

You might have tried to Google “lead generation tips” and a couple hundred million results turned up. Great. But saying it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack is an understatement. It’s more like looking for that needle in a haystack in all of Texas. Good luck finding the best tips you need for your business without getting confused along the way.

When I was starting out with my little startup, I didn’t have the benefit of the wise counsel of a hundred brilliant lead generation experts. Nor was there Twitter (it was born in 2006) or Facebook (In 2004, Facebook was only exclusive to a handful of Ivy League schools. It was only On September 26, 2006, Facebook was opened to everyone at least 13 years old with a valid email address.) or social media to help. Marketing would have been a lot easier.

Now, let’s make it easier for you.

I asked some of the more reputable and well-respected social media influencers what tips and tricks they’ve learned and practiced as an authority in their fields they would want to share with others in the industry. Some of them either DM’ed or emailed me personally, while some gave me permission to grab morsels of their wisdom from their blogs and/or books.

I consider these people some of the best in the industry. And mind you, we follow each other on Twitter. It’s wise you follow them, too.

Here they are and here’s what they have to say:

John Paul Aguiar

@JohnAguiar

www.johnpaulaguiar.com

Internet entrepreneur, a pro blogger and social media consultant and trainer specializing in blog marketing and Twitter marketing

The best lead generation tips that have worked very well for me over the years are:

Write targeted, helpful content that fits your audience at all levels. Don’t worry about giving to much away for free, I would rather write a helpful piece of content that teaches something on its own, than to write content that leaves the reader needing to go elsewhere to finish the “learning”. Another tip is to write content with a plan in place. Have a book launch or product launch coming up? Start the content sharing well before the launch, share content around what your book or product is about. Prep your audience to see why they should listen to you and your advice, do that correctly, and you will have pre sold your book or course nicely.

Related: How B2B Marketers Craft an Industry Related Content

Sam Hurley

@Sam___Hurley

‎Head of Search Marketing at Midas Media and Founder of OPTIM-EYEZ, the go-to solution for Digital Marketing tips; Ranked #1 Global Digital Marketing Influencer

The single most important component of any lead gen campaign is the quality of your traffic. If your traffic isn’t qualified – conversion rates are going to look pretty dismal. To ensure quality, produce the right content to the ideal audiences at the optimal time in their buyer journey. Each touch-point needs to be consistent and continual across owned, earned and paid media. Aim for a seamless brand story that attracts attention, creates affinity and finally launches the conversion net with a perfectly executed CTA.

A great trick is to utilise all captures as ambassadors to gain further leads – reward them with gifts, money or free access to a tool. The type of reward depends on the threshold of referrals they send your way… a very nice app for this nature of project is Ambassador.

Related: Build Tremendous Credibility and Make Clients Refer You

Pam Moore

@PamMktgNut

CEO of Marketing Nutz, a full service digital marketing, social media and experiential branding agency serving entrepreneurs. She is also a keynote speaker, trainer, consultant, and author.

There are far too many “experts” online touting that you must be on every new shiny object and social network. They’ll even go so far as to warn you that if you don’t start snapping on Snapchat, storytelling on Instagram and delivering live video on Periscope that your business is destined to fail. Let me tell you right now this is 100% false.

Marketing and business leaders must give themselves permission to prioritize. You do not need to be everywhere all the time. You do not need to treat every social network equal nor spend the same amount of time and investment on every social network. You do not need to work 24/7, 365 days of the year to be successful. Release your fear of missing out and start prioritizing your time and investment of money and resource.

The truth is that the more you focus and prioritize, the better your results will be. Stop only playing around with the social networks. Instead, get serious, get focused and you will start seeing real results.

What matters is where your audience and target customer is online. You must be where they are. You must deliver them value where they are, using methods, language and mediums that will inspire them, connect with them and bring them closer to your brand. (via www.pammarketingnut.com)

Bob Perella



@bobperella

CEO; Facebook & Social Media Marketing Expert

Leads are supposed to push themselves down the sales funnel all on their own, right? (Although there will always be a few leads who are so excited by your offering that they’ll convert on their own). I hate to break it to you but that rarely ever happens. In order to build a long-term relationship, begin by focusing on thought leadership topics. You want prospects to immediately perceive a professional benefit to receiving such information. This also helps you establish thought leadership with your prospects. Credibility Sells!

Related: 5 Ways B2B Startups can Become Thought Leaders

To be a great marketer (or sales person) you need to realize that leads need a little push. People are busy and have different priorities – making it easy for them to quickly forget your offer as time goes by. Nine times out of 10 what prevents the marketing department from proactively reaching out is they think the prospect will contact them all on their own because of the valuable content that you have shared with the prospect.

Even if your content is amazing, you still need to follow-up. Again, the key purpose is to a keep an on-going dialogue about their company and their professional needs. 20% of your potential prospects will take more than one year to buy! Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. Prospects liked to be talked to. They need to know that you think each one of them is unique and that you individually know and understand their concerns and needs. Don’t let automation take away that personal tone that is critical to retaining prospects. All top performer B2B organizations have a lead nurturing that is repeatable. Remember that nurturing your leads (and customers too) should always remain a top priority.

Put a system into place for following up with a new lead! (via SalesVelocity partners)

Related: The Remedy for Unqualified Leads: Nurture Them Until They’re Ready

Tamara McCleary

@TamaraMcCleary

tamaramccleary.com

RelationShift® expert; founder and CEO of Thulium, a brand strategy and social influence agency

People don’t want perfection, they want something they can believe in. Customers purchase experiences, not products or services. What do customers want? They want to identify with your story and enjoy your tale. They want to be pulled into the experience, have their suffering (their challenges or problems) solved, feel valued and know the brand cares.

