Gone are the days when blogging was considered as a mere hobby. With the ever-increasing competition in the business world, it has now become one of the key sources of revenue generation. Hence, it is no surprise that bloggers are trying their best to maximize the lead collection efforts of their blog.
It all starts with identifying the purpose of the blog and understanding its goals thoroughly. Then, it becomes indispensable to categorize the target audience and learn what could actually make them tick. These two cumulatively lead to greater clarity surrounding the blog, which eventually helps in creating a unique lead generation strategy.
Though there are tons of ways bloggers can follow to amp up their blog conversion, not all of them are effective in the same way. Let us help you with the following 25 highly effective ways to collect leads using your blog so that you can make your lead generation strategy a powerful one:
1. Offer Free Information Downloads
Anything free is always exciting and this holds equally true in the practice of lead generation from a blog. In fact, it is the most affordable yet effective way to draw the attention of random visitors and turn them into prospective leads. If you have something free to offer that can provide practical value to your readers at the same time, it will not be tough for you to make them believe about the benefits of signing up.
Such free incentives need to be ‘unique’ and ‘genuinely interesting’ to your readers in order to move them to action. There are plenty of choices including comprehensive guides, insightful analysis, personalized reports, complimentary e-books / e-courses, etc., which can be offered as tangible returns for filling out a subscription form. You can even brainstorm fresh ideas based on the goals of your blog and perfectly tailored to the requirements of your target audience.
2. Give Free Access To Vital Resources
If you want to build even stronger impression, allow your blog visitors free access to ‘exclusive’ resources that are truly valuable in terms of improvement and growth. According to experts, granting access to vital resources, such as content, products, services, etc. is one of the best ways that typically works as a ‘lead magnet’. The freebie needs to be highly beneficial for polishing the ideation, enhancing the performance, and/or boosting the overall productivity of your target audience by any means. This will push lots of visitors to provide their emails and personal details for signing up and opting in to the subscribers’ list.
3. Send Relevant Newsletter Updates
Emailing digital handouts to their subscribers, especially newsletter updates customized to suit their needs and interests, is another well-appreciated technique followed by most of the bloggers across the world. Ask for the email addresses of your readers and help them out by sending relevant newsletters on a periodic basis (daily / weekly / fortnightly / monthly). This is somewhat similar to the ‘free download offer’ we mentioned in the very first pointer as both provide exclusive information. However, newsletters provide long-term value to the readers. You can share news, latest launches, tips, tutorials, trends, and many other out of the box ideas through these newsletters and keep your readers updated.
4. Add ‘Social Buttons’ To Newsletters
Convincing your blog visitors about the subscription of truly enriching newsletters is a great way to collect their email addresses. It allows them to follow your updates religiously. But, you can multiply your number of leads a few times by tapping into the networks of your subscribers. All you need to do is incorporate ‘social buttons’ in your newsletter format and give them an opportunity to share those digital handouts with others. It will give you better exposure and help you spread your words even more to your target market. You can even replace social buttons with simple call-to-actions (CTAs).
5. Include Catchy Animated Pop-Ups
A visually appealing blog certainly has a large impact on its visitors’ mind, but you should also consider the appearance of your opt-in form while aiming at lead generation. An eye-catching opt-in form can grab the attention of readers almost immediately, thereby persuading them to fill out the form. Animations can be extremely helpful in creating such compelling forms as well as generating more email subscribers for your blog. So, opt for animated pop-ups featuring striking dialogue box, blurred background, flappy buttons, 3D movements, etc. Your visitors’ engagement is bound to go high significantly.
6. Make Use Of Exit-Intent Pop-Ups
Exit-intent pop-ups are basically small pop-up screens that surface all of a sudden when we are about to close a certain page or change the tab on a browser. Displaying these pop-ups is considered as the ‘best shot’ for bloggers to switch the attention of their abandoning visitors and convince them about the worth of the blog. It might look a little annoying, but exit-intent pop-ups are found to be quite a good way to collect leads when the ‘chances’ seem to have faded away. Leverage it by asking for the emails of your visitors, who are already on their way out, and you can enjoy considerable increase in sign-ups.
