Social media campaigns alone just won’t cut it

Building a list of qualified leads is very challenging especially if you have to meet a monthly or quarterly set of KPIs.

This process is not as easy as it sounds especially for startups who are in a very fast working environment pace. Finding qualified contacts becomes a time-consuming process.

You may opt to buy databases to make the process quicker or add more salespeople who will be searching and sending messages through LinkedIn or Facebook instead of focusing on converting leads.

To make a business successful, you need a steady supply of qualified leads. Putting money on social media campaigns and optimising the same landing page is not enough.

To help businesses find leads to nurture, here are three useful lead generation activities that you can do:

1. Content upgrade

If your business is selling a specific kind of product — let’s say a beauty product, it usually takes time to convert someone into buying it. It might take one to five social media posts if that’s all you rely on.

Now what you want to do is build a database with quality leads who would only be interested in buying your product and send them weekly and monthly reminders with your new offers.

Also Read: AirAsia launches US-based VC fund, strategic partnership with 500 Startups

You can set up something called Content Upgrade or Bonus Upgrade where you can post something related to the product that you’re offering and give some tips.

After you give a bunch of information you hide some of them and offer a content upgrade to read more via a PDF/Ebook download with the additional resources if the readers provide their email addresses.

Image credit to: blog.videofruit.com

With the Content Upgrade, you can easily build a list with qualified leads who would be interested in your product.

Some tools I use include Leadspage.net and Sumo

2. Quizzes

Get thousands of leads in a few days by making a quiz.

This is one of the most effective ways of building a list. It’s fun, it can be viral and leads would want to finish the whole process to get the results.

For example, your product or service is for parents, you would want to create a quiz that would engage the parents and get their emails so you can constantly send them newsletters for new products.

The good thing about the quizzes is you get their emails plus if you tie them with your website, you would be able to get valuable data from your customers (colour preferences, ambitions, etc) and depending on what your company sells, you can use the information to tailor your messages and marketing efforts in the future.

A tool I use is qzzr.com

3. Giveaways

Here’s an alternative approach to list building that will get you multiple leads from one source.

A successful example is the Authority Hacker competition. They put a contest together at the end of the year where subscribers can win a lot of SEO tools and other marketing optimisation tools.

Also Read: Founders of 500 Startups Japan quit to launch new VC fund Coral Capital

They have several ways to enter the contest – one is to give their email address and the other is to follow them on social media. The competition also allows the potential lead to get multiple entries if they share the link on their profile. (Which gives them more traffic and signups!)

Tools I use include King Sumo and Gleam.

Conclusion

Don’t spend so much on social media campaigns that just prompt the visitors to subscribe or contact you.

Focus on creative campaigns that will give you more engagements and qualified leads who would want to learn more about your product or services.

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Image Credits: rastudio

Additional Resource: The New 2019 Growth Hacking & Conversion course on Udemy

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