is between 1-3%, according to Econsultancy. Speaking precisely, ideal conversion rates vary based on different factors: channels of lead generation, ways of lead nurturing, and more.
Moreover, the lead conversion rate target is different for various industries. Unbounce has calculated the median conversion rates for sixteen industries.
9tips to increase lead conversion rate
Only work with quality leads
Make a killer offer
Include customer testimonials
Use clear calls to action
Offer a guarantee
Add a countdown timer
Add leads to your CRM system
Automate your lead conversion process
Create a live chat
No matter what your lead conversion rate is, you can always increase it. We’ve picked seven tips to help you get higher conversion rates.
Only Work with Quality Leads
At least 50% of leads or prospects turn out to be a bad fit for companies. Target only those who are the most likely to become your customers. Learn about your leads’ occupations, marital status, geographic location, income, pain points, and interests. Compare their portrait to your typical buyer persona or current customers.
To make the evaluation even clearer, try lead scoring. It implies giving your leads certain points for their professional status, and engagement with your website and brand. To save time, use lead scoring software and services, such as Leadspace or Velocify Lead Manager.
Make a Killer Offer
To convert your lead into a customer, start with an alluring offer. And by alluring we mean personalized. 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide highly relevant offers and recommendations.
To personalize your offer, learn your leads’ preferences by tracking their behavior on your website. Another way to make the best offer possible is to follow Birchbox’s example. To start, the beauty box service asks a lead to fill out a questionnaire. It includes questions about their appearance, favorite products, and problems with their skin and hair. Based on this information, Birchbox tailors its beauty boxes individually for each customer.
Include Customer Testimonials
92% of consumers read reviews before purchasing, and 88% trust testimonials as much as their friends or family’s recommendations. This makes testimonials, reviews, and other types of social proof a powerful tool for growing your lead conversion rates. You can incorporate testimonials into your landing and product pages, emails, social media, or even PPC ads.
Zapier provides an A+ example using their clients’ reviews on the website’s main page. The testimonials show real cases of people using Zapier’s software and highlight its advantages. Each quote is accompanied by the customer's photograph, which increases credibility.
Use Clear Calls to Action
Having too many choices can make your leads get confused. They may leave your landing page or email without clicking a CTA button. Here is a proof: pages with only one call to action have a 3% higher conversion rate than pages with five or more.
To increase your conversion rate, revise your content carefully, and exclude multiple calls to action. Avoid ambiguity – your calls to action need to be crystal-clear. If you have a nagging doubt which CTA performs better, run an A/B test – it can boost conversion rates as well.
Blue Apron does an excellent job with their CTA. The cooking service provides only one option in their email – pushing the “Let’s cook” button.
Offer a Guarantee
This move helps eliminate your lead’s doubts and increase your conversion rate. Adding a 30-day money-back guarantee on the website can increase sales by 21%.
A money-back guarantee may be tricky to employ – it drives extra costs, customer service congestion, and can create a mess of documents. That’s why businesses sometimes make vague guarantees, such as 100% satisfaction. Do not follow their example – offer something sustainable, as Sixthreezero does. The company gives a buyer a year to return the bike if they don’t like it.
Add a Countdown Timer
Creating scarcity is a simple trick to pull a lead towards making a purchase. Humans crave things that are rare. To make scarcity and limited nature of your offer even more obvious, add a countdown timer.
Be honest – leads will find out about the fake limitations and lose trust in your proposals. In the example below, the clothing store Bonobos used an email with a countdown timer. What a pity we didn’t get in time with this offer.
Add leads to your CRM system
With a CRM system, you can store all the information about your clients and their orders in one place. This will help you develop a step-by-step sales plan based on the needs of every customer. So, you'll not only close deals faster but improve your relationships with clients.
The LIKE.TG CRM systemallows companies to accept orders, automate the sales process, keep information about customers, communicate with them with the help of email campaigns and chatbots, and share deals between your team members absolutely for free. You can visualize all your work on a kanban-board paying special attention to the statuses to have a full picture of the processes.
For detailed guides on using our CRM, check out the LIKE.TG Knowledge Base.
Automate the lead conversion process
79% of the most successful companies automate their work with leads. The software helps generate more leads, provides analytics to evaluate your work and optimize your strategy, and saves time on interactions with leads. To automate your communications, try LIKE.TG. Our Automation 360 tool allows you to send emails, SMS, and web push notifications to segmented contact lists automatically. Add conditions for each interaction with a lead and automatically stop the flow after reaching the goal – converting a lead into a customer.
Create a live chat
With a live chat, you can drive website visitors' attention. Offer them answers to FAQs, assist in their journey, and provide help. You can collect their personal information and use it to your advantage in your future campaigns. With LIKE.TG, you can convert site visitors into clients by adding a live chat widget to your website.
Trying to figure out how to apply these strategies and tips to your business tasks? To get a clearer understanding, check out the examples below.
Lead Conversion Examples
Some brands know a thing or two about converting leads into customers. Let’s learn how they use different strategies and tools to drive leads down the funnel.
Hootsuite goes for an eBook
Social media management tool Hootsuite uses content marketing to get leads and draw them further down the funnel. At first, you find their proposal to learn more about what customers want from a social brand. To get it, you have to fill in the form; it helps segment and evaluate leads from the beginning.
In the next step, Hootsuite redirects you to a guide. Apart from educational information, the document contains promotional sections and calls to action.
If the lead doesn’t convert in a previous step, Hootsuite proceeds with an email offering subscribers a chance to get in touch with a sales representative. This way the service gets valuable information about leads, such as their occupation and the size of the company they work for. Coupled with the free eBook in advance, it helps score leads from the beginning and increases the chances for future conversions.
Mango sell through social networks
The clothing retailer makes the most of its Instagram account by simplifying the journey from being a lead to a customer. Once you see a gorgeous outfit, you can click on the image and get a link to the particular item and shop it immediately.
On the social network shopping page, Mango upsells the chosen product offering other pieces from the same post and other popular items. Going directly to a product page from an Instagram post allows Mango to get the most from the lead’s impulsive wish to buy something.
Hubspot uses chatbots
The marketing software developer provides an A+ example of converting a lead through chatbots. The conversation starts on Facebook with a question about what the user is interested in – reading the blog or getting free tools.
If they chose the last option, the chatbot pinpoints your main goal and redirects you to a corresponding landing page with sales software products. There you can go for a free trial or engage in conversation with another chatbot. The latter connects you with a salesperson to consult.
In case of problems, HubSpot gently reminds users about the conversation through email and encourages you to visit their website again.
To unlock your full lead conversion potential, try various tools and strategies. Consider starting with email, web push, or chatbot marketing – register with LIKE.TG and create beautiful, personalized, highly converting, and automated email campaigns.
Landing page
A landing page is a separate web page created for marketing or advertising purpose and aims at increasing conversion rates. People land on the page after clicking an email link, following one from the search engine results page or social media advertisement. With LIKE.TG, you can build a landing page , online store link, or a link page for your social media bio for free in just 15 minutes.
You don't have to be a developer or know how to code to create a beautiful landing page. Watch the video below and follow the instructions!
A landing page is designed to turn your site visitors into leads. By offering something relevant to page viewers, you can get their contact information in return. So, you can nurture your leads and turn them into loyal customers in the future. The main challenge is to provide users with a valuable and appealing offer so that they leave their contact details.
Why is a landing page important?
Landing pages are critical to increase brand visibility, drive more sales, enhance SEO practices, and generate new leads. This page is a perfect way to grow your customer base.
Here are some statistics that demonstrate the importance of using many landing pages to improve your practices:
2.35% is the average conversion rate for landing pages from different industries;
61% of marketers have trouble acquiring leads and generating traffic;
68% of B2B companies use landing pages to acquire more leads;
Companies that increase their number of landing pages from 10 to 15 see a 55% increase in leads;
Videos on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 86%.
Benefits of a Landing Page
Easy lead generation
Collecting customer data
Improved SEO ranking
A perfect way to promote a new product
Simpler decision-making process
Let’s dig deeper and discover what the main benefits of creating and using a landing page are.
Easy lead generation. Sending your potential clients to a regular homepage instead of a targeted landing page is ineffective. An engaging and relevant landing page will interest visitors and persuade them to give you their contact details in return for something valuable. You can collect leads' data via a subscription form, popup, or live chat.
Collecting customer data. Via landing page visits, it is possible to collect valuable information and demographics that will significantly help your team improve marketing activities in the future. You will get to know your potential customers better and get more in-depth insights into their needs.
Improved SEO ranking. A landing page should target a particular set of search phrases and terms to be promoted with Google Ads or another paid advertising platform. Targeted pages can significantly increase your SEO ranking so you can easily stand out from competitors.
A perfect way to promote a new product. With a landing page, you can lead your visitors to a single page that describes a new product. This way, you can concentrate their attention and promote new products or services.
Simpler decision-making process. On a landing page, you have to provide visitors with some exclusive offers, which streamlines their decision-making process. They can focus on the relevant information with no other distractions and decide whether they want to go further.
How does a landing page work?
The way a landing page works is quite simple. After following the link, the user is taken to the landing page that has a special offer or describes a particular product. The main component of a landing page is a strong CTA, an image, button, or a piece of text that spurs a person to fill in the form. To get access to the special offer, a person has to fill in the form, and in turn, becomes your lead.
The form usually includes fields for an email address and a user name. This is enough to store this info in your database and use it for future marketing activities. After a visitor has filled in the form, they receive a thank-you email.
What is the main difference between a homepage and a landing page
The thing which makes a landing page different from a homepage is its purpose — to convert site visitors into clients. Unlike a homepage, a landing page is a single detached web page that is not connected to your website and is designed to generate more leads. A landing page has no navigation and usually includes only basic information about a product or service with a contact form that aims at capturing essential personal data to turn visitors into customers in the future.
While homepages are created for a wide audience, a landing page catered to narrow segments of users who are very likely to convert. That’s why marketers make use of case studies and video tutorials to show the value of the product offered.
Key Components of an Effective Landing Page
Outstanding headline
Relevant copy
Eye-catching images
Features and benefits
Subscription form
A strong call to action
Here are the essential components of an effective landing page.
Outstanding headline
This is the first thing people will see, so it should be short and sweet, but as relevant as possible. Come up with an engaging and compelling heading that will keep your visitors interested in reading and filling in the form. Tell people about the product or service you are trying to promote and grab readers’ attention with a few catchy words.
This example is a perfect demonstration of how brevity and simplicity can engage visitors. It took MOZ six words to convey the purposes they help to achieve.
Relevant copy
An effective copy can either support your headline or provide users with additional value. Use this component as another chance to attract user attention. Explain your headline and tell about the benefits of your service but don’t be too wordy — cover the basics in a few words.
Check out the example below. HubSpot explained the essence of their product for marketers in three lines.
Eye-catching images
Including relevant images enhances the overall idea you are trying to convey on your landing page. Quality eye-catching images and GIFs, like in the example below, will draw people’s attention, and they will be more interested in exploring the page and leaving you their contact details.
Make sure that the images are relevant to your landing page content and describe your product from the best angle. Let users see the results they can achieve using your service.
Intercom uses a nice GIF above the fold on their landing page to attract user attention and provide screenshots describing how their service works.
Features and benefits
These two components complement one another. The best way forward is to provide a bulleted list of your features and explain how your clients will benefit from using YOUR service. Compare your features with any similar features from your competitors, find advantages that make your brand better and mention them on your landing page.
Look at the example below. Snov.io not only describes the features of its email finder but also explains why it’s worth trying.
Subscription form
A subscription form is a core thing to include on your landing page. It’s the main component you need because people leave their contact info you can use for your future marketing activities. It can be a short form that might require only entering a visitor’s email address or a longer form where a visitor should include their first name, email, phone number, or other details relevant for your product or service.
Remember, the more fields you add to the form, the more bounces you will have since people avoid filling in long forms. So, the best option is to ask for a name and email or at least make the fields not obligatory to fill in.
LIKE.TG offers its users pre-designed subscription forms and a flexible form builder that requires no HTML knowledge. Create multichannel forms to collect not only users' email addresses but let them contact you via a chatbot in Facebook Messenger and Telegram. Check out such a form below.
Below is an example of a subscription form that collects only an email address. Besides, it eliminates typical users’ pain points and offers an incentive for young, growing companies.
Live chat
You can set up a live chat widget on your website to assist leads during their journey. Provide them with help, answer FAQs, tell them about your brand, and showcase your product. This will help you build strong relationships and convert your website visitors into customers. Look below at the example of a live chat.
With LIKE.TG, you can create a live chat for your website in no time and for free.
A strong call to action
An active call to action is another important element that needs your attention. A CTA can decide whether or not a person will give you their contact information. Your CTA must be as relevant and captivating as possible. The text of the button has to be straight to the point and show a person what they will get in return. Do not be vague but stay concise and specific.
