Best Lead Generation Tools To Grow Your Business in 2021

Generating leads is important for any business. Expanding an online business and increasing income is quite difficult without attracting new customers. This applies to prosperous companies as well as those that have recently started their activities on the market. Therefore, it’s very important to use the right tools and services for collecting leads, developed to solve such problems.

This article will tell you about the best lead generation tactics and tools that will keep you afloat. You may be using many tools such as logo maker, business card maker, etc.for your graphic design needs, but these tools will help you generate more leads and grow your sales. We are going to discuss tools that include options for analyzing sales channels, organizing callbacks from corporate websites, social media promotion tools, customer search services, and visitor tracking tools. By the way, you have a lot of such tools on LinkedIn alone, but first things first.

So, let’s get started!

What Is Lead Generation?

Simply put, a “lead” is a person interested in a product that left his/her contacts for the company to get in touch with. Now, lead generation is the process of collecting a client database. In the future, these people can be contacted and turned into real customers.

Lead Generation Pros

• Easy-to-evaluate advertising effectiveness;
• Pay only for results;
• Potential customers are interested in your product.

Leads come in “cold,” “warm,” and “hot.” Depending on the “warmth degree,” a company has to put more effort into driving them to purchase.

How can a person become your lead?

• Leave a request to call back on the website or via an ad;
• Subscribe to your newsletter;
• Register on the site;
• Place an order;
• Call the company personally;
• Share contact data in any other way.

The results of lead generation are concrete and measurable, which is why this tool is part of performance marketing (online marketing and advertising programs where advertisers pay only when a specific action occurs).

Who Will Not Benefit from Lead Generation

Companies whose product is too revolutionary. Customers don’t know anything about the product yet. First, you need to tell them about it, increase the visibility, and then collect leads.

Companies that can’t cope with a large flow of customers. To make sense of lead generation, you need to process requests efficiently and bring people to the purchase. Otherwise, lead generation will turn into a regular money drain.

Companies that sell too cheap products. There’s no point in spending money on attracting leads if your product costs $2-$3. More money will be spent on being able to compete on the Web.

Lead Generation in 2021

In 2021, it’s getting more difficult to reach potential customers because the flow of information has multiplied. More and more savvy businesses are now relying on affiliate programs to assist them in bringing in site traffic and sales.  But if customers clicked through your ads (for example) and get to your site, you need to do everything you can to make them stay there and do the targeted action.

That’s why the following site criteria come to the forefront today:

Usability

It makes sense that in order for a potential customer to stay on the site, it should be easy to use. But not all companies, for some reason, comply with this simple rule. An incomprehensible navigation system, aggressive pop-ups, non-clickable buttons – all this kills a good impression of your product. In such a situation, the client will have no motivation to leave their data.

Content Quality

Content is above all. This rule is now relevant for all digital marketing. To make your site content more diverse and attractive, add videos and animations to your site. You can create videos to help the audience understand how the product works. Don’t forget to add CTAs to your videos and make them actionable. You may also want to create videos related to atmospheric interviews with your team, customer stories, etc.

You can also use storytelling. A well-told story that can evoke emotion almost always works better than dry facts.

Personalization

Yes, a person has not yet become your client, and you know almost nothing about him/her. However, even at this stage, you can make people feel your care and attention. Tell them exactly how your product can help. Show that you understand their needs and problems. Share customer stories so that people can relate to them.

Types, Tools, and Ways to Attract Leads

Leads can be generated both online and offline. Offline lead generation is more used in B2B or for very expensive exclusive products like yachts, art, and antiques.

What methods of lead generation are appropriate for offline?

• Personal meetings;
• Cold calls;
• Presentations, exhibitions, professional conferences;
• Outdoor/indoor advertising (billboards, transport/elevator advertising, etc.);
• TV, radio, and print media advertising.

Your website or social media page is the main way to generate leads online. What lead generation tools can you use there?

• Callback feature;
• Online chat;
• Quizzes;
• Feedback forms;
• Contact buttons in messengers and social networks;
• Lead magnets (special offers, e.g. trial subscriptions, samples, consultations, and so on);
• Pop-ups, etc.

However, so that people are able to leave a request on your site, you must first bring them there. What lead generation channels can be used for this?

• SEO promotion;
• Targeted advertising;
• Contextual advertising;
• Q&A services;
• Guest posting;
• Email marketing campaigns;
• Advertising in geo services, etc.

CPA networks deserve special attention. These are services, where a company can order traffic for its website or get contacts of specific people that are interested in its products. The advertiser submits an advertising brief in CPA networks, where he/she describes the product, tells about what information/channels can and can’t be used in advertising. Then the performer attracts customers independently, and the customer receives leads and pays only for the result. This is a kind of turnkey lead generation.

Communication

So, you have defined your customer profile and channels. Next, the communication process starts. When exactly do you realize that your lead is already “in business”? There are three checkpoints to assess this situation:

1. Review all available information about your potential client: colleagues, events attended, past jobs, groups he/she belongs to, etc. Your chances to get a response can be higher with an individual approach. However, keep in mind that this can take much more time compared to a common database newsletter. Which, in turn, runs the risk of ending up in a spam folder. The circle is closed. What can you do about it? Test and find your balance, your approach.

