Do you want to generate leads for free? Today, lead generation has become so important that you can’t ignore. It act as lifeblood for every online business.
Your social media followers are not as important as much your email subscribers. Because email subscribers are considered as your warm audience that are most likely to convert.
Today, lead generation is an expensive way. But you don’t have to spend your hard-earned money on something that you can achieve by doing some smart work.
Some people spend lots of money on Facebook ads for lead generation. You can do the same, but I personally don’t believe in getting leads by running ads because I can do it for free.
I have experienced this after spending over $1000 on leads generation. Even spending this much amount I couldn’t generate much leads as I did from my strategical organic ways.
In fact, I recently got over 300 subscribers within a week from Instagram alone.
"Marketing is all about how you are doing, not what you are doing." Click To TweetBy building an email list, you build reliable data for your business for the long run.
This article will discuss some practical ways to generate free email leads without spending any money.
1. Leverage the Power of Social Media
Do not forget that social media is the reality of today. You can generate as many free email leads as you want from social media.
Just like I did, you can also use Instagram to generate free leads.
Let me tell you how to do it STRATEGICALLY.
Step 1. Start Putting Content That People Want to See
“Content is the King”. You might have heard this before. But now, this phrase is changed, “Content is the KINGDOM”.
Yes, whether it’s about growing your business or it’s just generating leads only, CONTENT is the KINGDOM.
Your quality of content will decide your growth of business on social media.
That is why you see everywhere that people are focusing more on educational content. Because if you become successful in providing value or what people exactly want, you will already become 50% successful in your business.
So, apply this step to build your own email list.
Step 2. Engage with People
Without engaging with others, it’s merely impossible to generate free leads.
Reply to comments and messages you get daily. Sometimes, it seems a hassle to reply to every comment, but later it will provide you a tremendous amount of benefit if you do it continuously.
Once you increase your followers by applying these above two steps, you can now move on to the next step.
Step 3. Ask People to Sign Up for Freebie
The next and ULTIMATE step is to ask people to sign up for a freebie. Don’t just directly ask them, host a giveaway or a contest.
This way, people would love to sign up for it.
2. Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing is a SUPER POWERFUL way to generate free leads. Although, you might be thinking that Influencers take charges for marketing.
But there is also another to collaborate with them. Like if you both have similar kind of audience, you can collaborate with influencers for and there would be a win-win situation for both.
Or if you are already on social media like on Instagram, then you don’t have collaborate with anyone to generate free email leads.
Why is Micro-Influencing more powerful?
In my previous article, I have mentioned in detail that why and how micro-influencers are rocking more than macro-influencers.
Some studies have shown that micro-influencers have engagement rates between 7% – 20% range. There’s no secret that micro-influencers have higher engagement rates than macro-influencers. While macro-influencers are lucky to get engagement rates around 5%, micro-influencers average double that.
Also, according to a report by Mention, 15.7% of Instagram users have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. If you apply that percentage to Instagram’s 1 billion user count, that means there are 157 million micro-influencers to choose from for a brand.
It means if you collaborate with at least 10 influencers having following between 100-1000, you can actually generate leads by up to 60% more than collaborating with one influencer (following between 10,000-20,000)
So, as of now, you understood how powerful micro-influencing is.
How to Collaborate with Influencers for Free?
Not all influencers would like to collaborate for free because they are working hard enough on their page.
But I will tell you how I generate free leads and testimonial from my Instagram page.
Suppose, if you are selling a digital product and you wanted some testimonials. In my case, I sell Templates, so I offer free templates on my website “The Template Market”, and ask influencers for a free review/testimonial.
This way, 2 out of every ten influencers would love to give a review, and they also post on their stories.
What I did?
I haven’t done anything extraordinary, but I get around 10-15 new leads per day in this way. So, 300 new leads every single month for free. Wow!
That’s amazing. Isn’t it?