Below is a standard but effective call-to-action for a SaaS company’s landing pages.
Now that you know about the key elements of an effective landing page, it's time to learn how to create one. You can do this with LIKE.TG for free.
How to create a landing page for free with LIKE.TG?
LIKE.TG provides an easy-to-use drag and drop landing page builder that allows you to create an online store, mobile landing page, or link page for your social media bio in less than half an hour, and without any technical skills.If you have the inspiration and the time, you can create a landing page from scratch. LIKE.TG also offers pre-designedtemplates that you can customize to your liking.
You can add buttons with the links to your chatbots, as well as a subscription widget. Integrate a payment system to convert leads into customers. Track key performance indicators and improve your site's search engine rankings with SEO settings. The builder is available for free.
Below you can see how the process of creating a landing page looks like. Drag the necessary elements from the left to your layout and edit them with the help of the right panel.
You can also see the statistics of your page, namely the number of views and clicks.
Follow this step-by-step guide to create a landing page with LIKE.TG.
Tips to Create a High-Converting Landing Page
Invest in a user-friendly and responsive design
Use social proof
Incorporate reviews, testimonials and case studies
Make use of rewards
These tips will help you enhance your practices, so you can create a high-converting landing page that will bring you more leads.
Invest in a user-friendly and responsive design
If your landing page doesn’t render well on users’ smartphones and they have to use horizontal scroll bars, they won’t even try to use them. A responsive page design is a must to provide customers with the best user experience.
To increase brand awareness, invest in an original and unique landing page design. Make sure all of the elements like the page’s color, font, and text size are uniform throughout your website. Leave enough white space to make the text easy to scan.
When considering an original page design, Apple is likely to be the first brand that comes to mind. Their landing pages look like a short movie, however, the design remains minimalist. Take a look!
Use social proof
When landing on a new page, users consider whether that brand is worth trying and here social proof does the trick. You may show how many people have already registered or show a pop-up with real-time registrations. This way, potential users will see that lots of people use your services and the fear of missing out on something valuable won’t let them leave your page.
Check out the example of social proof below.
Incorporate reviews, testimonials and case studies
All of the elements of customer feedback belong to social proof as well. They play a special role for users who are considering using your service. Nothing works better than customers’ experiences of working with your brand. So, ask your clients to leave a review and place it on your landing page. That will motivate potential customers to give your service a try.
Look how Moz adds their customers’ testimonials to their landing page.
Make use of rewards
Certifications awarded by authoritative third parties make people trust your brand as well. Add the logo of the company that awarded your brand along with a link and you’ll have +1 to your brand authority.
Below you can see how Serpstat includes their rewards on their landing page.
Ways to Promote a Landing Page
Organic search
PPC
Emails
Paid social media advertising
Guest blogging
By implementing these tactics, you will be able to promote a desired landing page throughout the Internet easily.
Organic search
To make an effective landing page, it’s imperative to include relevant keywords and phrases in your title, so a more targeted audience can find your page. With a search engine optimized page, chances are much higher that people will stay on it and give you their contact details.
Using long-tail and specific keywords, and a relevant meta description will help users easily find a relevant page.
The results of a search are displayed under sponsored ads and the keywords a person users are bold. Check it out below!
PPC
With this type of online advertising, you pay only for ads that were clicked by users. So, the main challenge is to choose the right audience segment that is very likely to need your product and set your budget wisely. To have more chances for conversion, set concrete goals and make sure that your landing pages answer all the questions that a user may have.
Look below to see how promoting a landing page with the help of PPC looks.
Emails
Emails are a great way to promote a certain landing page. In this case, it’s a great way to turn your leads into customers. By sending an email with a landing page to a targeted group of people from your database, you can easily promote your landing page. This approach works best for promoting new products and services and upcoming events.
Email services, like LIKE.TG, facilitate the process and also allow you to track the effectiveness of your email campaigns so you can improve them in the future and drive more sales. Create an eye-catching email from scratch or use pre-designed templates to save time. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started.
Сheck out how Tilda promoted its new feature via an email campaign. The brand provides the link to the landing page and offers a how-to guide.
Paid Social Media advertisement
Social media platforms are great channels to promote your landing page since you might have an audience there. You can easily launch an advertising campaign on Facebook, Instagram, or other platforms relevant to your business. Define your target audience and start promoting your landing page. To get more conversions, you have to be specific about your targeting and take into account as much data about users as possible like gender, age, country, occupation, interests, and hobbies, etc.
Then, all you need is to write an eye-grabbing headline and add beautiful images that describe your product from the best angle.
Guest blogging
This is one of the most effective ways to look for new audiences and promote a brand new product that users won’t search for on Google. To make this method work, you should make the right choice of platform. Look for top influencers and authoritative bloggers in your field, analyze their audience to make sure it will be interested in your product.
Contact these people, ask them to try out your service for free, and share feedback with their readers or write a guest post on their blog with a link to the relevant landing page. The higher their authority, along with user engagement, the more conversions you’ll have.
As you can see, a useful landing page is an integral part of business development and growth. This beneficial yet straightforward aspect can help you attract more people, raise brand awareness, generate leads and drive sales.
By implementing the tips provided in this article, you will be able to create a highly appealing and efficient landing page that will allow you quickly to acquire leads and turn them into clients. LIKE.TG can help you increase your landing page performance with the subscription forms.
Create a landing page
Lead capture
Lead capture is an approach to collecting potential customers’ personal information. Usually, brands design special forms that encourage prospects to submit their contact information (name, phone number, email, etc.) in exchange for a guide, eBook, product demo, or checklist. Users can find lead captures on brands’ sites, social networks, or blog posts. Lead capture enables businesses to receive customer personal data, deliver marketing messages, and convert leads into customers.
In this video, Alex reviews lead generation tools that help you nurture leads and convert them into customers.
In this article, we’ll unveil why use lead capture on your website, compare lead generation with lead capture, and explain what lead capture form is. We’ll also provide you with 13 ways to capture leads, a guide on creating a lead capture strategy, and some excellent examples.
Why use lead capture on your website?
According to statistics, 15% of marketers face problems with generating leads and traffic. These challenges can be solved with lead capture forms, allowing businesses to gather contact data of qualified prospects. Here’s a list of actions you can do with their help.
Collect personal customer information. With lead capture forms, you can receive the contact information of potential customers. You can design forms and place them on the company website. You can get prospects' names, phone numbers, or email based on the fields you add. Moreover, you increase the chances of leads sharing their contact information if you provide something valuable instead. Send prospective customers guides, eBooks, or checklists in exchange for their personal data.
Establish a customer database. Whether you have a startup or a well-established company, lead capture forms are essential for customer database building. Collection of contacts daily helps you create a database of potential customers interested in your product. At the end of the day, you’ll have a list of people who show interest in your company and are likely to purchase your product in the future.
Conduct lead segmentation. Special fields in your form can serve as tools for segmentation and targeting. With their help, you can divide potential customers into groups based on their location, interests, or industry. As a result, your marketing team can create marketing messages and offers that resonate with specific audience segments. It’ll encourage trust and credibility.
Increase conversions. Lead capture forms allow you to identify people interested in your product and likely to buy from you. If you nurture these prospects and provide them with the right offers, they can become your customers. After sending relevant information, business owners are more likely to improve conversions and increase their revenues.
Apply personalization. After collecting information, marketers use it to their advantage, especially for personalization. With its help, you can craft communication with potential clients based on their needs, location, preferences, etc. Personalization allows you to provide a seamless customer experience and improve conversions.
Now that you know some of the most crucial reasons to use lead capture forms, let’s review the best tactics for your business.
Lead Capture vs Lead Generation
Both concepts are crucial to any marketing strategy aimed at attracting new prospects to a business. Yet they serve different purposes, and we’ll explore them further in this section.
Lead generation is the process of attracting new prospects who are interested in a specific brand. Marketers use various strategies to bring awareness about products and services through websites, social media platforms, email campaigns, etc. With lead generation, businesses strive to expand their reach, improve visibility, and increase customer base.
Lead capture is the process of marketers gathering contact data of potential customers who interacted with a company’s website, social media channels, or live chat and showed interest in it. Marketers use various tools for collecting personal information, including landing pages, sign-up forms, contact forms, and call-to-actions. These forms usually ask prospects to share their email addresses, names, and phone numbers so that marketers can keep in touch with them shortly. Lead capture aims to obtain contact data of people who can potentially become customers after marketers nurture them.
Simply put, lead generation helps attract potential customers and drive interest in specific products and services, while lead capture helps collect contact data of these prospects to ensure further interactions. The two processes are essential for acquiring new customers and expanding the company’s reach.
Now that you know the difference, it’s time to find out more about one of the tools that help collect leads’ data — lead capture form. In the next section, we’ll uncover what it is and how you can use it to your advantage.
What is a lead capture form?
Lead capture form is a web-based element added to a strategic place of a website or landing page aimed at obtaining email addresses, names, and phone numbers of prospective customers for further communication with them. This information helps marketers qualify and nurture potential customers. Forms might vary in format, color, and design depending on the primary goals businesses carry. They can have only basic fields or additional requiring more specific information.
Marketers use lead capture forms for different reasons. Some collect contact information and generate and nurture leads, while others use forms to segment prospects, target them with personalized messages, and evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. According to statistics, 50% of marketers report that inbound strategies, including lead forms, are the main ways of obtaining new prospects. This data supports the fact that every business needs to incorporate lead capture forms for a wider reach and a bigger customer base.
Marketers acquire new leads by using various lead capture forms, including contact forms, newsletter sign-up forms, webinar registration forms, content download forms, demo request forms, lead magnet forms, survey forms, and many others. Despite the form's format, its main purpose is to obtain prospects' contact information, which companies can use to interact with potential customers.
Besides various forms, you can collect contact data with other strategies, which we’ll review in the next section. If you don't have these tools yet, they will make you consider adding them to your marketing channels.
12 Ways to Capture Leads
Subscription forms
Exit pop-ups
Scroll pop-ups
Entry pop-ups
Lead magnet pop-ups
Live chat widgets
Chatbots
Product demos
Free trials
Contests
Referral programs
Quizzes and survey pop-ups
There are many effective approaches you can use for your business. However, they vary depending on your industry, target audience, and key goals. In this section, we’ve gathered the best tactics you can incorporate into your company.
Subscription forms
When potential customers open your website, they can find a subscription form. This form encourages them to subscribe to your newsletters and receive updates and exclusive offers. By providing a subscription form, you can obtain prospects’ contact information, such as name, phone number, and email. This information is essential to follow up with your potential customers and establish trusting relationships. LIKE.TG allows you to create professional subscription forms without knowing the code for free.
For example, below is a subscription form from Formidable, where users can provide their names and emails to sign up for the company's newsletter.
Exit pop-ups
Exit pop-up is the most popular and effective type of automated message used by businesses. They appear on the screens of laptops and smartphones once users are about to close the tab. Companies often try to keep users on websites by adding exit intent pop-up forms containing something useful for visitors.
Convert Flow instantly displays templates to start creating survey pop-ups when users are about to close the tab. The service offers visitors to start for free so that they stay on the website longer and provide contact data.
Scroll pop-ups with gamification
Scroll pop-up emerges once users scroll to a specific part of the page. These pop-ups differ from others, like entry or exit intent pop-ups, because they are triggered by users’ scrolling behavior.
You can see an example from TOMS. The pop-up appears when you are at a certain point on its website after scrolling. The brand invites new subscribers to spin the wheel to withdraw discounts up to 15%.
Entry pop-ups
Entry pop-up appears on a website when a user lands on it. It can contain different information about sales, attractive offers, and special deals, encouraging visitors to provide their email addresses. Some sites add entry pop-ups to identify prospects' locations to switch to the right currency, shipping costs, and shipping methods. After collecting subscriber data, you can synchronize this information automatically with your CRM in LIKE.TG.
Below, you can see how Lancome gathers information about the user’s location to show the right prices and shipping options.
Lead magnet pop-ups
A lead magnet pop-up is a message containing useful materials, PDFs, presentations, and reports companies provide for free in exchange for visitors’ contact information and email addresses, most commonly. Users can see this type of pop-up when they scroll the website or when they have an exit intent. This type of pop-up entices visitors to provide their contact information to obtain the information they might want.
Below, you can see an example of a lead magnet pop-up on the ViB website. The pop-up encourages users to share their email addresses in exchange for a PDF about lead generation trends in 2024.
Live chat widgets
With a live chat, you can communicate with your potential customers in real time and receive all the information you need for further follow-up. Adding a live chat widget to your site increases the chances of users contacting you and asking some essential questions for them. During this conversation, you can find out their email, phone number, and name. As a result, you’ll be able to expand your customer database and provide these prospects with interesting offers.