7. Think About A Full Screen CTA
The key purpose of using a CTA (call-to-action) on a blog is to catch the attention of visitors and provoke them to respond immediately. However, if you want to get the most out of it, go full screen. Nothing can be more impressive than a full screen CTA, which is a perfect blend of right text and brilliant design. Make sure that you do not use conventional welcome gates as well as pop-up interstitials that are used for redirecting visitors to a completely different page. Rather, use ‘smart script overlays’ on that specific page so that your blog does not get deprived of SEO benefits while ensuring maximum conversions.
8. Focus On Interest-Based Targeting
If you are looking for a sure-fire way to improve lead generation from your blog, interest-based targeting will be another amazing solution for you. As the name suggests, this is all about providing offers based on the unique interests of the blog visitors, which they cannot help but love. Follow an intuitive system to track the posts browsed by your visitors on your blog and set campaigns targeting those specific pages. It will make those random visitors subscribe for your blog updates instantly.
9. Go For A Slide-In Scroll Box
Sometimes, bloggers want to give their lead generation efforts a push without being too aggressive. A slide-in scroll box can be the ultimate choice for this purpose. It helps in capturing email addresses of visitors in a polite manner, which makes generating leads easier. Typically, these scroll boxes are placed at the bottom-right corner of a blog page and are shown along with highly targeted messages that depend on the interest of the visitor. Hence, they are clearly visible whenever someone scrolls the page down but do not make the blogger look too desperate for lead generation.
10. Give Content Upgrades A Try
You are updating your blog frequently with outstanding content and leaving no stone unturned to leverage it for collecting more and more leads. However, if you are yet to add content upgrades to your posts, you are certainly missing out a big chunk of leads. A content upgrade is nothing but a ‘bonus content’ that is added to a certain post or page of the blog and allowed to be accessed by visitors in exchange of their email addresses. Such downloadable resources always come perfectly tailored to the interest of the visitors and provide additional values.
11. Choose To Add Floating Bars
A floating bar is another subtle yet exceptionally effective way to grow your email list and heighten your conversion. This opt-in element is made to stick to the top or bottom section of the screen and move along as the visitor scroll up or down the page. This keeps the bar constantly available to your visitors and ensures maximum visibility of your offers or campaigns. However, a floating bar does not stop people from viewing your content and can be closed or hidden easily. Thus, it can help a lot in generating leads without being ‘in the face’ of your readers.
12. Develop Query-Driven Content
Developing content based on search queries can work as an awesome lead magnet for most of the bloggers. Look for the most searched queries on major search engines (Google, Bing, etc.), check out the top-ranked pages of your competitors, and find out the keywords or phrases that are driving traffic to your own blog. Seeking the help of tools, such as SEMRush will help you even more in conducting a thorough research on what exactly your visitors are searching for. You will literally be ‘flooded’ with ideas for creating query-based content that should revolve around specific keywords or phrases for ranking higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
13. Make Guest Blogging A Priority
There are very few ways to collect leads that are as effective as guest blogging. Spend enough time to figure out at least some of those popular blogs, which are already loved by your target audience and your task will turn out to be much easier than you could have ever thought. Getting exposure on those blogs will help you reach your potential audience and it is only possible by offering guest blogging service. However, it is essential that you add value to the blogs as well as their readers through your contribution. Or else, your goal of collecting leads will never be successful even if there are enough exposure and strong backlinks.
14. Invite High-Quality Guest Posts
Writing informative guest posts for other blogs is not all you need for accelerating your conversion. Invite them for doing the same on your blog so that you get an opportunity to tap into their networks and leverage it fruitfully. At the same time, make it a point to offer them monetary benefits along with backlinks and added exposure. The best thing about welcoming guest bloggers on your blog is that you get high-quality articles, which are again shared by the influencers themselves. So, it is immensely beneficial for lead generation and you can also expect to develop a long-term association.
15. Utilize Your Blog Sidebar
You might not have ever thought about it, but the sidebar real estate of your blog can help you immensely in collecting more number of leads as it remains visible all through the page unlike the header and the footer. It has been found that the sidebars of most blogs are either stuffed with unnecessary elements or left underutilized. You need to find a balance and make the proper use of your blog sidebar in order to take your lead generation a notch up. For the best results, simply add a brief opt-in form to it and top it with some value-adds, such as ‘exciting offer’, ‘similar articles’, ‘affiliate links’, etc. that could trigger the interest of your visitors.
