Hello!
Over the past few years inbound marketing has become the frontrunner of marketing for many businesses. Recently it seems like cold-calling and outbound emails are making a strong come back too. Everyone is looking for that silver bullet to get more leads for their business.
Today we wanted to share some of the channels and ideas we’ve used to grow Referral Rock where we’ve doubled our leads in the past 6 months. All of these are strategies we’ve had direct experience in or are planning on in the next 6 months to double again.
Be warned, you have to really commit to these ideas and put the work in. If you take the time you can really make an impact on your demand generation.
Joining a partner program
Partnerships are great for building leads. You have the ability to get in front of the eyes of a whole new set of leads add value to the partner. One of the main benefits is you get access to customers you may have previously been more difficult to get in front of.
Being a partner is a two-way street. You have to pull your weight to get the most of any partnership.
There are various types of partner programs, but these are the main types we’ve had experience with: include technical partners, solution partners, and even content partners.
- Technical: A technical partner where mutual customers can easily use your integrations; you gain an easy co-promoting opportunity where you are listed as an integration option.
- Solution: You can easily be suggested as a solution provider to a customer to better accommodate their needs. It’s basically a lead to you where you come across as trusted by the vendor.
- Content: You can also be a content partner and collaborate on content together. Which can lead to shout outs and tagging on social media. Plus, you’ll likely gain a valuable backlink on their blog. This works because as they promote their content, they are also promoting you. Just as you share their content because you were mentioned in it. Both of you can promote without being ‘self-promoting’.
Another reason why these types of programs work is because your partner business is basically vouching for you. It’s highly unlikely that a business will mention you or start a partnership with you if they don’t think you’re a fit for their customers as well.
But if you’re not convinced yet, here are some more ways you can get leads via a partner or reseller program.
- Public Listing - You’ll be listed on a partner page - this builds authority as you look more buyable, therefore has built in trust factors.
- Integration List - Being on an integration list shows that you work directly with the vendor. Often times customers are looking for solutions that work with whatever they are already using.
- Special content - You can plan a special or exclusive piece of content to be shared on your partner’s website. This special offer or piece of content gives your partner’s customers a reason to visit you, and it gives your partner another tool to share with their customers.
- Contribute to content - Partners are great for coming up with creative content. In fact, most are willing to give their two-cents if it means getting a backlink, and creating a comprehensive piece of content. This also means that partners are likely to be open to content swaps and will reach out to you if they think you can help them create a better piece of content. This gives you yet another potential place to be seen and could even help you in the SEO department as it backlinks can help you raise your rankings which can help you be seen more by potential leads.
- Social Media Promotion - Many partners will be open for bragging about their partners or at least mentioning them on their social profiles. You may often see this on Twitter or LinkedIn when two businesses begin a partnership. It’s like a virtual high-five for all the followers on both sides to see. Sharing partner successes can also be a great way to help drive traffic for them, and usually results in the same return favor.
For example, HubSpot partner programs has allowed them to partner with a ton of other businesses. Their team members often share about their new partnerships - which results in retweets and shares!
Who it makes sense for: Businesses who can offer clear value to customers of the company running the partner program. This can be through value added integrations, new features and functionality made available to customers, and/or powerful workflows that we previously difficult to do separately.
Creating a Partner/Reseller Program
For all the same reasons joining a partner program can help grow a business, you can now get those same benefits on the other side. You’re basically working together with your partners to prop each other up and drive new business for everyone. Creating a partner or reseller program can be a great way to get people on board with comarketing with you.
This is a better way to promote your name and build your brand awareness without having to necessarily ‘self-promote’. Meaning you could potentially have people promote you (and themselves) where it’s in both party’s self-interest.
For this to work effectively you need to consider only those businesses that you can offer value to their customers. You also have to clearly define your key drivers and goals.
You’ll also want to be knowledgeable of their markets as the market is constantly evolving.
How do you incentive your partner program? You may find that offering different partner levels is motivating enough to get partners more motivated in your program. Which can result in even more quality leads as partner benefits can increase with each tier.
Here are some tips on getting started with a partner program.