Below, you can see an example of a live chat from HubSpot. Leads can receive automated messages or directly speak to customer support agents.
Chatbots
Chatbots bring the same benefits as live chat. However, with bots, your customer support agents don’t have to be online 24/7. Chatbot will handle all the most common questions and other inquiries about free trials, payments, reservations, appointments, orders, delivery, etc. You are the one to identify the areas your chatbot will be responsible for. LIKE.TG empowers you to set up chatbots for Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger chatbots without coding skills.
Below is an example of a chatbot on Lancome’s website. Users can click on the ready buttons to receive appropriate answers in seconds.
Product demos
The live product demo is an interactive and engaging lead-generation technique. With its help, you can demonstrate your product, its pros, and its features in real time. When potential customers have questions or doubts, you can instantly provide them with counterarguments. This way, you handle objections. Demos can be presented as webinars, video calls, or offline events.
Below, you can see how Slack promotes its demo on the site.
Free trials
A seamless free trial experience can become one of your effective tools for lead generation. It’s especially useful for businesses involved in the development of software and online services. With free trials, prospects have lower barriers to entry. It means that free trials make it easier for potential customers to sign up and try your product immediately. Free trials encourage product exposure. Leads can explore your product's features firsthand and determine whether it suits their purpose before paying for anything.
Below, you can see Squarespace’s invitation for prospects to get started with a free trial without any credit card details.
Contests
Contests and giveaways encourage prospects to share their email addresses for participation. As a result, you’ll have the contact information of people interested in your products. Promote your contests and giveaways on social media to encourage greater exposure. More and more people will learn about your events and strive to join.
For instance, The Original GreenPan announces its giveaway on Instagram.
Referral programs
Run referral programs to attract more qualified leads. Encourage loyal clients to recommend your company to their friends and offer rewards for referring them. This will establish word-of-mouth promotion and gain more customers who are ready to purchase.
Below, you can see a referral program from The Body Shop. The well-known brand encourages clients to participate for 20% off their next orders after they invite a friend.
Quizzes and survey pop-ups
These messages prompt users to take part in a quiz or survey and provide their answers. They keep site visitors engaged and might give them some useful information instead.
That’s what Neil Patel does. The company entices users to stay on the website and answer 5 simple questions to get a step-by-step action plan for driving traffic to your website.
There are plenty of ways to attract leads and encourage them to share their contact information for further updates and promotions. However, to do everything right, you also need to know how to create a lead capture strategy. In the next section, you can check out the guide to get started.
How to create a lead capture strategy?
Developing a lead capture strategy requires accurate implementation, planning, and innovation to effectively collect contact information of users who might be interested in your products. That’s why here’s a step-by-step guide on creating it.
Identify your target audience. Consider determining the characteristics of your buyer persona. To effectively incorporate lead capture, you should understand their needs, problems, and motivations. Market research, surveys, and analytics data will help you collect all the customer insights and use this information about your target audience to your advantage.
Determine key objectives. The goals for your lead capture strategy should be specific, measurable, and achievable. For example, you can strive to boost website traffic, increase your email subscriber list, or improve sales by 20%.
Choose relevant lead capture tools. Lead capture methods you select should meet your leads’ goals, needs, and preferences. There are many tools you can use for this, including subscription forms on your site, lead magnet forms providing ebooks, guides, and webinars, and various action-triggered pop-ups like exit-intent and entry scroll pop-ups. You can also add lead capture forms to your blog posts, videos, podcasts, events, and webinars, encouraging customers to sign up to receive the latest updates. Referral programs, giveaways, and chatbots are also effective ways of lead generation.
Develop a compelling offer. Since site visitors rarely give away their contact data, you need to have something interesting and valuable for them. Lead magnets like guides, webinars, templates, checklists, or exclusive promo codes will incentivize users to share their email addresses.
Choose the right design and placement for your lead capture page. When choosing the place for forms, always consider your high-traffic pages. The design of your form also matters a lot. Your call to action should be clear, visible, and compelling, enticing users to take action. Make sure that your headlines are eye-catching, form fields are visible, and design is pleasant for site visitors. Consider using the A/B test to ensure you choose the best option available to contribute to higher conversion rates.
Incorporate lead nurturing flows. Consider creating email campaigns to nurture prospects. You can apply segmentation and personalization and send emails based on leads’ interests, preferences, behavior, engagement, and needs. Relevant offers, personalized product recommendations, and exclusive promo codes can entice them to browse your items and purchase one.
Keep an eye on performance and evaluate results. With analytics platforms, it’s very easy and convenient to monitor lead capture forms’ performance. Pay attention to the following KPIs: site traffic, conversion rates, email open rates, and click-through rates. Then, analyze the received lead insights to change your strategy for better performance. Better yet, you can use a special platform like LIKE.TG, which combines a capture lead form builder and built-in analytics, allowing you to create forms and track their performance in one place.
These are the must-do steps to consider and remember when creating your lead capture strategy. Yet, to speed up the process and maximize your efforts, you need to choose lead capture software that automates most of your actions and reduces the workload. Here’s a list of the best tools for creating lead capture forms.
10 Best Lead Capture Software
LIKE.TG
HubSpot
OptinMonster
ConvertKit
Leadpages
Sleeknote
OptiMonk
Zoho Forms
Typeform
Mailchimp
Your choice of software depends on the following factors: your budget, requirements, goals, needs, and preferences. We’ve compiled a list of tools to consider based on their features, price, and analytics capabilities.
LIKE.TG
LIKE.TG is a powerful all-in-one marketing solution that allows you to build lead capture forms in seconds for free. Due to its affordable pricing and various features, the platform is a great choice for startups and well-established businesses.
Features:
drag-and-drop builder;
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.
Pricing:
free plan: 10,000 unique visitors monthly, 3 projects, 10 active pop-ups per project, 30+ pop-up launch scenarios, and premade pop-up templates;
paid plan: 10,000 unique visitors monthly, unlimited number of projects and pop-ups, 10 domains per project, Google Analytics integration for $ 6.40 monthly, if paid annually.
HubSpot
HubSpot enables you to easily build lead capture forms that convert fast with its intuitive builder. The service will suit owners of businesses of all sizes.
Features:
embedded, standalone page, pop-up box, dropdown banner, slide in left box, slime in left box forms;
drag-and-drop editor;
1,000 input types;
contact scoring.
Pricing:
free plan: you can create lead capture forms for free;
paid plan: if you need to incorporate other HubSpot marketing tools, you’ll need to pay $15 monthly, billed annually.
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.
Features:
lightbox popups, floating bars, inline forms, scroll boxes, fullscreen overlays;
drag-and-drop builder;
300+ designed templates;
AI popups;
countdown timers;
animations and sound effects;
mobile-responsive pop-ups;
custom fonts and styles.
Pricing:
free plan: isn’t available within the service;
paid plan: the prices for OptinMonster’s tools start at $49.60 for one site and various form formats.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a platform designed for creators who want to develop their businesses and generate leads through forms. They can share freebies, add exit intent pop-ups, encourage site visitors to subscribe to their email newsletter, and entice users to share their email addresses to receive information about content updates. The service is intuitive, so you won't need any skills or knowledge to start.
Features:
various formats: inline, modal, slide-in, sticky bar forms;
library of templates;
responsive forms;
easily customizable and adjustable to your branding;
custom fields for collecting specific information;
double opt-in;
checkboxes for consent.
Pricing:
14-day free trial;
paid plan: unlimited forms, tagging and segmentation, visual automation builder, and free migration for $9 monthly.
Leadpages
Leadpages is a tool suitable for small businesses, allowing them to create landing pages and forms to seamlessly convert site visitors into subscribers.
Features:
drag-and-drop builder;
spam opt-in filter;
custom fields, including drop-downs, radio buttons, and checkboxes;
field customization (fields required or not, hidden values, drop-down field choice labels adjustments, etc.);
reordering fields;
follow-ups like lead magnets and thank you pages.
Pricing:
14-day free trial;
paid plan: 10,000 monthly AI Engine credits, AI engine headlines and images, 250+ conversion-optimized templates, unlimited traffic and leads, and one custom domain for $37 monthly.
Sleeknote
Sleeknote is an intuitive software platform focusing on creating customizable pop-up forms and slide-ins to generate leads, boost sales, and interact with site visitors. Its user-friendly pop-up builder enables you to create eye-catching forms without knowledge of the code, and its advanced targeting features offer accurate lead segmentation for higher conversions.
Features:
geo-targeting;
video pop-ups;
A/B testing;
gamification;
library of 25 themed templates;
various formats: slide-in, pop-up, sidebar, sleek bar, etc.;
Pricing:
7-day free trial;
paid plan: 25,000 visitors, gamification, unlimited campaigns, domains, and support for $52,29 monthly, billed annually.
OptiMonk
OptiMonk is a conversion optimization platform that enables companies to capture leads, reduce cart abandonment, and improve sales by using targeted pop-ups, exit-intent offers, and on-site messages. The platform suits e-commerce, online retailers, SaaS companies, small businesses, and large enterprises.
Features:
300+ mobile-optimized templates;
no-code editor;
personalized pop-ups based on user behavior and actions;
AI for product descriptions;
reminder sticky bars;
lead magnet pop-ups;
gamification: lucky wheels or “pick a present” popups;
product recommendations;
countdown timers.
Pricing:
free plan: 15,000 pageviews monthly, one domain, all features, and unlimited campaigns;
paid plan: 30,000 page views monthly, 2 domains, all features, unlimited campaigns, and no branding for $32.5 per month.
Zoho Forms
Zoho Forms is an online form creator that empowers brands and individuals to design custom forms for various purposes, such as lead capture, surveys, feedback collection, event registration, and more from scratch or pre-built templates. The service has a dynamic and simple interface, allowing users to customize forms without preliminary training.
Features:
no-code online form builder;
customizable themes;
30+ field types;
conditional email or SMS notifications after a new record is submitted;
UTM tracking and form analytics.
Pricing:
free plan: one user, 3 forms, unlimited form views, 500 submissions monthly, and 200 MB file storage;
paid plan: 1 user, unlimited forms and form views, 10,000 submissions monthly, and 500 MB file storage for $10,67 monthly, paid annually.
Typeform
Typeform is an online form builder well-known for its visually appealing and easy-to-fill-in forms. Using AI, users can create professional forms about anything in seconds. Once the form is generated, service users will only need to optimize it and make some slight changes.
Features:
28 question types;
form customization to match branding;
library of templates;
AI form generator;
intuitive online form builder;
mobile responsive forms.
Pricing:
free plan: 10 responses, one seat, unlimited forms, and AI form generator;
paid plan: 100 responses, one seat, payments, and receiving file uploads for $25 monthly, if billed annually.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp enables you to develop customizable pop-up forms to capture leads, expand your email list, and encourage engagement among site visitors. The platform can be used for businesses of all sizes and industries.
Features:
easy to use form builder;
customizable forms;
signup landing pages;
pop-up forms;
library of ready-to-go templates.
Pricing:
free plan: one seat, one audience, and forms;
paid plan: unlimited forms for $7 monthly if paid annually.
You have a wide range of platforms to choose from to build lead capture forms, and now it's time to implement some effective tips.
15 Tips to Create Lead Capture Forms that Convert
The effectiveness of your lead capture forms depends on the increase in customer base. These forms enable you to turn site visitors into potential customers. There are best practices for designing lead captures successfully, and we'll unveil them below.
Choose strategic placement. Make sure that your form is visible on the website. Users should instantly notice it. Consider adding your capture lead form to the homepage, landing page, blog posts, etc.
Utilize lead capture form pop-up. Pop-ups are more likely to grab the lead's eye and encourage them to have a look. They also allow you to focus users’ attention on the main message of your lead capture. The right placement, timing, and information will contribute to the effectiveness of your pop-up.
Add form elements based on priority. Your form should be manageable with fields users are willing to fill in. Add essential fields asking prospects their names, emails, and phone numbers to the top of your form. A call to action button and fields should stand out. For this purpose, consider using appropriate fonts, colors, and spacing to catch prospects’ attention.
Add clear and visible call-to-action buttons. When creating call-to-action buttons, add words that communicate their main purpose. They should be visible, clear, and compelling. CTAs should be short and straightforward so that site visitors understand what they can do by clicking on them. Consider adding strong action verbs encouraging action.
Send automated emails. After a lead submits the form, remember to send an automated “Welcome ” or “Thank You” message to remind prospects about your brand and encourage trust. Show them you care and remember each potential customer on your mailing list.
Create benefit-orientated titles. You should create headlines that highlight the benefits prospects can attain. Use words wisely when crafting headlines for your lead capture forms. For instance, your form title should look like “Receive best deals right to your inbox.”
Offer rewards. When you ask site visitors to leave their emails, names, or phone numbers, it’s better to provide something in turn. It can be a small discount, promo code, free delivery, or a free gift for a future order.