I call it “STRATEGICAL COLLABORATION,” where there is a win-win situation for both parties.
3. Facebook Group
This is also an amazing way to generate free leads because Facebook group already consists of warm audience means they are more likely to convert.
There are two ways to use groups— either you join an existing one or create your own.
But I would suggest you to join an existing one if you are not into branding or something. Otherwise, it will take you a huge time to get free leads.
So, no theory, I will again tell you the step-by-step process how to do it:
Step 1. Join any Facebook Group in your niche.
There are over thousands of Facebook Groups that exist already. You have to find a most engaged group but have a good number of members.
Step 2. Start putting some valuable content there (maybe once in a week)
Don’t directly ask for leads, you get kicked out of the group because they don’t allow spamming. First, start giving some valuable knowledge or content there. Then, ask for something.
Step 3. Host a Webinar/Workshop
Next, you can host a webinar and ask people to join it. In this way, it will not be considered spamming and most people would love to join it.
Once you host a webinar, give a strong call-to-action at the end of it.
Hurray! You are all set now.
4. Blogging & SEO
You already might know what blogging is. So, I’m not going into detail about what blogging and SEO are.
I have already written an extensive article on Email List Building by doing blogging and SEO.
Writing a blog for your business is a great idea especially if you don’t have a budget and want free leads. Blogging not only helps you in getting free email leads but also to rank on Google with proper Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
I suggest you to write blog article on the questions that are frequently asked on Google. Use free tools like Ubersuggest or Answer the Public to find most asked questions on Google.
Write a value-packed content with compelling images and call-to-action that resolves the issue people are facing.
Create a strong lead magnet that is relevant to what people are searching. I offer a free business planning Canva template that anyone can use for his/her business plan.
Make sure to check it out from here.
5. Guest Posting
Guest Posting is another awesome way to generate free leads or to drive traffic to your site. You can ask people who are already in your community for guest posting on their site. Most likely they would welcome you to write a guest post.
Write content as valuable as you can. Your article must be in super detail and cover all the sub-topics related to it.
You can ask in return one backlink to your site which would help in getting free leads.
Sometimes, people allow you to add a call-to-action in guest posts, so if possible you can add it at the end which will surely help you get traffic.
6. YouTube Videos
Do you love watching videos on YouTube? Then, instead of scrolling on YouTube, let’s create some videos. Yes, creating videos are an amazing way to generate free email leads and the conversion rate is also very high.
When I first started creating YouTube videos in 2020, I earned more than 500 leads from videos alone. You might have seen people asking you to sign up to get the “Free Checklists” of the comprehensive video.
I see many times whenever I watch a video related to blogging or SEO, people give the “Free Roadmap” or checklists so that people would apply those techniques which they taught about.
And I also love too sign up for those freebies.
he advantage of creating videos are endless. You can also upload those videos on your Facebook or Instagram and ask people to —
“Sign Up for a Free Webinar”
“Sign Up for the Free Guide”
….and so on.
It has been shown by Neil Patel that “Viewers are anywhere from 64-85% more likely to buy after watching a product video”
{Share Screenshot Photo here..}
Videos has become a completely new way to connect with the audience in any niche. So, start producing videos and get more email leads.
7. Webinars
You might have already noticed people doing online webinars. Webinars are really wonderful for conversion rates.
It’s another form of creating videos. Just like you upload your pre-made videos on YouTube, you have to do it live in webinars. By doing live sessions, you gain a lot more trust of your audience because you share your expertise live in front of others.
Take the example of Gary Vaynerchuk. He does a lot of webinars with ordinary people and shares his expertise with them.
Note: Ensure to do webinars as much valuable as possible because I have seen many people who only try to sell their products instead of providing something that is helpful.
You can sell your product in the webinars, but only after when you have given something already.
Remember, the MORE YOU GIVE, the MORE YOU GET.
8. Use Landing Page
It is the number one mistake that people make, is they ask people to sign up on their homepage instead of a Landing Page.
