7 Inbound Lead Acquisition Strategies For Businesses

Having leads come to you instead of the other way around is hitting the jackpot when it comes to lead generation marketing.  But how can you increase the number of inbound leads and ultimately take your business to the next level almost instantly?

I will be showing you some methods that we use here at HQ SEO in order to help grow our business.

All the methods I will be discussing are geared to whatever stage you are at with your business: you may be just starting out and looking for that first big break or you may be in a position to scale up and grow your client base.

Fact based decision making

Let’s  start with the basics.  The best b2b lead generation strategies are built on knowledge and understanding of what the market is telling you.

Content that has poor choice in keywords will not only mean you will be flooded with bad quality leads, your service will often be hidden away from the leads that are interested in what you have to offer.

Avoid making decisions that you ‘think’ are correct and make choices that are backed by data-driven facts.

In order to do this, use applications such as the Google Keyword Planner to show you what keywords relate and get the biggest search volumes.  Another benefit of this tool is that it shows you how competitive that particular keyword is in the market.

Attempt to find longtail keywords that are specific to your niche but have little to no competition for it.  This is obviously the goal of every keyword campaign but it is worth the time in order to get your business ahead of the competition.

Make your enquiry forms better

To me, this is a big one.

Let’s face it, the generic enquiry form is terrible.  It’s so boring and disengaging.

“Tell us your name and we will get back to you with a quote.”  How many times have you seen this?  Exactly.  Too many times.  I would even bet that you are using this yourself.

Let me tell you this…  this lifeless form is costing you leads.

You’ve shown off your service and convinced them to choose you for their business needs.  And then they see your form.

It just screams out basic and standard and does not separate you from the crowd like your previous pages claim.  *Visitor closes page*.

Improving your forms will dramatically improve the success rate from a potential lead into an actual lead.

Let’s compare the following forms to show you what I mean.  One of them is a generic form generated from WordPress.  The other is not:

Firstly,

Secondly,

Which one are you more likely to fill in?  What is giving you the most value?  Which one is actually worth using your time?

It’s not even close.  The second example is what we use here at HQ SEO and tells you exactly what we can do for you.  It specifically asks what you need and will go on to tailor the questions to that specific lead.  

How do you do this?  Simple. Give them what they want.  

A client wants to be sure that you know what you are talking about.  The best way to do this is by phrasing the enquiry as a free consultation rather than just a quote.  Offering a personalised service will show a lead that you are interested in their business needs.

Physically tell them what you can provide to them, how much it will cost and why they should choose you.  Human interaction from someone who knows their stuff is a very powerful tool in converting non leads to leads.

Lendformly helps create great enquiry forms; I recommend you go and do the same.

Less is more

This is based around publishing less frequent articles and instead focusing on creating lower quantity but higher quality material.

The advantage to this method is that you can build an audience through thorough expertise in the field instead of putting out wishy-washy content for the sake of it.  In-depth content created on your site will boost your reputation, increase your credibility and entice business leads.

I suggest that when you create your content, it should take a lot of time to do.  It should also take a long time to create. This will show to leads that you have thought a lot about what you have decided to publish and have put in considerable research.

By being involved with a less is more content strategy, you will attract higher quality leads.  This is because they will have followed you all the way through your piece and are able to understand it on a higher level.  Better quality leads drives better quality work and more revenue for your business.

Have you ever heard of the 10X principle?  It’s based around in order to get 10 times successful, you need to put in 10 times the work.  You will not get extra results without giving extra effort.

Long-form content is also an excellent way to build links, get better rankings on Google and boost your inbound lead generation.

Create your own learning material

As we mentioned in the first technique, people trust someone who knows exactly what they are talking about.  People also love getting something for nothing.

Creating learning material and offering it out for free shows that you hold a position of authority.  Examples of which include as creating a YouTube video or writing a blog.  If you keep releasing genuinely useful content on regular basis, you will be able to build a loyal and engaged customer base as well as attract more top-of-the-funnel traffic.

By providing sound and accurate information in your material, you create valuable content for the visitor to use for themselves.  This creates a mutual trust between you and the customer and they will be likely to return to you for help in their business going forwards. If they like what you have to offer, they are likely to contact you for more.

Also, how many times have you watched a video or webinar and the creator says something along the lines of “the first x amount of people that sign up using the following link will get bonus material not available to anyone else”?

This is a great technique of how to generate leads that you should be using too.  This drives people to beat out the rest of the competition as they want to gain an edge; if they can get information that others can’t, that’s a big win for them!

This means that users can’t find it elsewhere, not even in a Google search. Hosting a webinar and linking to it from within your post is one of the ten most effective ways to promote your premium content.

Here at HQ SEO, we run training courses every quarter about the most requested topics that range from eCommerce queries to local SEO campaigns.  It’s all about gaining a connection with potential inbound leads and building rapport.

If your content proves to be a hit with your customers, chances are they’ll share it with their social networks, giving you extra exposure and potentially driving more traffic to the site.

Run your own meetup events

Going out and meeting people at networking events is a good way to is connect with a variety of potential clients.  Unfortunately, there will be many more just like you and in a general meetup environment.  There no guarantee that clients are looking for what exactly you have to offer.

In contrast, running your own event means that potential clients will be turning up looking for exactly that.  You know why there are there and because it is your event, you automatically hold the key position of authority.

You are able to control who can attend the event itself which in itself has benefits.  You can restrict the competition that can attend, isolating yourself as the natural solution.  Do some background research so when it comes to talking to them, you  already know their business.  This is an important weapon in your lead generation marketing arsenal.

I would even suggest on starting the event with a time slot designated to you speaking about a topic of choice.

Speaking to an audience will instantly convince people that you are an expert.  Being considered a guru is a sure fire way of getting more inbound leads.

Your audience members will be able to take note of you and spread the word to their own network of clients and professional people.

You may get invited to speak at other events or perhaps write a guest post on a website which will increase your reach.  Getting exposed to different audiences will increase the amount of inbound leads to you and your website.

This leads to the growing your network.

A lot of the time, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Being apart of a network of professionals enables you to establish yourself as the go-to guy.  

Get yourself connected with :

Groups specific to your niche: if you are a tax professional that are specialists in international tax law, it would be a good idea to associate yourself with businesses that operate overseas.

Social media groups:  nearly everyone that has access to Facebook, Twitter, etc has one.  There will be groups that you can search and join easily that will be looking for what you have to offer.  You could even create your own page.

Competitors:  if you think about it, this is actually a good method.  Not all businesses are able to take on extra clients for one reason or another so they could recommend you as a provider.   As an example, a good SEO agency will often be at capacity meaning that there will be opportunities for another to take on that client.

A/B test your webpage

Scratch that. You should be A/B testing everything you do.

This tip is pretty much self explanatory.

Even the smallest changes can have a dramatic impact on obtaining inbound leads.  This could even be location of the enquiry box from the left to the right of the page.

The benefit to doing this is so that you can understand what customers prefer.  This is the only method that can keep your page constantly updated and running to the best of its potential.

Do not think that once you have built the page, that’s that and time to move on.  You should go back and look at what is doing well on the page and what isn’t.

Summing up

And there you have it: 7 effective ways to increase inbound lead generation. 

With all this being said, there is one important factor that no one except YOU can control, and that is by taking action.

Without it, your business will continue to generate the same level of interest that it is now.

Having a variety of techniques is will almost guarantee an increase in sales.  You’ve just got to go and do it.