- Always have your partners in mind. If the partner won’t directly benefit from working with you, you’re not doing it right.
- Communication is key. Some partners may need more help than others, but regardless of that every partner needs open communication lines, as well as material and content to be informed on how to be successful with the program. (The easier you make it for them to succeed, the more you will too).
- Commit the resources. Don’t just put up a contact form. You’ll need to commit people and technology resources to scale your partner program.
- Resist constant change. You’ll have to monitor the program to see how it’s doing, and it’s okay to make tweaks along the way. But, this is a process and you need to allow partners time to get in the groove before you see the fruits of your labor. Also, if you’re constantly changing how things are done, you could lose the partners you do have.
Example: Xero a business and accounting software has grown by 350k in just a year’s time. Because their market falls among all businesses, it was easy for them to create a partner program and build their brand.
A Xero partner can earn badges to place on their site, as well as be listed on the Xero directory (making them easy to find by Xero users… or potential leads). Partners can also attend Xero events and earn prizes. The best part is, if you are a Xero partner you get a free subscription to run your business among a variety of other perks.
Who it makes sense for: Businesses who have already launched their product and strongly understand their customer needs. The business will have to dedicate internal resources to the partners to make them successful. Also, the business should be in a market where consultants and agencies are thriving, you don’t want to start a partner program where there are no partners to recruit.
Special offers via daily deal site
A daily deal site is often a great way to get leads. Someone else handles everything, and you just provide vouchers or coupons to give out.
There are downfalls, however. But, if you’re just starting out, this can really get you off the ground to establish a strong customer base.
- You are giving away a great deal, so that could mean you aren’t making that much in return.
- Many might be intrigued to buy because it’s such a good deal, but some may not be encouraged to ever use it. So, it can be difficult to gauge user intent.
Once you get someone as a customer you can then have them join a referral program or share your business on social media. Which can result in even more leads (and full paying customers).
There are plenty of daily deal apps you can try, like AppSumo. This daily deal site is one of the largest software deal sites out there, Standuply was featured on their site and it brought $45,000 in sales for them.
Prepare yourself for a flood of customers.
- Have a plan to support for users that come in via deal sites. A ton of new users may be coming in and flooding your support team, making it difficult for them to focus on full paying users.
- Prepare your plan features for the lifetime discount. The deal you offer on these sites can grandfather these users in to a lifetime insanely low price. Have an idea of how you can position your product to give a healthy amount away, but also provide a path for further upsell. Maybe new features don’t go out to these lifetime users and you can get them to upgrade.
Who it makes sense for: Businesses who are early on and need to build up users to get feedback, a cash influx, and general user feedback. The product needs to be mature enough to provide value, but not so mature that you’d lose existing paying customers that quit then come back on a lifetime deal.
Run your own special offer
After you have become a more mature business and priced yourself out of startup territory you may want to run your own deal for startups. You can do it on Product Hunt, you can offer a community deal to new startups.
Once you are a little more established you may have raised your prices where you are out of reach from the little guy, but you still want to help out. Maybe it’s a new batch of startups you want to help out, or a friend of a friend who wants to use your services but can’t afford it. You could always give it away for free, but you’ll find in time this creates more problems for your team then it’s worth.
You can come up with a compelling way to help but one where the new customer has some skin in the game. You might offer something like, free for the first 6 months or the first year is half off. This can make your company look good, as you’re giving back to the startup community and helping them grow up.
Companies like Hubspot and Drift have launched special deals for startups. Launching these types of programs is also a great marketing opportunity and giving back as you were once a struggling cash-strapped startup at some point.
Drift has made a startup plan, that offers a heavy discount to startups. Which has intrigued many startups to choose them.
Who it makes sense for: Businesses who have grown out of the startup phase but still want to help out in a way that is scalable for the business.
Creative Referral Programs
Starting a referral program is a tried and true way of increasing word of mouth for your business. Leads can come from past customers, current customers, partners, employees, and even family members.
It’s really no secret that referral programs work. As mentioned by eMarketer, “friend referrals are the most successful marketing tool used by US small businesses”. And a well-known study in the referral marketing community done by Nielsen mentions, “People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend” and “84% of people trust recommendations from people they know. Making them the most influential form of advertising.”