16. Engage Readers In Comments
You will never understand the power of the ‘comments’ section that lies right below each of your blog posts until you will get involved in it. We bet you do not pay enough heed to it even though you receive a few comments every day on your posts and respond to some of them out of habit. However, you should consider ‘comments’ as something beyond just an ‘afterthought’ and engage your readers in the section to make the most of your lead generation efforts. Help your commentators out by providing definite CTAs that can actually solve their issues or lead them to the right landing pages where they can access appropriate resources through the opt-in form. It really does not need to be ‘salesy’ for driving impressive outcomes.
17. Work On Your Influencer Outreach
Sharing your blog posts with thousands of followers on your social network might give you good exposure, but you can never expect considerable traction until you do not make your reach bigger. Rather, try to work on your outreach to industry experts as well as social influencers for guaranteed results. Identify the niche influencers and engage with them to build a decent relationship. Then, come up with strategies that will help you tap their networks. If you are not reluctant to invest a little, you can even consider giving away free licenses to those who would like to promote you and help drive additional leads to your blog.
18. Host Free Webinars (Online Seminars)
If you can host free webinars or online seminars from time to time and let your readers engage with you directly, you can drive value and collect more leads quite easily. It is important that you choose topics based on the preferences of your target audience so that they find the webinars truly helpful. Ask for the contact information of interested people and reserve spots for them in exchange. Webinars will also give you a chance to develop an idea about the matters your target audience really care about, which can further make your task of interest-based targeting hassle-free.
19. Create Personalized Surveys
Create online surveys exclusively tailored to the taste of your visitors and use it as one of your easiest lead generation strategies. Offer incentives to your prospects for filling out online survey forms, which can be all about getting feedback on your new ideas or something having even more personalized approach. This will lead to higher engagement, thereby increasing the possibility of better conversion.
20. Make Exciting ‘Perks’ Available
There are quite a few ‘incentives’ that can excite your prospects to sign up for your newsletters without hesitation and you should make those available for better conversion. A free trial version of product, special discounts or promo codes for shopping, free shipping on orders, printed version of online catalogues, free customized physical gifts, etc. are all great perks to offer to your random visitors in exchange of their contact details.
21. Give Thought To A Promo Video
A promotional video might sound not-so-effective for collecting leads, especially by using a blog, but it can actually do wonder. In fact, it is one of the easiest ways to make those ‘audible and visual’ ones learn about you, who do not have enough time or interest in going through those written words. Create a short, entertaining, and informative promo video that would educate your visitors in minutes on your offerings. You can add a CTA in the middle or end so as to capture the details of interested people.
22. Produce Mobile-Focused CTAs
These days, most of the Google searches are found to take place on mobile devices, which makes it imperative for bloggers to go mobile. But an opt-in form that looks absolutely fine on desktop can get distorted on mobiles due to the limitations of screen size. Therefore, optimize your CTAs for mobile devices by creating specifically targeted opt-ins. It will help you convert your mobile visitors to a huge extent.
23. Do Not Ignore Split-Testing Of CTA
No matter how attractive your CTA is, you can never succeed with it if you do not split-test it beforehand. It is essential that you run split-tests for each and every element including the text, location of placement, colour of the button, shape of the button, etc., and figure out the versions that will be able to convert better. You can start trying with the basic principle and keep experimenting until you come up with the best choices for improvement.
24. Sync The CTA With Landing Page
The wording on your CTA is extremely important and it should always be in synch with your landing page in order to lower the bounce rate on your blog. To be precise, the information used in your primary CTA on should also be highlighted in the title of your landing page. Also, keep your landing page as simple and uncluttered as possible by eliminating navigation menu and all other distracting links. These will ensure that your visitors get appropriate data or item they are looking for, which will eventually result in higher conversion. Hence, make it a point to match your CTA text to the title of your landing page.
25. Display Social Proof Of Subscription
When it comes to growing your email list and taking your conversion to an all new level, a little show off can go a long way. Yes, we are talking about displaying the social proof of how lots of readers have already been showering love on your blog so that new visitors find you trustworthy and feel encouraged to join the ‘bandwagon’. The best way to do this is to create a list out of your current statistics and add it to the landing page associated with your opt-in form. Positive reviews from industry experts and testimonials from happy readers will also add to your reliability to a large extent.
No matter how well-designed and visually compelling your blog is, you have to be proactive enough to stay competitive and drive leads from it directly. Follow these tips and you can certainly accomplish your goals in an efficient manner.
