In a society that thrives on social media, marketers must learn how to bring in new leads from the networks or risk falling into obscurity. When executed correctly, you can use sites like Facebook to generate legitimate leads for your business. The best part of it? Social media lead generation isn’t just cost effective, but it produces actual results; reducing costs by 45% and increasing revenue by 24%. Now let’s take a look at seven data-backed methods for generating leads from social media so that by the end of this article, you’ll walk away with actionable ways to drive new business.
1. Quizzes
We’ve all taken them before at one point or another in our lives. Now, you can easily integrate your own quizzes into a social marketing strategy. Have you ever scrolled through your Facebook feed and come across a family member’s post about which superhero they are? Or maybe a friend’s post with results about how their intellect stacks up against a genius? This kind of social proof is evidence of the effectiveness of quizzes on Facebook as a means of generating leads.
The sheer idea of taking a simple quiz for the fun of it requires no afterthought. It’s quick, it’s easy, and sometimes the results are funny. Marketers will utilize these quizzes and strategically place a “Please enter your email to view your results” request right after users finishing answering questions.
Because of their curiosity, most users will input their email at the end of a quiz without batting an eyelash, focused solely on retrieving their results so that they can share it among their family and friends. This exchange is a great way to generate leads. Not only do you retrieve a user’s email, but after they post their results, anyone else that’s curious about what kind of results they may acquire will more than likely take the same quiz. Take these leads and run them through marketing automation and you have yourself a sustainable means of generating even more leads.
A Quiz in Action.
In one particular case study, a startup called The Foundation set their sights on utilizing quizzes through Facebook. By carefully selecting a specific target audience, The Foundation was able to come up with a quiz titled “Do you have an entrepreneurial mind? Most people don’t;” something catchy enough to pique the interests of unsuspecting Facebook users.
This quiz brought in new email subscribers at the cost of $3.80 (originally $6) each, and generated about 263 leads a day, nabbing them a 426% ROI in contrast to their original 233% that they started out with. That’s almost double the ROI!
2. Contests
Have you ever come across your favorite restaurant hosting a contest where customers can vote on their favorite food creations by submitting a photo? These kinds of contests spur an insurmountable amount of customer engagement. It lets companies interact with their customers by giving them the ability to participate in an event where their participation plays an integral role in generating leads.
Through social media, contests can reach an incredibly wide audience. Most contests offer some sort of prize in the end, be it recognition of participation or a three-night trip to a tropical resort. In order to keep up with the progress of a contest, most participants are prompted to invest basic personal information in an effort to stayed tuned until the very end.
A Contest in Action
In 2014, Eggo launched a contest in conjunction with International Waffle Day. The contest was called the “Eggo Your Way Contest.” It asked participants to submit their own unique waffle-based recipes, prompting waffle lovers everywhere to get creative and to take breakfast to a whole new level. Entrants submitted their best dishes through Eggo’s Facebook page where Eggo fans had a chance to vote for their favorite recipes.
Through Facebook alone, Eggo was able to generate a ton of leads through customer interactions. The structures of a lot of Eggo’s contests are the same. Because of how successful contests are with generating leads, it became a repeat strategy for them. If it’s generating leads and works consistently, then it’s definitely a practice worth pushing.
3. Discounts/Coupons
If you could save money by using a coupon, you would, wouldn’t you? Or let’s say you could score a sweet discount on something you’ve always wanted, or maybe even develop a want for something because you know you can get a discount on it? Society relishes in the idea of saving a buck, and if you can help bring about such savings through coupons or discounts, you’re genuinely on your way to attracting a good amount of leads.
Retailers specifically love giving out coupons. It’s an effective way to bring about business. Coupons make sure that you’re only getting leads who are interested in your particular products which in turn means you’ll be making a profit on every individual who submits their details. Expiration dates on discounts and coupons develops an urge for customers to take advantage of these deals before time is up, so the demand for this kind of incentive is quite high.
Coupons in Action
Speaking of retailers, let’s take a look at one with fashion stores worldwide. H&M recently used their website to drive sales to their stores with a coupon strategy. Because of their numerous locations, this strategy was ideal for these highly accessible areas. The goal was to drive traffic into these stores and to encourage repeat purchases, and they succeeded in doing so.
Advertising coupons through social media like Facebook allows an ubiquitous retailer like H&M to target specific age groups that their fashion caters to. By offering these coupons or discounts, they encourage traffic into their store, driving their leads right where they want them.