Use exit-intent pop-ups. Exit-intent pop-ups help you hold up leads on your site. However, you need to have a compelling reason to keep users on your site. This reason should encourage them to fill out the form. It can be a discount code, gift, free delivery, etc.
Apply a single-column layout. Your form’s fields should be in a single-column layout. It’s essential to ensure that prospects scan and complete the form quickly. Multi-column forms can overwhelm leads and prevent them from submitting.
Provide useful materials in exchange for emails. A lead magnet is an incentive provided in exchange for prospects’ contact information. It can be a guide, white paper, checklist, webinar, discount code, template, or other helpful materials. This is an excellent way of grabbing visitors’ attention and encouraging them to share their names, emails, or phone numbers.
Encourage sharing. Your form might include social sharing buttons. They encourage leads to share information about your attractive offers, free trials, or product demos for signup.
Incorporate personalization. We recommend personalizing your lead capture forms when you have a chance. Consider crafting the form using information about the user's behavior or referral source. This will increase the chances of conversion. Potential customers pay attention if the offer is tailored to their needs or communicates a general message.
Add interactive elements. Consider using content that needs users’ active participation. Elements like polls, surveys, and games encourage site visitors to interact with your brand and share their contact details. Gamification contributes to more engaging lead capture forms and more site visitors sharing their email addresses.
Create multi-step forms. If you have more than basic form fields, it’s better to divide them into steps, avoiding intrusiveness. You can apply multiple views for a more user-friendly experience.
Include a lead magnet. Incentives help you improve conversion rates and minimize the number of abandoned shopping carts. Consider providing discounts, promo codes, and exclusive deals based on potential customers' browsing history and items added to shopping carts.
Now it’s time to explore some excellent ways for brands to incorporate lead capture forms.
6 Amazing Lead Capture Form Examples
There are many brands, and the variety of outstanding lead capture forms amuses. We've gathered 5 best lead capture forms to keep you inspired. They’ll help you create an attention-grabbing form that converts. Let’s jump in.
Loyalty Club — The Body Shop
The Body Shop is known worldwide for its cruelty-free products. The company invites users to join its loyalty club and enjoy its perks. When prospects sign up, the famous brand offers 15% off the first purchase. Leads can insert the code to take advantage of the offer. They only need to provide their emails.
Product Demo — Podium
Podium invites its site visitors to take a quick demo of its product and learn how to secure more leads for a company. Users only need to click a visible call to action button, “Watch demo.” Then, they will be redirected to a page where they need to provide their email addresses in exchange for a demo.
Right Placement — OptinMonster
OptinMonser, a lead generation platform, ensures the form is visible to users once they visit the website. The form has a clear and compelling call to action button: “Get Started with OptinMonster.” The company also explains the reasons for using the software. If leads still have questions, they can click “I have a few questions first!” and get the answers right away.
Entry-Intent Pop-Up — Rhode
Rhode, a skincare brand, uses entry-intent pop-ups encouraging people to sign up and receive updates on its products. The pop-up appears instantly after users land on the website and asks them to share their email addresses for upcoming news.
Discount lead magnet — Levi’s
Levi’s, an American clothing brand, uses pop-ups with lead magnets to collect contact data. Once users open its website, they will see a pop-up form containing information about a 20% discount and free shipping for the first order. New customers only need to share their email addresses in the form provided.
Answering pricing questions — Sleeknote
Once users land on the platform’s pricing page, they will instantly see a pop-up, including the image of the company’s CEO. The form invites site visitors to ask questions regarding the prices or other topics related to the service. They need to fill in their names, email addresses, and questions to get feedback.
Congrats, now you know what lead capture is and why it’s essential for your company. Hope that our guide and tactics will help you increase the number of contacts on your mailing list.
Lead funnel
A lead funnel is a representation of the journey that leads make from becoming aware of your brand to becoming paying customers. It’s usually divided into several stages — awareness, interest, decision, and action. Companies use lead funnels to optimize their marketing efforts, speed up the lead-to-customer conversion intervals, and save their budget.
In the video below, Anya shares valuable lead funnel marketing tips to help you boost your online business. Check it out!
Why is a lead funnel important?
Creating a lead funnel will help you organize your marketing efforts so that lead generation, nurturing, and sales processes work in balance. To build an effective lead funnel, you need to deeply analyze your audience, define the best communication channels for each stage, and cut loose any methods that are not working for your brand.
With a well-thought lead funnel, you can gather leads and convert them into paying customers with ease. Now, let’s review all the lead funnel stages.
4 Basic Lead Funnel Stages
Awareness
Interest
Decision
Action
Let's imagine a customer making their journey through the lead funnel, we'll call him John.
Awareness
In the awareness stage, the future customer faces the problem that your product can solve for the first time. John has a strong cough when he spends a long time at home. When he wakes up in the morning, he feels his throat is dry, and suspects the dust and dry air provoked these symptoms.
In this stage, people try to identify the problem, so they are searching for information, usually on Google. In this case, John’s query is probably something like “dry air at home.” Look at the search results for this query:
The very first result gives a solution to the problem, now the user moves on to the next stage of the lead funnel.
Interest
Now, John knows he should rehydrate his home with a humidifier — the right product to improve his home climate. In the interest stage, people are searching for more specific information. John wants to know everything about humidifiers, and his query is “how to choose a humidifier.” Here’s the result:
Starting from this stage, you can convert leads into customers. A company in the example above tries to do just that using Google Ads. However, the ad is poorly targeted, offering an industrial humidifier, so it fails.
Imagine that John opens the page from Allergy Buyer Club and it looks relevant and has a lot of information about humidifiers. Here is the contents of this article, which is a great read in the Interest stage.
Usually, users only check the results from the first page of their Google search. Make sure your brand ranks highly, at least for long-tail keywords, like “how to choose a humidifier for home.”
Now, the future customer knows exactly what kind of product they need. So they move down the lead funnel to narrow their search.
Decision
At this stage, people choose a specific product based on its key characteristics. To compare humidifiers from various brands, John searches for “best home humidifiers” on Google. The example below, is a so-called “rich result” page — a comparison of 16 the best humidifiers with customer reviews, pricing, photos — everything to make the decision easier.
In this stage, you need to sell the idea that your company or product can solve problems better than your competitors. For this purpose, you can create a landing page that highlights all technical specifications, shows how it works, provides customer reviews, etc.
If you don't have a landing page yet, create one with the help of LIKE.TG drag and drop landing page builder. You don't need to code, since the builder is easy to use and it won't take you more than half an hour to create a good-looking landing page, online store, or link page for your social media bio. Add multichannel subscription widgets, buttons with the links to your chatbots, and integrate a payment system to convert leads into clients. Follow these instructions to create a landing page for free with LIKE.TG.
John doesn’t cut corners when it comes to his health, so he decides to buy an expensive Dyson’s humidifier after he examines their landing page. When users are ready to buy, you need to offer them a good deal, so they want to purchase from your brand.
Action
Once people choose a product, they browse different online shops searching for the best price. At this stage, make an irresistible offer to convert a lead into a paying customer.
Note that people may start communicating with your brand at any stage of the funnel, so make sure your company provides relevant, quality content throughout their customer lifecycle.
Now that you know the stages of a lead funnel, let’s see how to create one.
How to create a lead funnel with LIKE.TG
Generate leads
Nurture leads
Close sales
Add leads to your CRM
Inspire customers to return
It seems Dyson has a huge marketing budget for their lead funnel that converted John into a customer. If your business is on a tight budget, you can create an effective lead funnel using free digital marketing tools from LIKE.TG, including subscription forms, email templates, automated emails, and chatbots.
Here are the basic things you need to do to create an effective lead funnel:
Generate leads
If you have a website or blog with some traffic, you can add LIKE.TG’s double opt-in subscription form to your site, like in the example below.
Use a lead magnet to motivate more visitors to subscribe. Promise a helpful free ebook, a PDF presentation, or a step-by-step guide in exchange for the user’s email address.
Nurture leads
Once users have subscribed to your mailing list, send an automated welcome email to greet them. After that, you need to stir up their interest in your brand by sharing relevant content in emails.
You can create email templates in three ways with LIKE.TG:
Create it from scratch in a convenient drag and drop editor;
Use pre-designed templates from our free library;
Take any email from your Gmail inbox as your own customizable template with our free Chrome extension.
Here’s an example of an email template created with LIKE.TG in half an hour.
Combine educational and entertaining content with promotional emails, work with objections, and bring your leads closer to purchasing your products.
Close sales
Make sure that it’s convenient to make an order from your shop. If something goes wrong and users leave their purchase halfway, you can send automated abandoned cart emails to encourage them to return and finish shopping.
Here’s how an abandoned cart email workflow looks in LIKE.TG’s Automation 360.
Let’s say some leads bought your products. What is the next step?
Add leads to your CRM
CRM systems allow companies to manage all their deals, store information about their customers, and communicate with them on one platform. This helps create an effective selling strategy taking into account clients' needs, preferences, and previous purchases.
The LIKE.TG CRMenables marketers to do just right that. You can automate sales and customer communication using one service. Collect data about your clients, accept orders, manage deals, send marketing campaigns, and delegate responsibilities between your sales reps. You can visualize the processes on a kanban-board according to the status of each deal to see your performance.
The LIKE.TG CRM is available for free. Register and streamline your sales!
Inspire customers to return
You need to continue communication with existing clients since it’s easier to convert them again and again than it is to generate and nurture new leads.
Start by sending a feedback request email to make sure your customers are happy with your products. Send regular email campaigns to your clients and offer bonuses and discounts to reward their loyalty.
Some leads who bought from you may ignore all your messages after the purchase. Send reactivation emails to inactive leads, re-engage them, and remind of the value you share with your audience. Here’s an example of a reactivation email.
Now that you understand how to create a lead funnel using free digital marketing tools, let’s finish this guide with some best practices to help you optimize your efforts.
5 Best Practices to Optimize Your Lead Generation Funnel
Use automation
Build long-lasting relationships
Target and personalize your messaging
Monitor customer retention at each stage
Upsell and cross-sell
We’ve collected five actionable tips to improve your lead funnel. Here they are:
Use automation. You can use chatbots to automate communication at different stages. With LIKE.TG, you can create up to three chatbots for Facebook Messenger and Telegram at no cost. Chatbots can reduce the workload on your marketing and sales teams. Follow this guide to create your first chatbot.
Build long-lasting relationships. Working with existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new leads and nurturing them. Focus your efforts on customer loyalty programs and create good conditions for your customers to return, buy more, and spread good word-of-mouth about your brand.
Target and personalize your messaging. Use personalization throughout your messages at all lead funnel stages. It will provoke a better and more emotional response and speed up conversions.
Monitor customer retention at each stage. This will help you identify the blind spots in your digital marketing strategy. Increase the retention rate at each stage to improve the overall efficiency of your lead funnel.
Upsell and cross-sell. Upselling helps you sell more expensive analogs of the products your lead initially wanted to buy. While cross-selling is necessary to sell additional products to accompany the original purchase. These two marketing techniques help to earn more money without much sweat.
Congratulations, you’ve learned what a lead funnel is and how it works. We hope you will use LIKE.TG’s free tools for the benefit of your business.
Lead enrichment
Lead enrichment is collecting data about your prospects into a database to qualify them better and close more sales. This information can include their email address, location, company industry, job title, social media profiles, purchasing power, user behavior, etc. You can do it either manually by copy-pasting the necessary data or using third-party tools to automate the process. The more information you have, the better you can approach each lead.
In this article, you'll find out why lead enrichment is essential, uncover its benefits, and learn how to gather the necessary data about your prospects.
Why is lead enrichment important?
According to the research, the absence of a well-thought-out lead-qualifying strategy is the reason for 67% of lost sales. It means that the less time your sales and marketing teams devote to determining whether a lead is a good fit, the fewer chances they have to convert a prospect into a client. Lead qualification implies collecting data about leads for better performance. Otherwise, you may spend time and money in vain, investing in attracting low-promising leads.
Lead enrichment helps your sales teams make informed decisions based on new and accurate prospect data. Consequently, it will save your budget and your reps' time on communicating with bad leads. In the long run, lead enrichment will result in a highly effective lead acquisition strategy and seamless lead generation.
In the next section, we'll cover the advantages of lead enrichment in detail. Read on!
Benefits of Lead Enrichment
Lead enrichment provides benefits for companies, their employees, and their leads. Let's take a closer look at them.
Lead enrichment enhances lead qualification. We've already mentioned above that you can't qualify prospects effectively without lead enrichment. Lead qualification is vital if you have a high CAC, an extensive customer base, or if you work in a narrow industry. Otherwise, you'll spend money before understanding which lead is a perfect fit for you. The more data you have about prospects, the more customer profiles you can create.