This is because a referral program can help delight and incentivize people enough to make them want to talk to others about your brand. Along with this also comes user generated content, as people share their message along with the link or referral code to your business (both online and offline).
There are some tricks to making it work though. You’ll have to ask people to refer when the time is right, and you’ll want to make sure to incentivize them, as this shouldn’t just benefit you. You also have to make sure your business is in tip top shape, happy customers, great customer service, and a great product. As getting people to refer something subpar can be a difficult feat. Not to mention leads aren’t interested in bad products.
But, if you have all your ducks in a row, you can supercharge your program by offering a great reward. To take that up a notch you can structure your rewards to be even more enticing by using stages or tiers.
● Staged Rewards. This one works well for businesses with multiple sales steps. You may offer a piece of the incentive for each stage a referral goes through. For example, you may give a customer $5 if their referral schedules an appointment, and then you may give them the remaining $25 if they move forward with the purchase. For a grand total of $30.
● Tiered rewards. You can incentivize based on the number of referrals made. For example you might offer a certain amount or type of reward for the first 3 referrals. Then every referral mde after that will reward the customer a different set amount.
You don’t even have to offer a cash reward. A product incentive can be just as effective. Dropbox’s referral program has had much success by offering extra storage space for referrals. They went from 100,000 to 4,000,000 users before their starting their program and had grown after just 15 months.
Who it makes sense for: Any business who already has a list of happy customers and is offering a solution that people would want or need.
Want more referral program ideas? Or take a look at some Free Trial referral program software you can start using today.
Interactive Lead Magnets
When a lead gives their contact information, they expect to get something of value in return. It’s very disappointing when you give your information and all you get back is a graphical version of the same content. We know as marketers we are taught to recycle and reuse (we’ll get to more of that later), but you still have to provide value.
Downloadable content, eBooks, infographic and white pages have proven their value. But if you tap into more interactive lead magnets, you’ll gain leads while being engaging (and still end up trading something of value for the user for something of value to you). If you have an amazing article that you can convert to e-book, you can use an e-book creator like Designrr to help create stunning e-book.
Video marketing statistics is anticipated to be 80% of all internet traffic by 2021 and an animated explainer video increase conversion rates by 20%. Whether it be video explainers, product, tutorials, all forms of video type content, there is no doubt to video generating leads to your website.
All lead magnets use some sort of quick form. But if you turn that form into an interactive experience, it’s not only more fun, but you may be able to learn even more about the lead prior to actually encountering them and they can learn about if they are the right customer for you.
It’s not all about more leads, it’s about the right fit leads. Interactive lead magnets can even help a lead take themselves out of the running, so you’re not going to waste your time chasing someone who is not a fit.
Here are a few interactive lead magnet ideas that can help.
- Give an assessment - You can have the user fill in their information and answer a series of questions that lead them to an emailed result (after filling in the form). The assessment can better help the user evaluate themselves and provides them with a score which leads to custom advice. These are a little longer than a typical quiz, but are highly effective in giving customized feedback, while offering valuable insight to the business.
- Offer a fun quiz - Like assessments you can have the user fill out a form and answer some questions. You can make this one a little more fun and can stick strictly to multiple choice answers. Thrive Themes quiz builder offers a variety of lead options that are fun and engaging and help you gain leads. These types of quizzes are particularly popular on social media and they work by giving the user an ‘instant’ answer, while also providing you with the information you need.
- Interactive forms (typeforms) and video - Users can fill out a form and choose where it takes them in an interactive video with dialog. Making the experience more engaging. You can also make shoppable videos and video quizzes! All of which can ultimately lead the user to a product recommendation.
The bottom line is build something of value for a customer and educate them at the same time. If you want to spark your inspiration, here are creative lead magnet ideas and examples. Enjoy!
Who it makes sense for: A business who has consistent traffic or a way to drive prospects to their lead magnets. A business who has a clear understanding of their ideal customers and is consultative in their approach.