2. Find out whether the client has worked with contractors (if this is about outsourcing), what prices are satisfying, how the work is arranged, if business trips are necessary – everything that interests you as a service provider. The answers should be compared with what you can offer.

If all went well on the previous stages, you can proceed to closing the deal.

3. Determine whether all the conditions are met, how the agreement is drafted, are there any requests for changes or rescheduling. Evaluate whether the conditions offered are suitable, can you make concessions.

4. What if your client does not respond? How do you warm him/her up after sending the first chain of emails? The easiest way is to change your channel of communication: visit them, give them a call or your business card at the next conference, thus reminding them of yourself and your offer. If you want to continue communicating through email, you have to plan a trigger.

5. Change the pattern of communication and provoke a response. For example, if you have previously communicated with your leads rather formally, send them a cute GIF or throw a good joke about the two weeks of silence. If that doesn’t work either, you’ll have to keep your decision-makers on their toes. Send them content, get them on your blog/site, invite them to your online speeches. As a last resort, leave your potential customers until better times.

Top 12 Best Lead Generation Tools

We’re often asked what else can be used besides the one and only LinkedIn that was mentioned above. In Europe, there are analogs like German Xing or French Viadeo, etc. Basically, you can use any social network – companies also actively use Instagram to search for new clients.

So, let’s move on to our favorite set of tools now:

CRM is the best way to keep your customer database organized. Some don’t follow this approach and simply create spreadsheets on their internal drives. The reason for this decision is that a good CRM system can cost a lot. However, we can say with confidence that later, such a database will definitely pay you off. You can try Pipeliner CRM, for instance.

Poptin is another powerful tool to help you convert your website traffic into sales, leads, and email signups with engaging popups and contact forms. It helps you reduce cart abandonment, increase engagement, and boost your overall sales conversion rate.

Next comes Sales Navigator from LinkedIn. A useful tool that helps you fine-tune your search if you have a detailed profile of your perfect customer.

Then there is Facebook Lead Ads is a tool specifically designed to collect leads at a lower price, allowing you to collect information from prospects both from mobile and desktop ads.

98.3% of Facebook users access the platform through mobile devices on a monthly basis. Although most FB users get access to the social network through a mobile device, the conversion rate of the ads was much higher on the desktop, with only 34% of user conversion from mobile devices.

Next come tools that help you semi-automate the work with leads in your CRM. Try Link Match or its alternatives.

To shorten your path to a newsletter, you can use ZoomInfo. It’s subscription-based software that sells access to its database of business people and companies to salespeople, marketers, and recruiters.

At the newsletter stage of sending emails to your potential clients, use Mandrill. This tool has good deliverability. Plus, you can see what you send, who opens your emails, who click-through your links, etc. Again, you can always build a separate newsletter funnel to evaluate its effectiveness.

Once you send your newsletter, use MailTester. This app will evaluate the performance of your servers.

After that, you can evaluate your emails for deliverability, blacklists, and content/design bugs. GlockApps can help you with that.

So your client has agreed to talk to you. Why not do it in Calendly? It’s a handy tool that makes it easy to make an appointment during your working day, measured with a time clock calculator, and get it on your calendar (it’s great if the lead uses this tool, too, of course).

Next, you need a tool to make a call on the appointed day. Skype or WhatsApp, which has already become classic, will be just fine for that. And yet, it’s better to have several accounts on different platforms, because any of them can stop working when you need them the most.

It is also a good idea to make it inexpensive for interested prospects to call your business. You can use local or ITFS numbers from a cloud phone service provider like Global Call Forwarding. This way, prospects from different countries can call your business for free or local rates, and not worry about international calling rates.

The next step in building lead generation is to calculate statistics. There are third-party tools as well as built-in CRM capabilities. Zoho CRM is one of the main tools that helps to link/visualize conversions.

Finally, don’t forget about Phantombuster for automations and data extraction. You can use it at any of the stages described above.

Next, all your activities can be collected in Power BI and uploaded to Zoho, again.

That’s it! Our circle of tools is now complete.

Thanks to the manipulations done, you’ll always see actual spreadsheets, real people working, track patterns/conversions. From this structure, you can understand over time, how much money your clients bring you. Most importantly, you can build a well-functioning system and then just scale it up to bring in new people.

All of these tools are quite realistic to figure out on your own, without spending much time on it. Difficulties may arise only with a more complex reporting tool like Zoho Reports. There are two ways out: use a simpler analog (if your business is not that big) or hire a professional that will work in Power BI.

Conclusion

Attracting leads is only the first stage of getting to know your customers. What comes next is how you handle those leads. It’s important that your sales department is prepared and handles all incoming leads in a quality manner. This is the only way to get the results that all your competitors dream of.

Always count your conversions. Without them, you can’t build a system you can manage. Here are a couple of tips for your consideration:

• Keep your eye on the ball at all times. If you have a sales team, don’t forget to keep track of reports on its performance. Do this at least once every two weeks. The sooner you find a problem, the sooner you solve it;
• Don’t stop following market trends, study them, and be flexible. Communicate with experts, colleagues, discuss issues that concern you with them.
• Use creative lead nurturing tactics to follow up with leads. For example, you can integrate dynamic messaging in your CRM like the SMS for HubSpot integration to easily add SMS follows up to your workflows.