Lead enrichment allows you to keep your data fresh. Outdated information in your CRM system may play a trick on you. Say you've once gathered enough data about your leads and now want to contact them half a year later to promote your recent innovation. Decision-makers may no longer work in this company, it might have closed, or its needs could have changed. To avoid spending time in vain, delegate updating customer information to a specialist.
Lead enrichment helps your sales team create a better flow and increase their on-target earnings. With customer data at hand, your sales reps can create targeted and highly relevant messaging and offers that will strike the right chord with your audience. Besides, they'll manage to better approach cold and warm leads with a perfect lead nurturing strategy. They will use how-to guides, testimonials, reviews, case studies, presentations, and other educational videos to ensure seamless sales pipeline management. In addition, communicating with the best leads results in higher sales; consequently, your employees will be very motivated to receive their sales commissions.
So, the benefits of lead enrichment are undeniable. One way or another, this strategy will help you close more sales, increase your revenue, and retain more clients. Now let's learn how to collect lead enrichment data.
How to gather lead enrichment data?
You can gather information about leads either manually or using special services. You can try collecting data independently if your customer base is not that big. For this purpose, use external and internal data sources.
Internal data source means that you collect data about leads from your sources and store it in your CRM. For example, LIKE.TG provides a built-inCRM with the following sources of automatically added information about your clients: landing page, your website, chatbot, subscription form, Automation 360 flow, and payments. Once users make a purchase and leave their email address, name, and other data, this information will be added automatically as a new deal to the CRM system. Each lead and client has their card in the LIKE.TG CRM, where you can add any data about your user. Then your sales rep can easily access it and contact a lead via email or chatbot. You can use our CRM for free for 5 users in your account.
External data sources include firmographic, demographic, and lead behavior data. With the firmographic data, you can learn your lead company size, industry, revenue, location, etc. Demographic data includes personal information about leads, such as their gender, age, marital status, purchasing power, etc. Lead behavior allows you to analyze how often prospects visit your site, which pages, and how they interact with your posts on social media and email campaigns.
If your customer base is large and you want to save time, you can use special lead enrichment tools like Snov.io. This platform can provide an entire lead profile with only their email address, and it searches through its database and offers all the data it can find.
You can mix a lead enrichment service with manual data collection for better performance. Remember to update your customer profiles regularly!
Law of demand
The law of demand is a fundamental economic principle according to which the higher the price of products, the lower the demand for them (and the number of products purchased). The law helps understand the rules of resource allocation and price formation of products and services.
In this article, we’ll unveil the importance of the law of demand and the 10 factors that affect it. We’ll also review the exceptions, elasticity, and demand curve.
Why is the law of demand important?
The law of demand is a fundamental concept in economics that defines the demand and supply of products among customers and companies. According to this law, the amount of products people buy depends on their price. The higher the price, the less the quantity of goods customers purchase and vice versa. This is since customers purchase the unit of products to serve their urgent needs, and those that come next are only necessary to fulfill the secondary needs. There are many reasons why the law of demand is important.
First of all, it helps companies set the prices for their products. Sellers can identify the demand for goods if the price is high and also if the price is low. After studying this information, a business owner can decide whether to increase or decrease the price of a commodity.
Along with the law of supply, the law of demand provides you with an understanding of price formation principles. You can figure out why companies charge customers a certain price for different goods. Besides, consumers can determine opportunities to purchase products at a lower price.
The benefits of the law of demand are clear, so let’s uncover the 10 factors influencing demand.
10 Factors Affecting Demand
The demand for a product doesn’t only rely on the product’s price and the customer’s willingness to pay. More factors influence the demand. We can highlight the following factors that affect it:
product’s price;
price of complements;
the number of customers;
product seasonality;
advertising;
customers’ preferences;
changes in trends;
consumers’ budget;
change in product’s actual or perceived value and quality;
close substitutes’ price and their availability.
It’s time to learn the exceptions in the law of demand you might encounter when exploring this topic deeper. Let’s delve into the special cases and learn about them more.
Exceptions to the Law of Demand
In most cases, you can see the fulfillment of the generally accepted law of demand. However, economics and other sciences have their exceptions to the rule. According to the law of demand, the curve is downward sloping, yet some goods defy this concept. Let’s review goods that exist contrary to generally accepted rules and concepts.
Giffen goods. These are non-luxury products, the consumption of which increases along with its price. Giffen goods are often foods that fulfill our basic living needs. Products like rice, potatoes, and bread are goods that are the most affordable and necessary once the price for food rises. For instance, potatoes were a Giffen good during the Great Famine of Ireland. Once the price increased, people refused more expensive products (meat and vegetables) and consumed potatoes instead.
Veblen goods. These are high-quality premium products the demand for which rises when the price goes up. Veblen goods are luxurious, expensive, and exclusive items like diamond watches, exclusive cars, paintings in one copy, and high-quality clothes. The exclusivity of such goods challenges the fundamental law of demand and makes the demand curve upward-sloping. The sellers of these goods focus on wealthy people who appreciate status, exclusivity, and uniqueness.
Basic goods. These are goods people buy despite their price. The demand for such products will be the same even if the price goes up. Let’s take medicine, for example. If people get sick, they go to their doctors to receive their medicine covered by assurance. At this point, their price isn’t the main factor. So, people will take medicine despite its price increase.
Expectations of a price change. One more example that defies the fundamental law of demand is when people expect sellers to increase the price after its initial increase. Many people start purchasing a commodity in large quantities to avoid a further rise in prices and more expenses. If the price for products falls, people might postpone their purchase.
Now when the exceptions are clear, let’s proceed to the next section to learn about the elasticity of demand.
Elasticity of Demand
Changes in economics such as price or income fluctuations often affect the demand for a specific product. Demand elasticity shows how sensitive the demand for a certain good is during different unfavorable economic scenarios. The measure helps businesses stay in the know of the possible changes in demand. They can calculate it by considering the most common factors that affect the demand. They are price and the entry of competitive goods. If a change in price makes a demand shift, the product is elastic. A market with many substitutes for an item has an elastic demand. The more substitutes the market has, the more elastic the demand is.
Demand Elasticity = Percentage Change in Quantity Demanded / Percentage Change in Price
The demand is elastic if the quotient is higher than or equal to one.
Depending on the factor that influences the demand, there are different types of elasticity: income, price, and substitute elasticity of demand. Price is the common factor used to define demand elasticity. For instance, the change in motorbike’s price will affect the number of people who will buy it.
The other factor is income. Incomes of certain populations influence the elasticity of demand as well. To create a more efficient structure of organizations, the government can initiate job cuts. As a result, workers become unemployed and lose their earnings. During this time, people refrain from buying unnecessary goods, resulting in these products becoming more elastic.
Substitutes for an item also affect the demand and make it more elastic. For instance, if Dell increases the price for its laptops and makes it 20% higher, it can encourage customers to brand switching and purchase Asus laptops.
Now let’s see find out how the demand curve looks like.
The Demand Curve
The demand curve represents the relation between the good’s price and the quantity people need at a certain timeframe. Based on the law of demand, the curve is downward sloping. If the price of a commodity grows, its demand goes down.
Below you can see an example. Say, you want to buy strawberries, but their price constantly increases, and you decide to purchase them during the strawberry season when the price decreases.
Congrats, now you know the 10 aspects that impact the demand and know the basics of the demand curve. Hope that this information will come in handy for understanding the formation of prices and other essential processes.
Internet advertising
Internet advertising is a set of tools for delivering promotional messages to people worldwide, using the Internet as a global marketing platform.
As web technologies evolved in the 1990s, internet advertising appeared as a virtual equivalent to traditional marketing methods like TV and radio ads, newspaper advertising, billboards, etc. In 2019 marketers expect that companies will spend more money on digital advertising than on traditional ads.
Let’s find out why online advertising has become so popular and explore its most commonly used types— search engine marketing, email marketing, social media advertising, display ads, native advertising, and more.
Internet Advertising Advantages and Disadvantages
There are more than four billion internet users all over the world. This gives a huge boost to internet advertising. People look for products by using search engines, following their favorite brands in social media, and subscribing to their campaigns via email and push notifications. Advertising opportunities are enormous, but using them correctly is not that easy. So, let's have a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of internet advertising.
Advantages of internet advertising
Easy global coverage. Nowadays, people have a habit of searching for information about products and services via search engines like Google, Bing, and others. Internet advertising is a way to demonstrate your offers in front of over 4 billion web users around the globe. You can easily target the entire world via the Internet.
Affordable for any budget. According to Seriously Simple Marketing, the minimum cost to reach an audience of 2,000 is three timescheaper than traditional advertising methods, so any company from a small family business to a huge enterprise can utilize online ads and get the most out of their financial resources.
Drives traffic to a website. The more visitors you get to the site, the more potential customers you have, which will result in increased sales. Internet advertising aims to attract users’ attention andsendthem to your website. The offers displayed in the digital ads should arouse curiosity and give people a good reason for clicking through your site.
Allows targeting. Unlike traditional marketing media that advertises to everyone without filtering, internet advertising tailors the message to a specifically targeted audience — people who are most likely to convert into customers. For instance, a travel equipment company may use social media ads for advertising to users who are keen on travel, encouraging likes and shares.
Enables retargeting.Internet advertisements are a way to say, “hey, looks like a couple of days ago you checked out this toaster. I’ve got a marvelous one for you here!” If many prospects visit your household appliances online store without buying anything, remind them about your brand with banner ads displayed on websites they browse.
It allows you to create various touchpoints with your audience. Internet advertising helps you to appear in the right place at the right time to communicate with your audience. If you own a small bakery, use socials like Instagram and Pinterest to demonstrate the products. To share news, and build long-lasting relationships with your audience, reinforce them with email marketing. By mixing different types of digital advertising wisely, you can show that your company is always present and ready to be of service.
It is measurable. Unlike offline marketing, where the cost and effectiveness are somewhat approximate, you can precisely track the return on your efforts and internet marketing efficiency with web analytics platforms like Google Analytics.
Disadvantages of internet advertising
The main challenges associated with advertising online include fierce competition, the cost of mistakes, complicated analytics, and ad blindness. Let’s have a closer look.
High competition. Of course, this depends on your niche, but if you haven't invented something new, you'll have to compete for clients' attention. This market is oversaturated, especially for eCommerce businesses, so you need to put your customers' needs upfront and regularly improve your product to make it competitive.
Mistakes are expensive. Targeting wrong people, selecting highly competitive keywords, and leaving your ad campaign running after turning it off are the most common mistakes that can cost you a fortune. To eliminate these mistakes, you need either a top specialist or a lot of experience. Both variants require investments.
Complicated analytics. To analyze the performance of your ads, you need a third-party platform like Google Analytics and some experience to interpret the results correctly. Medium-sized enterprises and big brands have analysts to make the ads more targeted and effective.
Ad blindness. This term is related to banner blindness. Userssee advertising almost every time they open a web page. For this reason, they simply ignore banners without even noticing them. To fight this, make sure that your banners target the right people who need your offer.
What is the difference between advertising and marketing?
Advertising is part of marketing. To make it clear, let’s define both terms.
Marketing — a process of promoting your products to the target audience. It includes market research, identifying your buyer persona, and analysis. It involves activities that bring your offer to clients.
Advertising — one of those activities that helps spread the word about your brand. Advertising is one marketing element. Others include public relations, sales promotion, direct selling, personal selling.
So, advertising is part of marketing, while marketing is notexclusively advertising.
Types of Internet Advertising
Search Engine Marketing
Email Marketing
Social Media Ads
Display Ads
Native Advertising
Video Advertising
Web Push
Mobile Advertising
The Internet offers vast opportunities to connect with potential customers, so let’s review some of the most influential types of internet advertising on the market.
Search Engine Marketing
A search bar is the starting point of the users’ buyer journey. Entering a keyword, people focus mainly on the first page results. Search engine marketing is all about getting your webpages to the top of the SERP (search engine results page), whether in an organic or paid way.
Google Ads displayspaid results based on the ad rank auction. Companies name their price for a particular keyword, while Google analyzes the quality and relevancy of the content. Here is the formula of the ad rank:
Ad rank = cost-per-click bid × quality score.
Below are the search engine ads for the query “Chelsea fan shop.” For the more popular keywords, there might be up to four ads in the top section. But you already know this if you’ve ever searched on Google.
Email Marketing
This is a marketing approach based on communication via email. This type of internet advertising is one of the oldest players on the field and the most adaptive one since email marketers are always searching for innovations such as recently launched interactive amp emails.
You may personalize, segment, and A/B test your email campaigns to better target your audience.
Let's make email advertising work!
Generate more subscribers with professional subscription forms and move them down the sales funnel by sending relevant email campaigns with LIKE.TG.
Register and advertise via email!
Email marketing is the least obtrusive platform for advertising because subscribers willingly opt-in to receive email newsletters and promotions; plus, they can opt-out anytime. The main idea of email marketing is to drive warm marketing leads to the website, mixing promotions with valuable non-sales content.