4. Videos
With interactions booming on social media, video has become an integral part of it. Videos allow members of social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to share memories, events, or a good laugh here and there. Marketers are taking advantage of video by using it to promote their brand by targeting a large audience to generate leads.
We’ve more than likely come across a company’s ad, promoting their products or services before, during, and after other videos we’ve tried to view. This strategic placement of ads in videos allows companies about a 30-second window to attract as many viewers as possible to their company. This kind of lead generation has been incorporated in videos for years now.
Video in Action
As a part of any internet marketing campaign, IBM understands the importance of video marketing. Senior IBM official, Mark Leaser, expressed how video is the method companies and businesses should communicate in terms of internal communication and external marketing. It allows companies to reach their customers through a different medium.
According to Leaser, there’s more engagement in videos, as they provide visual and memorable messages in contrast to word-based advertisements.Incorporation of video into social media is a means of using it to attract interest in what a company is doing, resulting in a whole new level of lead generation.
5. Slideshows
Another effective way of driving lead generation would be through slideshows. After being acquired by LinkedIn, Slideshare was a godsend to marketers. This platform focuses around slide decks, and they generate a ton of traffic. As a social media outlet, LinkedIn integrated SlideShare to their site so that accounts can be connected.
As a way of gaining leads, companies focus on creating slide decks relevant to their target audience. As long as your SlideShare and LinkedIn accounts are connected, your presentations are also visible on your profile or company page. Most of these slide decks will have a call-to-action at the beginning or at the end of the presentation.
Slideshows in Action
This article highlights several companies that have used SlideShare to increase their leads. Ethos is known for helping brands build presentations. Through the simple technique of introducing themselves through slides, Ethos was able to show their consumers who they are. Without having to get flustered by links, viewers were able to navigate through the slides freely.
Boston-based digital agency, Holland-Mark, was featured on the home-page of SlideShare. Being featured increased their leads. When SlideShare features presentations on their homepage, they gain a lot of attention on social networks.A lot of these featured presentations get a lot of shares on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, further increasing lead generation.
6. Webinars
In exchange for their name and email, people are able to participate in a webinar. This means a new lead for each webinar participant. People don’t even mind parting with their information because of how highly valued webinars are. It’s hands-on training that they can experience from the safety and comfort of their home.
With the ease of access that webinars provided for the simple price of admission, people are able to participate in a service that not only generates leads your company, but gets your brand out there as well. Larger groups can even view these webinars together from different locations as long as they provide you with their names and emails. The exchange is incredibly even: you get leads, they get training.
Webinars in Action
AARP dispels misinformation about Medicare and their Affordable Care Act (ACT) through a series of educational webcasts. AARP provides information to a membership of more than 37 million. Because of the demand for information on important topics, AARP needed a more flexible and scalable infrastructure for delivering its educational content.
This case study highlights the webinar series that AARP provided in a timely manner to the general public. After the webinars, there was nearly a 60% registrant-to-attendee conversion rate, and a registration conversion rate greater than 50%. There was close to 9,000 registrants for a particular webcast, and almost 14,000 in another. Webinars really brought the leads in for AARP.
7. Forums
As one of the earliest forms of social media, forums set the foundation for online social interaction. People would gather from all over to convene at a single location to voice out their opinions in just one thread. Responses hailed from every direction, and even marketers took advantage of this particular platform.
Companies still use forums as a means of interacting with their customers. There were even instances where companies would chime in their opinions in other forums that didn’t even belong to them. This kind of exposure allowed them to put their brand out there in an effort to generate even more leads.
Forums in Action
Reddit is easily one of the largest forums on the internet today. Various companies use it as a means of communicating with their customers. This kind of interaction not only drives lead generation, but allows companies to adhere to the wants of their customers by listening in on their wants.
This article highlights several companies that have reached out on Reddit. Xbox Live’s director of programming, Larry Hryb, reaches out to his customers through Reddit and learns about what they want. He can then leverage this relationship to gain more leads later on when he needs to announce new products.
A business that goes by BitPay helps other businesses accept bitcoin as payment. BitPay caters to the largest discussion platform for the bitcoin community whose subreddit (or sub-thread in terms of a forum) has over 143,000 subscribers. Bitpay responds to just about every mention of their brand then leverages the community to gather even more leads
Now it’s your turn
We’ve given you seven actionable ways to drive new leads from social media. Now it’s up to you to get out there and give each one a try. Keep stats on how each method performs for you and double down on what works best!