Your Homepage is not the Landing Page.
Now, what is the difference between a “Homepage” and a “Landing Page”?
The main difference between these two is — Your Homepage has all the other navigation bars where a person can know more about you and your business. Your contact page, about page, and other details are not required if you are asking people to sign up.
Whereas a Lading Page has a single goal— MORE CONVERSIONS.
Here’s in the picture below, you see the difference between these two.
So, I suggest you to go for a Landing Page, if you want free email leads.
Landing page has a greater conversion rate than a website’s homepage. The reason is, you are making your audience focused at a particular thing instead of distracting.
9. Podcast
Today, the popularity of Podcasts is increasing very rapidly, and therefore, marketers are also looking for it.
Podcasts can be an amazing way to get free leads. I have seen people saying in their podcasts to sign up to get the free gift.
You can start a Podcast related to whatever you like, talk whatever you want to speak.
Try to give valuable content to your audience, answer to most relevant questions in your Podcast. Make sure to sprinkle some CTAs throughout the episode.
You can ask people to download the worksheet or white papers, whatever is relevant to your Podcast episode. Soon you’ll see that people start to follow you and you’ll get free leads.
10. Start an Affiliate Program
I’m sure that you have heard the term “Affiliate Marketing” before. People always talk about joining some affiliate to get some extra income.
But no one is talking about— “How to Start an Affiliate Program for your Business?”
Yes, you can start an affiliate program that would help you in getting more email leads.
There are so many tools free and paid which can be used for an affiliate program like—
1. Impact
2. Sendowl
You can find anyone of the above to start your own affiliate program.
11. Online Referrals
Online Referrals can be an amazing way to generate free leads. You can use Google Reviews, TrustPilot, Trust a Trader, Yelp, and many more.
People love to see what others are saying about a product or service. So, start online referrals and let others give reviews to your business.
It could be a great way to generate free leads.
What is Lead Generation Software?
Lead Generation Software is a type of platform to collect free leads from different sources. You can use social media to email to landing pages to build a database for those leads.
It’s totally optional to use a lead generation software, although you can also manage leads manually. But if you are scaling your business and want to automate everything then these softwares can make your work a lot easier.
Let’s see what are some Lead Generation Softwares—
1. LeadPages
LeadPages is a very popular tool to get leads from landing pages, opt-in forms, with having a built-in payments systems.
It consists of different templates that are easy-to-use, mobile-friendly and customizable.
Pricing: Standard: $25, Pro: $48, Advanced: $199 (per month, billed yearly)
2. Unbounce
It comes with drag and drop page elements to create mobile-responsive pages. A great feature about Unbounce is that you can automatically optimise your landing page for every recommendation made by Google PageSpeed Insights.
It also consists of A/B testing, lead generation form builder, and real time data.
Pricing: Essential:$79, Premium: $159, Enterprise: $399+ (per month, billed yearly)
3. Optinmonster
Optinmonster offers attractive templatesfor getting free leads. The one feature that I like the most is its Exit-Intent Technology. It tracks user’s mouse movement and shows them a targeted message when they are about to leave your website.
This helps in getting a good number of email leads.
Pricing: Basic: $19, Plus: $39, Pro: $59, Growth: $99 (per month, billed yearly)
4. Intercom
I like Intercom because it has an extraordinary feature for generation through LIVE CHATTING.
This software automatically reaches out and initiates live chat with your potential leads on your website. Then it qualify leads with chatbots, and send qualified leads directly to your sales team.
You can later monitor those data, track, and measure the leads.
Pricing: Essential: $87, Pro: $153, Premium: Custom (per month)
Conclusion
As you might have understood that lead generation can also be done for free in so many ways. You can generate free email leads by different methods online. Also, there are so many tools that you can use for running an effective campaign.
So, what are you waiting for? Go & start generating your free leads.
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