9 Lead Generation Best Practices

You’re only as good as the lead generation principles that you have incorporated into your website. Without a landing page that has been specifically designed to create beneficial leads, your time is going to be wasted chasing down the promises of false hope. Using these lead generation best practices, you’ll be able to give your conversions a boost, enhance your trust, and reinforce your niche expertise.

1. Always Include a Contact Number.

You’re selling a digital product. Doesn’t a contact number seem a little redundant? Maybe counterproductive? The fact that you’re willing to put in a valid contact number instantly adds credibility to the information that is being shared to generate leads. Maybe some leads will call to test out the validity of the number and maybe they won’t. What you’re doing is providing people with a level of comfort that others aren’t always willing to provide and it can pay off with a big result.

Here’s a pro tip. Incorporate your contact number in some way with your URL for even better results. This allows you to form a full marketing strategy around the trust that you’re attempting to establish with potential leads.

2. Make Your Forms Easily Accessible.

The biggest error that many lead generation pages make is that they offer people something like a “free quote” or a “free download” in exchange for personal information. The key word here is “exchange.” If something is free, then something shouldn’t need to be exchanged, should it?

Making your forms easily accessible means more than having them on every page or constantly visible. It also means that you should be honest with what your lead generation page is attempting to do. Maybe you need personal information to provide an estimate or quote. Be honest about that fact and let people know what happens to that personal information. Take only the information you need and you’ll likely see better results.

3. Identify Yourself.

Although online businesses are thriving and it allows for a certain level of anonymity, the old-fashioned methods of building business relationships are still mandatory in today’s lead generation best practices. Your leads want to know who you are and what you represent.

Don’t just let your identity be about you either. So many lead generation pages today have testimonial quotes that seem like they were written professionally by a freelancer. Some of them probably were. Adding an image of the person who gave the testimonial lends credibility to it. Putting a link to that individual’s website gives people trust.

Why? Because it allows them to verify the validity of the quote if they wish to do so.

4. It’s Not About You.

Lead generation is about how you can benefit others. Maybe you’ve got 30+ years in the industry and have won a dozen awards because of your general awesomeness. This isn’t experience. This is ego. Your leads want to know what you can do for them right now.

That’s why all of your content needs to speak to each user. Conversion rates naturally increase because the content on the landing page is personal, relationship-orientated, and valuable. This practice is even more effective at creating a sale than general advertising for many businesses because it allows people to feel like they are more informed.

5. Create a Guarantee.

People who see guarantees are more likely to make a purchase than those who do not see one. Why does this happen? Because it gives your leads a back door to escape a deal that goes in an unexpected way. Maybe your goods or services look great online, but they don’t match the value that was expected when received. The guarantee allows a lead to avoid what they will see as a potentially costly mistake.

6. Don’t Over Use The “Super” Words.

Certain words convey more power than others when it comes to inspiring others to action. People generally make decisions based on logic and emotion, so the goal is to get people to imagine how life can be better in some way with what you’ve got to offer. Using these words sparingly can inspire a lot of action. Using them everywhere on your landing page can actually be a big turnoff. It only takes one specific phrase to encourage an action, so focus on your primary strength and put your super words there.

Here’s a pro tip. Don’t use the word “please” when creating a call to action for your leads. People respond more frequently to direct commands instead. Using “please” might be considered good manners, but are good manners worth up to a 20% lower conversion rate? Of course not.

7. Do Something Different.

Lead generation cannot have a feeling of laziness to it. There cannot be a certain feeling of cheapness to the experience as well. Many people use generic website templates to create their landing pages for one reason: most are free. The only problem is that there are only so many of these free templates around and your leads know this. If they encounter one on your site, then you’d better have a massively tempting product to overcome this initial negative first impression.

You don’t have to be rolling in cash to create a custom template. Those free ones can be modified in a couple of hours to meet your needs without feeling generic. A better design creates more trust and that ultimately creates more confidence, which is why this point is one of the lead generation best practices that should be emphasized.

8. Start At The End.

Lead generation is so often about the beginning of the process, but it should be about the ending of the process instead. The goal is to get people to gaze into your sales funnel, see what lies at the bottom of it, and then want what is there. Begin building from the ground up and you’ll be able to bring leads directly through the funnel with very little work. If the bottom of your sales funnel is shielded, then the results that are achieved are going to be sub-par at best because it requires leads to gamble on the potential benefits that will be experienced.

9. Negative Space Creates Breathing Room.

Have you ever noticed that you can spend some moments in silence with a good friend and never feel uncomfortable? The same principle is true with a landing page. Negative space helps to create separation between the various elements that you want leads to see. It eliminates distractions, creates a comfortable flow, and provides access to a natural call to action. Avoid clutter at all costs – just as many would avoid a friend who never stops talking.

These lead generation best practices will help to shore up your pitch so that a positive first impression happens. Then take these leads, close on them, and you’ll experience a boost of revenues that can help you meet all of your goals.