The extraordinary Steve Jobs shared something similar when he said: “A brand is not so much about rational arguments, but the way that the company resonates with people emotionally.”

Brand stories make a company feel human, and when a company has a compelling story, it creates a persona. It’s this persona that people begin to attach to. In a highly-competitive marketplace, the best way to stand out and differentiate your brand is through a compelling narrative that connects you emotionally to your target audience. (via www.siliconrepublic.com)

Matt Heinz

@HeinzMarketing

President of Heinz Marketing; specializes in B2B demand generation, pipeline management, sales enablement, content strategy, inside sales effectiveness, marketing technology, driving revenue & results.

In social media, if you’re worried about followers and likes, you’re doing it wrong. Focus instead on engagement, conversations, and driving an active, two-way discussion about the issues, needs and pain points your target customers care about most. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Your prospects are sharing their needs and buying signals on the social web every day. Your responsibility is to listen, look proactively for mentions of those keywords and buying signals, and become an information concierge to drive top-of-pipeline lead generation for your organization. Technology and process drive value here, not media buying and budget. The social web is the greatest source of ongoing free leads ever seen. Are you taking advantage? (via The Modern Marketer’s Field Guide)

Ted Rubin

@TedRubin

Leading Social Marketing Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Brand Evangelist and Acting CMO of Brand Innovators.

Lead generation… it’s in line with return on relationship and getting to know people and building relationships. It’s doing what I call looking people in the eye digitally. And what that really means is getting to know who your audience is and understand who they are and call them by name—to make it about them. To do your research. And that isn’t just from a consumer standpoint; that’s from a B2B standpoint as well.

Let me tell you a story. I’m an older guy. I’m 57 years old. I graduated college in 1980, and I was taught by my parents to look people in the eye.

When I graduated college, I got my first sales job. And I got a call from my dad after my first week of work and he goes, “So when’s your first meeting?”

And I said, “It’s Friday.”

And he said, “Well, what time is the meeting?”

I said, “10:00.”

He said, “When are you gonna go there?”

I said, “I’ll probably get there about five to 10.”

He goes, “No. Get there at 9:00. Walk around the neighborhood. Get to know what other businesses and restaurants are there. Get into the office. Find out what other companies are in the building. Try to get into the office of the person you’re meeting with and see what diplomas are on the wall, what photos are on the desk. Is he a father, a grandfather? Does he golf, does he fish? Does he ski? Where did he go to school? Find points of emotional connection where you can have a conversation with him other than business that’s important to him.”

Now, today you don’t have to get there an hour early. All this information’s available digitally, but most of us aren’t bothering to use it.

We’re worried about bringing people to our pages, instead of going and seeing all the information they’re offering us on theirs.

My advice to you is to make sure to do your research before you go in. It’s a simple as a click of a button—and then bothering to read something and seeing how it relates to you.

But really my point is that all these tools are tremendous, but if you forget the people, you’re overlooking the most important part.

Tools help you be more productive. They help you find out things about the people you’re working with. They’re helping you stay on top of your business. But in the end, you’ve got to always keep the people at the forefront of your thinking. Because if you overlook them, if you only look at the money, then you’re missing the most important part. (via www.tedrubin.com/blog)

Mike Kawula

@MikeKawula

CEO @theSocialQuant Social Media Twitter Marketing Startup driving businesses Leads & Sale; Entrepreneur, Author & Inc. 500 Alum

Here’s my 7 step formula for any entrepreneur to drive massive traffic to their brand with Twitter marketing:

1) Get More Twitter Followers: In order for Twitter to send you continual traffic to your business, you need to have a plan to not only get more Twitter followers consistently, but relevant Twitter followers.

2) Set up a great Twitter cover that has a brief message of exactly who you are as a business. What’s the itch you scratch? Treat your Twitter cover like a billboard on the highway, very brief on words, but clear on message. You can use a tool like Canva to create an awesome Twitter cover for free.

3) Put up a good profile image of who you are. Sure you’ve spent a ton of time on a logo, but a personal image will do better.

4) Write an amazing bio of what it is you do and who you are. Keep it fun and don’t put any hashtags in your bio, unless if they’re unique only to your business.

5) Make sure you have a link under your bio to somewhere on your business website. Either the homepage or an offer you have.

6) Pin a Tweet to your Twitter profile. If you set everything up well above and have a following strategy, most people will look at your profile to see if they should follow you back. By pinning a tweet, you can talk to their pain point and have a guide or offer as the first Tweet they see.

7) Share content that is great frequently. The top 20% of people who get the majority of traffic from Twitter are tweeting over 80 times a day. This might seem like a lot (it is), but it can be automated easily.

These 7 tips are just the beginning of Twitter marketing, but alone can send you massive brand awareness, traffic and sales. Further strategies can also help multiply the benefits of Twitter, but this will get you started fast to start reaping the rewards.

Parting shot

Of course, it’s always “different strokes for different folks”. But armed with a combination of these tips and tricks, which to be honest, are mostly centered on the value of relationships and social media marketing, you can put yourself in a better position to succeed in terms of lead generation.

Author: Rom Agustin is the CEO of Callbox Sales and Marketing Solutions.

Get to know Rom Agustin and follow him on Twitter and Google+

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