How to Generate Leads Online for Free

A lead is a person who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service by giving you their information in some way. People can show interest in a variety of ways: filling out a form to download an ebook, requesting a demo, or completing an online survey.

Unfortunately, simply Liking a status update, photo, or video on your Page doesn’t make someone a lead. That type of action doesn’t indicate interest in your company or product

Pinterest Marketing

Pinterest users purchase items more often and in greater quantities, spend more money, and shop more frequently than any other social network. Pinterest is a huge driver of website traffic across all industries and is responsible for about 5 percent of all referral traffic.”Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest really only has one effective place where you can generate direct or indirect leads: through pins.

It’s all in the Setup

Going the “business” route also makes it easier to verify your website, add links to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and add Pinterest buttons and widgets to your company site or blog. Choose something memorable, keyword-conscious, and easy to spell that is also clearly associated with your business. Verify your website for improved SEO and a freebie backlink.
The Pinterest ‘About’ section is descriptive and keyword-sensitive and is your chance to explain the who, what, and where of what you do. Make sure your ‘About’ section is a simple, succinct, and specific and keyword-rich overview of your business.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Include links

Links in Board and Profile descriptions don’t automatically hyperlink (thus decreasing the possibility of someone clicking on them dramatically). Keep the copy short and sweet — usually between 100 and 200 characters works best — while also making room for a shortened URL. Providing a link in the description gives your followers even more opportunities to click, and maybe even become a lead. When it comes to linking, the more the merrier. Share links to individual pins on other social networks to embed your lead generation boards on your website or blog, optimizing for user experience and brand awareness.

Crossposting

Create an ebook or infographic

Visitors can share their personal information (a name, email address, phone number, etc) in exchange for an offer.

Populate your Pinboard

Choose the most popular pins to get clicks, repins, and likes. The most popular Pinterest categories are food, fashion, and tutorials. Create a board topic that can feature helpful content that will also generate leads.

Pinterest SEO

be sure that it can be easily found through a search on Pinterest and other search engines. discover your pins more easily by including a relevant hashtag or two.

Design Your Success

composition tips:

Tall images get repinned more. Think about it — they get more space in the news feed when people are scrolling, so people have more opportunities to engage with you. In fact, the 2:3 aspect ratio works better than super skinny, yet tall images.
Reddish-orange images get 2x the repins as blueish images. Think warm colors, and the leads could start pouring in a bit faster than usual.
Brand images without faces get 23% repins than those with faces. So cut the faces out of your images, if possible. (Harsh, I know.)
Photos with medium lightness are repinned 20x more than very dark images. So keep it bright, people.
Keep testing and create multiple versions of pins to discover what your audience likes to discover, like, repin, and click.
all of this data, use it to help you iterate on your strategy. Pretty soon, you’ll have leads flowing in.

Blogging

It has been discovered that marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. Your business blog lets followers know about recent company news and events. When done right, it can also establish you as an authority in your field, give people an inside look at your workplace culture, and boost your SEO.

Be Informative

Crafting posts that educate your customers on your product or service and the industry it’s in. When you do this, you position yourself as a go-to resource in your audience’s time of need. The more valuable pages you publish, the more favorably search engines like Google look at your website. The result? You’ll attract more visitors via search. In fact, companies that have embraced blogging receive 97% more links to their site. It is well known that inbound links are one of the most important factors Google takes into account when ranking your website.

Call to Action

A call-to-action is just that — a way to compel your reader to take action. Try including a link in the text of your post to a relevant ebook or whitepaper. For example, a shared blog post that had a call-to-action to a landing page at the bottom of the post could be linked to your initial pin that helps direct visitors to that landing page.

Offer your readers exclusive content

Aside from offering people free ways to improve their business, hold a little something back for those who are willing to give a little extra in exchange for more information. Tease your readers with exclusive content that can help them even more than free access to your blog can. Offer workshops that break down into detail the free content you touch upon on your business blog.

Offer your readers perks

If you’re the owner of an e-commerce website, a great way to generate leads is by offering your blog readers a chance to buy products at a discounted rate.

Blog summary downloads

We understand that sometimes you have a lot to say or maybe you’re long-winded and like to pack your blog posts full of content such as images, examples, and case studies that prove all the points made throughout your article. However, sometimes all of that information is too much to digest for some readers. Not everybody has the time to make their way through a 2,000+ word blog post. And we get that.

To address this, you can offer shorter, downloadable summaries in exchange for a name and email, for those who want to get the key takeaways without having to read the entire blog post.

Social Media Relationship Marketing

Building Relationships

Reach out to influencers

This growth strategy requires a little more effort on your part.

First, what you’ll need to do is identify influencers in your industry. Search social networks to find accounts that have a massive and more importantly, engaged following.

Second, you’ll need to put in the effort to engage them. “Like” their content on LinkedIn, Facebook, retweet it on Twitter, and comment on their blog posts. The important thing is to make yourself recognizable to them. The more they see your logo, or your personal photo, the more familiar you become to them.

Third, you’ll need to reach out to them in a way that no one else is. Influencers get thousands of emails a day asking to promote a brand, product, or a blog post. Keep your tone friendly and relatable to increase the chance that you get a positive response.

Face your Next Opportunity

Facebook is an important business tool for companies of every size and industry. With a daily active user base of 1.13 billion with 1.03 billion on mobile alone, you know it can help you reach new audiences you may not have been able to reach otherwise.

Post landing pages for offers directly to Facebook.

One of the best ways to generate leads on Facebook is simply to send people directly to landing pages for lead-generating offers. Use verbal phrases like “Download your ebook” or “Get your cheat sheet” to indicate where you’re sending them.