Drive visitors to landing pages for all conversions... not just ads
Landing pages were born from marketers trying to craft messages that aligns well with ads to boost their conversions and ensure they are attributing the leads to their specific messaging. Landing pages are awesome! So why aren’t more marketers using them for sources other than ads?
You likely have many other sources of traffic aside from ads. Inbound content through SEO, social, and email marketing automation. Why aren’t you driving them to landing pages instead of just your homepage?
Your homepage has to speak to everyone. You have a lot more understanding of a visitor’s intent from your inbound sources. Why not drive them to the right messaging based on their intent?
Here are a few ways you can:
- Notification bars. These can be attached to either the top or bottom of the page and stick in place as users scroll through your website. These are great for when a pop-up may seem inappropriate and you’re looking for a gentler (yet, still visible) ask. According to MailOptin, “Google will penalize websites with intrusive mobile popup. To avoid Google wrath, notification bars are one of the best ways to circumvent this and convert mobile visitors”.
- Exit intent. Exit intents are great because they track and follow the movement of the user on the site. If the user gets close to closing the page, they are shown a last minute message that often times includes an offer. Optinmonster suggests that it can help prevent cart abandonment and even get users to signup for emails. “By using this smart behavioral technology, you can convert an additional 2 – 4% of your users into email subscribers and soon thereafter into paying customers”.
You can personalize this based on what they are looking at - and create a special pop up that is customized to what they want or resonates with user intent. Do what makes sense so that you can bridge the gap to convert. Most people are doing it with ads and using blog content as ways to drive people.
For example, if someone is searching for referral software, and are reading a blog comparing different options. It’s pretty clear they are interested in this software and might be planning on purchasing soon.
If it’s your blog, they are reading you can use an exit intent or notification bar to drive them to a landing page to sign up for a trial with your business.
This notification bar uses a message lets users know that not all referral software is the same, and that they need to use one that fits their business. If you click on the CTA to find out more, you’ll land on a page that dives into more about the specific software being mentioned as well as be asked to schedule a demo (which can help the user determine if this is the right fit, and ultimately be a step closer to buying).
Who it makes sense for: Any business that has a good understanding of their buyer’s journey. You can start with some high converting landing pages you already have and try sending your other traffic sources there.
Don’t be afraid to recycle
People get busy, that’s just life. So, don’t be alarmed if your message gets missed or ignored by accident. You are allowed to recycle content and ask again, and it’s important to keep promoting your content on social media.
Double tapping on content, especially on things where you can provide shoutouts to other businesses and contributors should be encouraged to share again. If you spent the time working on a piece of content wouldn’t you want to share that as much as possible (and get as many retweets and shares as possible)?
If you managed to snag a quote from someone or another business helped with the content, be sure to mention them when sharing the content again. This can provoke them to share it and push it out to their audience -where you have the chance of getting new leads.
Here are some tricks on recycling content.
- Don't be afraid to recycle. You’ve probably seen ICYMI (in case you missed it) attached to social media statuses before. Brand’s use this tag a lot, especially on really in-depth content that has proven to produce traffic.
- Resend to unopens for email campaigns. Aside from social media, you can also reshare newsletters. You might send a newsletter out, and then send it again to those who didn't open it the first time. You can even share it on social and use it in rotation with your other content to be shared every once in a while.
- Put everything back into social media. Having evergreen content is important. You can continually share things posted early on in your blog. If the information is still relevant, why not share it some more?
- Use a tool to have a steady flow. The more your create the more difficult it can be to share things from way back. What you can do is use a tool to help you out. You can set up a social media posting tool like Buffer so that you can basically fill up what you want shared and then move on to other tasks. You can also use an evergreen tool like Hiplay, which takes past Buffer posts and recycles them on your profile, creating evergreen content out of what you already shared (you can pick what you want it to recycle and when it recycles).
Who it makes sense for: Any business that has a consistent source of great content they are producing.
What lead generation hacks have you used to get your business more leads?
As you can see there are a ton of ways you can get a lead. You may find that you’ll have to try and test out a few things, as some options may or may not work for you.
What are other interesting ways you’ve seen work for attracting leads?
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- How to Get more Leads on Facebook
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