Social Media Ads
This means advertising on socials like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest for B2C, and LinkedIn for B2B. Companies tailor their news and promotions to the target audience via social media in two ways:
Organically. If you produce kitchenware, you can post valuable content like hacks, exciting ways of using your products, or some recipes to encourage shares and build an attractive brand image.
Paid. In this case, you can use social media functionality for business by showing promotional posts targeted to your audience based on age, gender, favorite activities, and other things they have in common.
Display Ads
40% of Americans avoid banner ads, wallpapers, pop-ups, flash, and video ads with ad-blocking software due to the unsolicited nature of display advertising. Furthermore, many non-blockers unconsciously ignore the information in the ads because of a psychological phenomenon called “banner blindness.” Since the mid-1990s, display advertising has gained a negative reputation for being annoying media. Unless ads are highly relevant to the user, they are largely ignored or worse, totally invisible via ad-blockers.
Website owners with massive trafficto their site want to monetize it, so they sell some of their space with Google AdSense, while the advertisers buy it with Google Ads. Google shows relevant ads based on two pricing approaches: CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per thousand views), and allows companies to retarget their promotions.
The ads below are targeted by geographical location and may be interesting for the locals. The website below is from a newspaper based in California.
Native Advertising
In a way, this is a non-irritative alternative to the display ads. Companies pay popularsiteslike BuzzFeed, Bored Panda, and the New York Times for placing promotion materials in their publications. As long as it happens in an entertaining and casual manner, the readers don’t realize they’ve actually been advertised to — that’s why this phenomenon is called “native.”
It’s like putting a replica of the stone in the Japanese stone garden: no one knows it’s plastic because it looks natural. The example below is nominal, since any of these articles may contain plastic stones.
Video Advertising
As the name suggests, these ads are in a video format and placed on services like YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, and Vine. This is an expensive type of advertising but also an effective one, since high-quality videos may go viral. A video advertisingcampaign called “Save The Ocean” encourages people to join the company that aims to reduce water pollution.
Web Push
This technology allows you to grab users’ attention whenever they are online. These messages appear in the corner of your screen, and a click on it redirects a user to a particular webpage. For example, a coffee shop can send you a morning notification about the 20% discount for making an orderbefore 10 am. Users subscribe topush notifications to stay in touch with the brand and be the first to know the news and updates.
Mobile Advertising
This type of advertising appears on smartphones and tablets. Companies can advertise with SMS after the user opts-in or with display ads in the browser optimized for mobile devices. If you run a shoe shop, mobile ads are especially good for advertising to the local audiences with the time-sensitive offers. You can create SMS campaigns in no time with LIKE.TG, and their open rate is extremely high: up to 98%.
How can I advertise for free on the Internet?
Small businesses falsely believe that any type of online advertising is too expensive for them. We want to dispel this myth. There’re lots of effective advertising formats that require no investment. Check them out.
Optimize your site for search engines. People all over the world are doing Google searches every second. They are looking for news, products, recipes, manuals, housekeeping hints, and much more. You can satisfy their interest and bring in new customers. Conduct some basic keyword research and pick up low-competition queries to start your SEO. On our blog, weoutlined anSEO strategy that will bring your site to the top of the search.
Send email campaigns. With their help, you can educate your customers, promote your products, share news and updates, keep clients informed about their orders, and increase brand recognition. All this and more is possible for free with LIKE.TG Email Service. If you have up to 500 subscribers on your mailing list, you can send them 15,000 emails every month for free.
Write guest posts. Find authoritative blogs with a large audience that may be interested in your products. Offer thema valuable piece of content, share tips, provide case studies, and give advice. Link back to your website, and you’ll give a boost to your domain authority. This way, you’ll communicate your message to the target audience and increase your brand awareness.
Utilize the power of social media. There’re at least two reasons that you should use them: most of the platforms are free, and people look for brands on socials. If you’re on a tight budget, advertising campaigns are not a must. Create your brand's profile, add photos and videos of your products, share news on recent updates, and ask for customer feedback. In addition, you can create a chatbot for Facebook Messenger to answer clients’ FAQ and help them place their order. LIKE.TG offers an intuitive and free chatbot builder.
Start your blog. A blog is a place where you can demonstrate your expertise and promote your brand at the same time. Post regularly to share news about your company, educate your audience, give expert tips, and show some behind-the-scenes. You can even earn money from your blog by posting high-quality content from other companies that may be useful for your audience.
These five methods of advertising online for free are just the tip of the iceberg but proved in practice. Try them out!
How much does internet advertising cost?
Search engine ads
Email marketing
Social media
Display ads
Native ads
Video advertising
Web push ads
Search engine ads. The average cost per click across all industries is $2.32. This price depends on the keyword volume — how many times a month people search for a specific word or phrase, the level of competition, meaning how many companies use this keyword, and how high the bid for the ad rank based auction.
Email marketing. The average price for 2,000 subscribers start at $27, 5,000 — $47, 10,000 — $69 and 50,000 — $253. You can send up to 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers each month for freewith LIKE.TG. The service allows you to createemail templates and sendtrigger emails, and lots of other handy features.
Social media. Depending on the industry, Facebook's average CPC is $1.86, and CPM is $11.20. On Instagram, theaverage cost-per-click is between $0.50 - $1.00. In more competitive industries like apparel or law, the cost of ads can reach $3.00 per click.
Display ads. The ad’s size and its placement on the webpage form the pricing together with the display period and the average amount of visitors. You shouldn’t necessarily choose Google Ads — you can use other services like Microsoft Advertising, Quora, AdRoll, etc., or contact website owners directly.
Native ads. The main reason to utilize native advertising is the large amount of traffic that the company placing adsdrivesto its website. It is the most expensive type of online advertising because it demands high-quality content from the advertiser, hence professional copywriting, storytelling, editing, and design. It is highly efficient, though, due to the easy-to-digest nature of native ads.
Video advertising.Companies pay YouTube on a pay-per-view basis. Typically, video ads cost between $0.10 and $0.30 per view, which means that you will pay $1,000 for 10,000 people to watch your ad. Another meaningful factor is video production. The cost here depends on how many people work on the video and how much they charge.
Web push ads. You can utilize this feature for sending rapid promotions and updates for free in LIKE.TG.
Mobile marketing. The cost for each SMS is $0.022 in the USA. LIKE.TG allows sending SMS on 800 networks in over 200 countries.
Internet Advertising Tips
Analyze your ROI
Segment your audience
Choose the best media for a specific business
Use social media platforms that are popular
Be creative with your ads
Use a clear call to action
Make mobile-friendly ads
Analyze your ROI. It is easy to ensure your efforts are worth a while with internet marketing. Check all the possible metrics depending on the type of digital marketing you use. Analyze open rate and CTR in email marketing, and use Google Analytics for your social marketing efforts and search engine marketing.
Segment your audience. Separate your audience into different groups with something in common like age, gender, and location, and find the right approach for all of them. If you create a display ad campaign for clothing, make sure the message you tailor towomen differs from the oneformen.
Choose the best media for a specific business. If you make and sell vegan food, use socials for promoting and receiving orders. Appearance in the local directories in Google search results may also address potential clients to you when they google “vegan food near me,” for instance.
Use social media platforms that are popular. If your audience consists mainly of young people 14-30 years old, Instagram is likely the most commonplace for their communication with each other. Facebook is preferable for adults, so the best practice here is to examine your audience, their habits, and global tendencies to make the right choice.
Be creative with your ads. Internet advertising is about catching people’s attention, so make your ads expressive and relevant. Bolster your creativity with bright colors and huge headlines, but avoid using all caps.
Use a clear call to action. There's little time to get your message across to the audience, so make it clear what you want. Use a short and unambiguous CTA like “Book now,” “Learn more,” “Grab the promo code,” etc., depending on the business and the advertising goal.
Make mobile-friendly ads. Preview all the ads you produce on a mobile phone to make sure they work since the majorityof site visits are registered from smartphones.
Internet Advertising Examples
Below is an example of pay-per-click advertising. It means that an advertiser pays a fee to an ad network each time users click the link. PPC ads are located at the top of the search engine results page.
Mac sent this email to advertise their hot deal. The brand offers seven top-selling products for the low price of $63.
Lots of brands use social channels for brand promotion. GoPro advertises its products via one of the most trendy channels — Instagram. They use videos and user-generated photos to show the quality of their cameras.
Internet marketing plan
An internet marketing plan provides a road map for a company’s marketing efforts and is an essential part of the larger business strategy. An internet marketing plan strikes a balance between the company’s strengths and its desired market position. Having a solid plan gives you a chance to direct and monitor your marketing resources and strategy, and in turn, reach your business goals.
Why Is Creating an Internet Marketing Plan Important?
People with a plan outperform those without a plan ー the same is true for businesses. Having no specific internet marketing plan for your business means leaving money on the table. Without one, you may forget about an expected return on investment (ROI) and lose opportunities for growth.A business needs this sort of plan to know its targets and find the right path to hit them. A correctly composed internet marketing plan helps achieve lower marketing costs, measurable outcomes, global reach, competitive advantages, and increased sales. Among the top reasons to formulate one are the following:
most contemporary consumers are online;
it’s an opportunity for two-way communication;
it personalizes user experience;
such a plan allows you to drive quality traffic;
it raises market presence and visibility.
Almost all companies operate online even if they have physical offices. Various types of online marketing bring different results. For example, 49% of online users share that they would love to receive promotional emails and offers from their favorite brands every week. This is a win-win for users and brands because increased communication not only builds stronger relationships with clients but increases revenue significantly.
How to Create an Internet Marketing Plan
Set objectives
Detect your target audience
Evaluate your competition
Choose the right channels
Set up proper KPIs
The process of creating an internet marketing plan can be time-consuming if you do it on your own. When it comes to email marketing, you can rely on LIKE.TG. The service helps you send bulk emails, automate campaigns, and analyze statistics.
With the help of statistics from your email campaigns, you can discover valuable insights and create a killer internet marketing plan. Anyway, here are some steps to consider while developing an internet marketing plan:
Set objectives
To have a clear picture of your path to achieving your goals, make sure to lay out clear and attainable business objectives. Are you launching a new product or entering a new field? Are you pursuing the goal of increasing your audience and brand awareness or focusing on converting existing leads into clients?
Anyway, each of these goals requires reaching some other objectives. To increase your brand awareness, you need to reinforce your SEO strategy, invest more in advertising, start guest blogging, create viral content. Having a clear picture in mind, you’ll efficiently do the groundwork that will make your business prosper.
Detect your target audience
Create a buyer persona. To whom do you plan to sell your product or service? Both B2B and B2C companies should define their audiences properly. A buyer persona is a representation of your customer. If properly built, it will help you speak the same language to your clients.
To create a buyer persona, use surveys, polls, quizzes, subscription forms, analyze customer feedback, and ask them to share their personal information with you.
LIKE.TG free subscription forms are an effective tool to grow your mailing list. You can create a unique form or choose a pre-designed one to save time. There’s no need to have any technical skills as you should just drag the necessary elements to your form.
Armed with this data, you’ll be able to create highly personalized offers, adapt your products and services to meet the needs of your audience, and get useful insights into the improvements.
With LIKE.TG, you can create multichannel subscription forms. They will help you collect not only users' email addresses and phone numbers, but let them contact your brand via chatbots in Facebook Messenger and Telegram. All you need is to add links to your chatbots.
Check out such a form below.
Read the article on our blog to get ideas on how to create a customer profile.
Evaluate your competition
Analyzing your competitor’s strategy will do the trick for you. You’ll manage to learn from other people’s mistakes and eliminate failures, discover the most effective tactics and methods.
In particular, start with your SEO strategy. Organic search is the core channel to consider when launching a new product. Study the content that performs well in your field, find relevant keywords, examine how your competitors use them and do it better.
Get to know which type of content brings more conversions and which increases user engagement. Services like Serpstat, BuzzSumo, Moz, Ahrefs will help you cope with this task. Then, do your best to create content that will answer all of your users’ questions efficiently.
Choose the right channels
The channels that you use predetermine the success of your strategy. Each channel helps achieve different long and short-term goals. Thus, you’ll need to pick up different tactics. It’s important for you to know where your audience lives and why they prefer a given channel.
For example, if your plan is to increase brand awareness in the long-term, you can choose organic search, PPC and content marketing. If your purpose is audience growth, go for guest blogging and influencer marketing. If you often lose clients before they make a purchase, try email marketing.
Internet marketing strategies include:
search engine optimization (SEO);
email marketing;
social media marketing;
PPC;
content marketing;
remarketing
influencer marketing;
mobile marketing;
affiliate marketing;
marketing automation.
