Improve Your Lead Generation Strategy | 9 Lead Gen Rules for the Win

1. Keep your needs and goals clearly defined

Clearly defined needs and goals are the first and foremost thing you need to do while developing the lead generation strategy. Despite this sounding quite obvious, there is a lot of undercurrent going on that requires attention.

Needs and goals are a combination of:

• things you need to secure for smooth operations.
• things you want to achieve through those actions.
• it is important to note that one is dependent on the other.

The easiest way of determining and detailing this duo is by applying the top-down approach. The key thing to keep in mind is that the goals and needs must be measurable.

• You start with an overarching goal (i.e. generate leads)
• Then you branch it out into the compositional elements
• The requirements of each element are defined
• This goes to the ground level and with its help, you get the clearly defined picture.

At Growth Hackers, we once guided a client to break down their overarching goals into measurable steps, and with a clear strategy in place, their lead generation efforts became far more efficient and effective. There are many lead generation strategies you can use to skyrocket your business growth so let’s continue…

2. Make a distinct and convincing value proposition

The value proposition is one of those “make it or break it” entities. Everyone knows what it is and yet it is kinda hard to nail it down. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. It all goes case-by-case.

However, there are several things you need to keep in mind:

1. “Value” is the key element. You need to determine how to clearly channel its worth and the benefits it brings to a target audience segment.

2. The description of the benefits must be resonating with the interests, needs, and goals of the target audience segment. Determine distinct buyer’s personas, to figure out the key characteristics.

3. The message of the value proposition must contain the right amount of technical detail to transmit the sense that the company knows what the customer needs. Use sleek descriptions of the methods and breakdowns of the frameworks or workflows.

Before Growth Hackers refined their value proposition, clients often confused or lost potential customers. After crafting a clear, audience-focused message, engagement, trust, and conversions increased significantly.

3. Back Value Proposition with the Relevant Content

The value proposition is the nucleus of your lead generation system. The content is what makes it tick.

Content is the way of presenting the value proposition from multiple perspectives. Since there are numerous target audience segments with different goals and needs – you need to cover them all in one way or another.

The elements of the value proposition can be presented through the content like:

• Exploratory article
• Speculative opinionated columns
• Explanatory showcases
• Case Studies breaking down some issue and presenting a plausible solution
• Run through the challenges surrounding the technology or business venture

At Growth Hackers, we’ve helped clients back their value propositions with targeted content (articles, case studies, and showcases) that reinforce credibility and turn prospects into loyal customers. As a result, you will get a convincing presentation of the company as a legitimate and competent option.

4. Build your Lead Magnets

Lead Generation requires solid infrastructure in order to achieve desirable results. Its key element is called lead magnets: the stuff that attracts the target audience and convinces them to engage further. At Growth Hackers, we see lead magnets like a fishing lure: when designed around your value proposition, they naturally attract the right audience and reel in high-quality leads.

Lead Magnets include:

• the company’s website,
• it’s accompanying blog content
• landing pages
• calls to action throughout the website
• contact forms
• newsletters
• social media output
• value-added content
• location based app (some companies develop their own apps to involve more clients)
• personalized content that surfaces in a closer interaction and so on.

All this stuff must:

• revolve around the value proposition
• maintain a consistent presentation of the expertise and competence
• engage target audiences to turn them into leads.

5. Try different things – Maximize what’s working

Even the most thought-through lead generation strategy that is bringing in dozens upon dozens of leads today is not meant to last. Lead generation strategy requires room for constant transformation. It can’t be set in stone – it needs to be flexible.

At Growth Hackers, we help clients experiment with new lead generation approaches while doubling down on what works, ensuring strategies stay fresh, adaptive, and highly effective. One way of achieving this state is by trying different and new things.

The key is to be cautious about the staying power of your approaches while trying to find the new effective approaches.

This mindset creates a constant turnaround of lead generation techniques that secures a gradual upgrade of the strategy and its adaptation to the current state of things.

6. Apply A/B Testing

The most effective method of trying new things and gradually implementing them into the lead generation strategy is A/B testing. A/B testing is a set of practices used to explore behavioral aspects and find the most optimal layouts and scenarios for the particular cause. It is used on landing pages, contact forms, newsletters, blog posts and other critical players of the lead generation game.

How to pull it off? You need to develop several distinct options to choose from or to act in. Then you need to try them out on different audience segments.

Overall, you need to test the following things:

• Opt-in elements
• Layout scheme and color sequencing
• Body text
• Time of sending

At Growth Hackers, we once ran A/B tests on a client’s email campaigns and landing pages, and the insights gained allowed us to optimize messaging and layouts, resulting in significantly higher conversions.

After a while, you will gather enough results to understand which elements are the most effective for the cause.
It is important to keep in mind that A/B testing should be performed once in a while in order to keep things from getting stale.

7. Monitor Metrics

You need to know how are you performing in order to understand whether or not you are on the right track. That is what metrics are for.

Why metrics matters? It is the source of intelligence for you. It is an indication of customer behavior. With it, you can see:

• whether or not your strategy is working
• whether it is cost-effective
• experiment with new approaches
• perform split tests
• discover patterns and trends in the lead behavior and so on

The key metrics include:

• Marketing Qualified Leads – not ready to go through but eager to go along
• Sales Funnel Conversions – the status of the lead (traditional stage split is “awareness – consideration – decision”. However, there can be further elaborations depending on the lead classification)
• Sales Qualified Leads – those go through and up to something.

Another important thing is the time for monitoring. Daily checks are a must and so are weekly and monthly. However, there are also special days, such as holidays and social events when things can get hot. These periods also need some special attention.

At Growth Hackers, we monitor metrics daily, weekly, and monthly for our clients, using data on qualified leads and funnel conversions to fine-tune strategies and consistently drive better results.

9. Apply SEO

Search Engine Optimization and Lead Generation are pieces of one puzzle.

Here’s why:

• maintaining visibility is not just posting the right stuff, it is posting the right stuff the right way.
• Search results are shortcuts to the target audience segments.

Search Engine Optimization secures organic traffic. However, search engine algorithms have certain requirements that need to be followed thoroughly.

The key points are:

• The precision of the content and the keyword framework
• The usefulness of the content from the user’s standpoint (in general terms and from the specific segment perspective

In order to get consistent results and secure high ranking: you need to keep up with the things all the time and adapt accordingly. The more high ranking content you have: the better authority you have and so you get faster indexing and a higher level of overall visibility.

Keywords, link profile, link spread, the semantic stuff… all that contributes to the search ranking visibility of the particular piece. That’s how you get into the spotlight and that is how you attract your leads through.

• You need to find relevant keywords and present relevant information within the set of keywords.
• It is important to note, that SEO optimization is a neverending strategic effort.

Before Growth Hackers implemented consistent SEO strategies, clients struggled to be found online; after applying targeted keywords, content optimization, and link building, organic traffic increased dramatically and lead generation improved. This results in more people stumbling upon or finding your company and subsequently more people converting and turning into lead.