All of these strategies are effective when performed correctly but stay away from trying to cover as many goals as possible via all available channels. Focus on one long-term goal and remember that each channel requires you to hire a specialist in a particular field to ensure that you are using the optimal approach.
Set up proper KPIs
Measuring the success of your strategy paves the way for big improvements. Before putting your plan into practice, make sure that your goals are achievable and the KPIs are measurable, otherwise, you won’t be able to assess your efforts.
Create the list of the important KPIs, set the desired metrics for each strategy, and work out a plan if you fail to achieve them.
Most metrics are available to track directly in the service you use to put your plan into action. LIKE.TG provides reports and campaign analytics after sending your email. So, you may improve your tactics on the go.
That’s it! All you have to do after implementing the plan is to keep the track. Watch every step your team takes and measure the effectiveness.
Interactive advertising
Interactive advertising is a type of advertisingthatencourages consumers to engage and interact with an ad. It allows brands to establish and develop communication with their clients.
In this article, we will explain why you should use interactive advertising, highlight its advantages and disadvantages, describeits types, and provide examples of interactive ads.
Why use interactive advertising?
The main advantage of interactive advertising isthe personalized experience it provides to users. You can control what is shown to different customers andstand out from the crowd oftraditional ad campaigns.
The Journal of Interactive Advertising 2001 states that interactive ads also have some features that improvetheir effectiveness. You can gather customerdata via cookies to create each consumer's profile and show the most relevant ads to them.
Interactive advertising also decreases the possibility of overspendingyourbudget due to poorly coordinated advertising. You cancommunicateyour advertisingmessage to different audiencesmore clearly by using varied ads.
Like any other type of advertising, interactive ads have theirbenefits and drawbacks. You need to keep them in mind and know how to deal with them to promote your business successfully. Read more about thepros and cons ofinteractiveadvertising in the next section.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Interactive Advertising
Interactive advertising is a great way to develop two-way communication with your clients. On the other hand, it is often costly and time-consuming.
Have a lookat the advantages of interactive ads below.
They encourage potential customers to become a part of a brand.These ads require feedback and let usersprovide it, so people interact with them much more than withtraditional ads.
Theseads boost social interaction between businesses and their potential clients.Interactions are crucial when establishing healthy long-term relationships with consumers. Interactive advertising helps yououtperform competitors, improve brand awareness, and increase clients' loyalty.
However, there are also some disadvantages of interactive ads.
Creativity might be distracting. Interactive ads have greater benefits if you need to capture customers'attention and encourage them to engage. However, it iscrucial to avoid the excessive use of creativityand focus on communicating yourbrand messages to clients.
Preparation can take a long time. If you want to succeed in interactive advertising, you need to prepare before launchingyour campaign. Analyze your competitors, gather data to build potential clients' profiles, and ensure that your ads target the right audience.
Interactive advertising may be expensive. High costs are associated with the need to gather consumer data and create ads. Moreover, it is rather challenging to createthese ads independently, and you may need to hire an ad setup specialist, which will require additional expenditures.
Now you know the advantages and disadvantages of interactive ads. Let's take a look at different types of these ads to choose the most suitable ones for your business.
Types of Interactive Advertising
New interactive advertisingforms are being developed all the time. This type of advertising can take many forms, but we will consider the most widespread ones in this section.
1. Interactive Facebook ads
According to Pew Research, the user base of Facebook includes 69% of US Adults, which means there is a high chance that you will succeedin promoting your business there. The most popular interactive ads on Facebook and other social media are virtual tours, gaming ads, interactive PDFs, and promoted stories with polls, quizzes, and other similar elements.
Create interactive posts, stories, or reels to reach and engage more people. You can interact withyour audience and get more feedback using different polls and quizzes. You can also use live videos to communicate more withyour clients in real time and increase brand loyalty.
Lady Gaga's Instagram Story is an excellent example of such an ad. She promotes her new album, "Love For Sale," recorded with Tony Bennett. The story is interactive because you can tap the link and listen to the album.
2. Augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is a changed version of the real world achievedusing digital elements. Customers like this type of advertising because it lets them create content with the products they need and want to buy.
Today you can find Augmented Reality ads on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and many other social media platforms. You can use AR in your ads to give people an opportunity to try onyour apparel or viewwhat your goods will look like in their homes. Customers can interact with certain products, choose the ones they like the most, and buy them from your company.
For example, look at Ikea's design lab, Space10. It enables users to redesign their entire 3D room plans withIkea'sStudio appusing LiDAR sensors.
3. Playable in-app ads
According to eMarketer, people spend over 3.5 hours a day on their mobile phones. Consequently, it would be easy to find your audience here.
Playable ads allow your audience to try a product without buying it. Games and entertainment appsenable their audiences to use certain features available only after purchasing a subscription. Fashion brands and other companies often promote their goods in collaboration with existing applications.
Check out an example. In a recent campaign, New Balance partnered with TreSensa to create an app called 'Fresh Foam Cloud Jumper,' where people bounced from cloud to cloud. At the end of the game, there was a call to action to shop forsneakers or play again.
4. In-game advertising
Many people are fond of eSports, so in-game advertising isanother great opportunity to promote your company. There are several ways to use interactive game ads, such as creating sponsored features, promoting billboards, and organizing events.
Find out more aboutyour audience through partnerships with digital games or streamers if there are lots of gamers among your clients. Keep in mind that you need to prepare forthese campaigns extracarefully because your ads should fit the interface of the chosen game and conveyyourbrand message.
Let's look atan example. In April 2020, Travis Scott, ahip-hop singer, collaborated with the game 'Fortnite' and held a virtual concert. Travis's giant hologram on the main screen and posters within the game promotedhis future event and created a unique atmosphere.
5. Display ads
Display ads and banners areone of the most popular types of paid media, so they are almost everywhere on the Internet. It is a great idea to make them interactive to get greater engagement and increase ROI. Banners can open up and show your product in the form of a video, game, poll, or quiz.
The advantage ofthis type of advertising is that you can use them for contextual targeting. Choose your keywords, and find websites to placeyour ads on. To choosea site, you can use ad networks that buy and sell ad space to advertisers or find ad exchanges where you can buy ad inventory from ad networks.
This example shows a sports villabanner ad thatexpands when usershover over it.This feature helps the ad attract more attention.
Here is whatthis banner looks like when it expands to full screen.
6. Interactive videos
Video ads include interactive elementsthat show certain product details and lead viewers to yourproduct page. According to MarketingProfs, interactive videos convert more than 11%of users, which is a stellarresult, especially compared toother types of video advertising.
This is an excellentalternative to regular ads, as it prevents users from skipping the ad thanks toits engaging content. Moreover, interactive videos are much more memorable. Make your potential clients a part of the story to engage them and provide positive emotionsduring their buyer journey.
Look at an example from Boursin that takes viewers on a journey through their refrigerator.Users need to move their phones around to interact withthis ad.
The most popular types of interactive advertising are Facebook ads, augmented reality, playable in-app ads, in-game advertising, display ads, and video ads. Now that you knowmore about the types of interactive ads, let's proceed to discover more examples ofthese ads.
Examples of Interactive Advertising
To succeed in interactive advertising, you need to be creative and testdifferent types of content. Here, we will provide more examples of interactive adsfor different industries. Read this section to get some fresh ideas.
The first example is aJ J ad where thebrand promotes its new product line. The firstbanner encourages us to scratch the card and reveal the second picture.This interactive element makes peoplewant to see the picture and encourages more customers to interact withthe ad.
The second example isa lookbook for HectorKarger FW collection called RE_ALITY. It was created in 2015 and was the first interactive fashion lookbook in the world. You can use an app to see the RE_ALITY collection in the form of 3D images. Later on, famous fashion brands like Khaite, Hermes, Gucci, and Carlingsalso started using AR in their collections.
Ourthird example includes different Facebook ads that useinteractive elements. The first company uses polls inits ad to encourage customers to choose what they want in their Mac' N' Cheese. The second ad is a gamewhere Vans asks clients to help a character collect gifts as quickly as possible. There are augmented reality elements in the third ad. You can chooseyour lipstickcolor by trying different onesusinga photo of your lips.
Congrats, you learned the basics of interactive advertising and discovered its advantages and disadvantages. You know the most popular types ofthese ads and are ready to promote your business successfully using interactive advertising.
IP-address warm-up
IP warming is a way to establish a new IP address’s reputation by gradually scaling up its email sending volume. Email service providers, like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc., want to prevent their clients from being bombarded with spam. For that reason, new IP addresses that start sending emails en masse undergo careful moderation.
Check out the video below to find out why it's essential to warm up a new email address.
Why should you do IP warming?
IP warming is necessary for a good delivery of email campaigns sent from a new IP address. Without warming up your IP, your emails are more likely to bounce or land in the spam folder. ESPs need to see a record of your IP consistently sending quality emails. ESPs analyze your behavior as a sender and your subscribers’ engagement. Before your IP meets their criteria, they will be suspicious of emails from a new IP address.
The essential goal of IP warming is to improve your sender reputation. With a bad reputation, your emails may land in the spam folder or, even worse, your IP may get blacklisted. With a good reputation, your messages have more chances to be delivered to recipients’ inboxes.
How long does IP warming take?
IP warming may take up to 4-8 weeks before you earn a good reputation from ESPs. It depends on the volume of emails you plan to send and your subscriber engagement level.
Things may get worse if you try to send emails en masse right away. This approach can damage your sender reputation and result in severe deliverability issues, like hard bounces. Additionally, recovering from one of these issues can take months.
It’s best to send emails to users that are most likely to engage with your emails. On the contrary, it’s a bad practice to send emails infrequently, less than once a week because it will take more time to build a positive sender reputation.
To speed things up, start your IP warming process by sending your emails to subscribers that have opted-in recently or engaged with a few of your recent messages. Let’s find out what you should do to warm-up your IP address.
How to Do IP Warming
Let’s take a look at a two-week IP warming schedule for a large email list of five million email addresses as an example. You need to increase your email sending volume daily, like the following:
Day 1 — 200 emails;
Day 2 — 500 emails;
Day 3 — 1,000 emails;
Day 4 — 2,000 emails;
Day 5 — 5,000 emails;
Day 6 — 10,000 emails;
Day 7 — 20,000 emails;
Day 8 — 40,000 emails;
Day 9 — 100,000 emails;
Day 10 — 250,000 emails;
Day 11 — 500,000 emails;
Day 12 — 1,000,000 emails;
Day 13 — 2,000,000 emails;
Day 14 — 5,000,000 emails.
Use this pattern even if your email list is smaller than the example. You also need to carefully choose the recipients for each stage of warming up your IP:
During weeks 1-2 send to your most active subscribers who have opened or clicked your emails in the past month;
During weeks 3-4 involve subscribers who have opened or clicked your messages in the past two months;
Avoid sending emails to subscribers who have been idle during the past three months. Only send emails to these subscribers after six weeks pass.
Now that you’ve learned how to warm-up your IP, let’s finish this guide with some best practices.
5 IP Warming Best Practices
Authenticate your emails
Verify your email list
Maintain a healthy email list
Send the most engaging types of emails
Closely monitor your email metrics as you go
We’ve collected five actionable tips that will help you warm-up your IP address as quickly as possible. Here they are:
Authenticate your emails. You need to set up DKIM and SPF records so that email service providers give your emails more credit. Here are guides to set up DKIM and SPF authentication records with LIKE.TG.
Verify your email list. Use an email verifier to run your list through various validation checks and eliminate all inactive email addresses. Remember, sending emails to invalid email addresses results in more bounces that damage your sender reputation.
Maintain a healthy email list. During your IP warming, some users will unsubscribe or mark your email as spam, which is normal. However, it’s best to immediately remove unsubscribers from your mailing list to avoid sending any more emails by accident. Luckily, LIKE.TG automatically adds these users to a suppression list, so you won’t be able to send more messages anyway.
Send the most engaging types of emails. Educational and entertaining content shows better engagement in email marketing compared to promotional emails. For instance, you can send curated newsletters with the latest news and high-quality content related to your industry. You can also send marketing emails with valuable offers and discounts. Anyway, your emails should be personalized, eye-catching, and give subscribers a positive experience.
Closely monitor your email metrics as you go. It’s necessary to analyze your open rates, CTR, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate, and spam complaints. A sudden drop in open rates, for instance, may tell you that your subject line is not eye-catching. A more severe issue, like a lot of unsubscribes, indicates there is something wrong with your email content. It helps if you pause your IP warming, find out the reason for the drop in the metrics, fix the issue, and only then continue to increase your sending volume.
Congratulations, now you know the basics of IP warming, so you will avoid mistakes that cost you time, money, and reputation.
Instagram shopping
Instagram Shopping is a set of features that simplify selling products to potential customers on Instagram. Brands can share featured products through their organic posts, Stories, and ad campaigns. Besides, Instagram Shopping makes products discoverable in Search Explore and allows users to shop right at the moment of discovery.
Instagram is a social network that focuses on visual content and allows users to communicate via direct messages, comment on posts, stream live videos, and create Stories. Since Facebook acquired it for $1 billion in 2012, Instagram has developed into a massive marketing platform.
Instagram Shopping has propelled social media marketing to a new level. Today brands use Instagram to effectively attract people to their products using all content types, like image and video posts, Stories, and advertisements.
In October 2020, Instagram announced the global expansion of its Shopping features across IGTV. This means that users will be able to watch a video featuring a product and proceed to checkout in just a few taps. Besides, Instagram is going to test Shopping features within its newly-presented feature, Reels, a TikTok rival.
Before we jump into setting up your shop on Instagram, let’s find out how effective selling on this platform is.
Statistics that Prove Instagram Is an Excellent Marketplace
We’ve collected statistics to show you that Instagram is an excellent platform for product selling, shopping, and advertising. Here they are.
90% of users follow at least one business page on Instagram;
75% of Shopping mavens and 70% of Shopping enthusiasts turn to Instagram monthly;
60% percent of people claim they discovered new products on Instagram;
33% of the most-viewed Instagram Stories come from business accounts.
These statistics prove that brands that run their business on Instagram can reach success because people love to follow and communicate with their favorite brands. Shopping features only make it easier for customers to buy products right away. Let’s take a closer look at the features that motivate people to purchase on Instagram.
Instagram Shopping Features
Shops
Instagram Shop
Shopping Tags
Product Detail Page
Collections
Ads with Product Tags
Checkout on Instagram
Shopping from Creators
Product Launches
Live Shopping
Before going further, we have to inform you that Instagram Shopping features currently only work in some countries. If your country is listed below, you can use Instagram Shopping to your advantage.
In a nutshell, Shopping features are an upgrade of Instagram’s regular features, like image and video posts, Stories, IGTV, and advertising. They allow brands to show item names, product descriptions, and prices in all content types on Instagram. With these features, companies can also share all the necessary product, shipping, and return details without making users leave the app. Let’s dive into the ten features provided by Instagram Shopping.
Shops
This feature allows you to organize your business profile as a customizable digital storefront. By using it, you enable consumers to shop right on your Instagram business page.
@spearmintbaby shows two collections above the fold: expensive children’s clothes, and gown and hat sets. Scrolling down, users can sort and filter the products in a convenient order.
Instagram Shop
This is an in-app shopping destination, a marketplace that connects all businesses represented on Instagram. It makes it easier for shoppers to discover products and brands. Don’t confuse it with the Shop feature we’ve just reviewed.
To visit Instagram Shop, people tap on the “Shop” tag in the “Explore” section, which redirects them to a list of “Collections,” “Brands,” and products “Suggested for You.” These recommendations are based on user interests and in-app behavior.
Shopping Tags
With Shopping Tags, you can highlight products from your Сatalog in your posts and stories. The U.S brands that use Instagram’s Сheckout feature can also show their products in captions and bios with product mentions.
Prospects can see Shopping Tags in the bottom left-hand corner of the post. This allows them to identify a piece of content as a shoppable one. By tapping on it, users can read the item name, price, and see a “View Products” button that leads to other products in the Catalog.
Product Detail Page
This page highlights all the necessary details about a particular item, like a gallery of product photos, sizes available, pricing, product description, shipping, and return information. It also includes listings of related products as recommendations. When Instagram users (influencers, for example) tag a product in their posts, these images or videos are pulled to a product detail page so that prospects can have as much visual information about the item as possible.
Burberry’s product detail page shows four product photos of men’s swimming shorts, allows customers to choose the size, has a CTA that leads to checkout, and offers more matching items from the summer collection.
Collections
With this feature at hand, businesses can customize their shop with an editorial point-of-view. Use Collections to curate your products into themes to make your shop on Instagram convenient to navigate.
Collections are broken up into two pieces. Above the fold, it has a large image with title text to represent the entire collection. Below, there is a short description of the collection. By swiping up, users discover similar products organized in a specific order. Each of these products in the gallery has a photo, item name, and price.
Ads with Product Tags
Instagram advertisements with product tags increase your reach. You can either boost your shoppable posts as ads or create ads from scratch using Facebook’s Ad Manager. These ads can drive customers to checkout on your website or to checkout on Instagram, which is currently only available in the U.S.
This ad with a product tag is based on a Maxwell Shoe shoppable post and has a “sponsored” mark below the username. Users can tap on a high-quality product photo, then tap a pop-up tag with the product name and pricing, and proceed to a product detail page. In turn, a CTA on this page redirects users to a website where they can complete their order.
Checkout on Instagram
The U.S. creators and businesses that comply with Instagram policies can use Checkout to sell their products directly on Instagram. Shoppers can discover and seamlessly buy products without leaving the app by using the Facebook Pay service. Businesses that can’t use Instagram Checkout yet can still connect other shopping tools, like Shopify and Wix, so that users can complete the purchase outside Instagram.
Below, a customer taps on the shoppable post and proceeds to the product detail page, which leads them to checkout with Facebook Pay. They need to choose the item specifications, fill in the delivery, and credit card data to complete their order.
Shopping from Creators
This feature allows people to shop looks they love directly from creators, without leaving Instagram. Shopping from creators is currently available for businesses that use the Checkout feature. It enables companies to collaborate with Instagram creators and influencers, who earn commission in exchange for promoting products to their followers.
Shoppable posts from creators have a “paid partnership with” mark under the username. In this case, Camila Coelho is promoting a Michael Kors’s watch. Like in all shoppable posts and ads on Instagram, users need to tap on the image, then tap on a shopping tag with an item name and pricing, and proceed to checkout.
Product Launches
Using this feature, brands can announce an upcoming product launch. Instagram users, in turn, can set a reminder to buy it as soon as it’s available. This feature is also only available for businesses that use the Checkout feature.
Adidas announced a product launch in Stories. It has a timer to create anticipation. When the time was up, consumers could tap the timer and proceed to a product detail page.
Live Shopping
This new feature allows Instagram creators who use the Checkout feature to sell products right during their Instagram Live stream. With this feature, you can make an inspiring live presentation of your product and convert viewers into customers in real-time.
Live Shopping looks like a regular Instagram Live stream, but it has a tappable product section, which leads to the checkout. The marketer from Ubeauty presents an $88 resurfacing compound, delivering her message to the public that engages with her in the comments section.
Now that you’ve gotten acquainted with all functions of Instagram Shopping, let’s find out how to enable them for your business page.
How to Setup Instagram Shopping
Get Approved for Shopping on Instagram
Setup Your Business Instagram Account
Upload Your Product Catalog
Complete Your Account Review
Turn on Shopping
Start Adding Tags
Monitor your Shopping Insights
Take these seven steps to open your shop on Instagram and gain access to Instagram Shopping features.
Step 1: Get Approved for Shopping on Instagram
To use Facebook Commerce features, including Instagram Shopping, you need to follow five policies. Here they are.
Comply with Facebook policies. Make sure your Instagram Business profile complies with Instagram’s Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. Besides, you need to comply with Merchant Agreement, Commerce Policies, Ads Policies and Pages, Groups, and Events Policies.
Run your business from your verified domain. Your Instagram business account must contain product listings available for direct purchase from your website or Instagram Checkout. If you direct customers from your Instagram shop to a website or any supported market (Facebook partners), you must provide the single, non-shortened, domain from which you sell. Instagram may require you to undergo domain verification to ensure your Instagram business account is associated with your domain.
Be located in a supported market. You should operate your business from one of the countries where Instagram Shopping features are available. We’ve mentioned these countries earlier in the guide, you can also find this list here.
Demonstrate trustworthiness. Your Instagram business account must demonstrate an authentic, established presence and maintain a sufficient follower base.
Provide accurate information and follow best practices. Ensure that product information listed on Facebook Commerce sites doesn’t mislead users in terms of pricing and availability. Display your refund and return policies and make them easy to access from your website or Instagram profile.
Suppose you fail to comply with any of these policies at any time. In this case, you may lose access to Facebook Commerce surfaces, Commerce features (including Instagram Shopping), or your account may be disabled.
Step 2: Setup Your Business Instagram Account
Turn your existing Instagram profile into a Business account. It takes three steps:
Switch to a Business Account. Go to your Settings, tap “Switch to a Business,” and tap “Continue.”
Connect to your Facebook Page. Tap “Log in with Facebook,” choose the page you admin, and tap “Next.”
Setup your Business Profile. Type in your business email address, phone number, and physical address to enable users to email, call, and get directions to your business from the buttons and links on your shop.
Step 3: Upload Your Product Catalog
Your product catalog powers Instagram Shopping. Connect a product catalog to your Instagram Business Account in one of two ways:
Use Catalog Manager. This is a Facebook Business Manager feature that allows you to contain and hold information about all the items you plan to advertise or sell on Instagram and Facebook. If you don’t have a catalog yet, use this guide to create one.
Use Instagram ecommerce platform partners. You can use Facebook’s integration with certified ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Wix, and BigCommerce.
Step 4: Complete Your Account Review
After you connect your catalog and add products to it, submit your account for review, which typically takes a few days. Here’s how to complete your account review:
Go to your Settings.
Sign up for shopping.
Submit your account for review.
Check your status in the “Shopping” tab in your Settings at any time.
Note that Instagram may require some additional information to prove ownership of your website domain. If you receive such a notification, you need to verify your domain.
Step 5: Turn on Shopping
If you don’t see “Shopping” in your account settings, then your account is still under review.
When your account is approved, turn on Shopping features with the following steps.
Go to your Settings.
Tap “Business” and then tap “Shopping.”
Choose a product catalog to connect to your account.
Step 6: Start Adding Tags
This is necessary to make your Instagram content actionable. Thanks to Shopping Tags, users will be able to discover more about your products from the photos and videos they see in their Feed and Stories.
Here’s how to tag a product in your Image post:
Tap “Add photo.”
Add a caption.
Tap on “Tag products.”
Tap on a product on your photo.
Choose a product from your Catalog.
Tap “Done,” and then tap “Share.”
And here’s how to add a shopping sticker into your Stories post:
Find the sticker icon in the top right-hand corner.
Select the product sticker from the sticker tray.
Choose the product from your catalog.
Move the product sticker so that it looks great on your story.
Customize the text color of the product sticker by tapping it.
Share your story.
Step 7: Monitor your Shopping Insights
Find the “Insights” tab in your account to analyze how efficient your shopping posts and stories are. Insights inform you about your customers’ interests and behavior, thus allowing you to continually improve your Instagram marketing strategy.
Let’s finish this guide with some actionable tips to perfect your Instagram Shopping skills.
4 Tips to Gain Success with Instagram Shopping
Use High-Quality Professional Visuals
Use Hashtags
Incentivize Shopping
Show Your Product in Action
We’ve collected four best practices to help you succeed in selling your products on Instagram. Here there are.
Tip 1: Use High-Quality Professional Visuals
New business features evolve on Instagram, but the platform has always focused on visual content. To stand out from other businesses and creators, you need to upload quality images and videos to grab users’ attention and inspire shopping and sharing. Develop your visual identity so that people will quickly recognize your brand.
The post from @shopbop is a professional photo taken within a specific aesthetic code: pastel tones, a contrast of the summer look with warm-looking knitted bra and jacket, and great accessories that complement the look.
Tip 2: Use Hashtags
Like with any Instagram posts, relevant hashtags will help you make your Shopping posts more discoverable. Using the right hashtags increases your chances of reaching the Explore section, where people may run into your photo or video and follow you or make a purchase.
Here’s a post from @onetonecolor, a brand specialized in hair dye, that has many relevant hashtags, like #haircare, #colorcare, #hairideas, #veganhaircare, etc. They both describe the business activity and make it easier for customers to find the brand. It’s best to research what hashtags your competitors use and find out which ones are the most popular in your industry. Note that it’s best to use around ten hashtags (though thirty is allowed) and double-check their meanings.
Tip 3: Incentivize Shopping
Adding sales or promo code details to your Shopping post allows you to add more incentive to tap-through. There’s no such functionality yet, but you can get creative and include this information in the image before you upload it to Instagram.
Here’s a video post where @thiefandbandit announced their Summer sale. It gives a promo code and tells them how big the discount is. It’s not easy to read this information because photos change fast, but the intrigue makes users watch a loop several times.
Tip 4: Show Your Product in Action
When you show how effective and useful your products are, it speeds up the decision making process for your customers. That’s because they know what to expect from your product, and they can realize if it fits the fast.
Let’s return to @overtonecolor. They’ve uploaded a video where they show how to use their product and the results it brings. They could make a hair dyeing live video and add a product sticker to enable shopping.
Congratulations, you’ve learned the basics of Instagram Shopping. Now you are good to start using these features to the benefit of your business!