If you’re looking for ways to generate more leads, here are 21 of the best lead generation strategies for technology companies to win more customers and grow revenue.
Everyone struggles to generate leads. You’re not alone. And not all of the strategies discussed in this article are going to work for you.
So read them all carefully and pick the ones you think are going to be the best for your business.
Lead Generation for Technology Companies: 21 ways
- Content Marketing & SEO
- Landing Pages and Lead Magnets
- Webinars
- Online ads
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Cold Calling
- Telemarketing
- Customer Referrals
- Direct Mail
- Word of Mouth
- Conferences and Trade Shows
- Sponsor / Host Events
- Influencer Marketing
- Co-marketing with Partners
- Resellers and Distributors
- Affiliate Programs
- Product Demos
- Free Product Trials
- Special Offers and Discounts
- Outsource Lead Generation
21 Best Lead Generation Strategies
1. Content Marketing & SEO
Content marketing is the act of creating and sharing valuable, relevant content on your company’s website to engage with current customers while also attracting new leads.
Content promoting your brand including blog posts, case studies, eBooks, white papers, infographics, online courses and podcasts can help you gain visibility online which can lead to more traffic to your site.
Be sure to optimize this content for search engines using Search Engine Optimization techniques. This will make it more likely that potential customers can easily find you online.
When done correctly, content marketing and SEO can be powerful tools for generating new leads and growing your business.
Some of the benefits of using content marketing and SEO include:
- Increased website traffic – improved visibility online means more people will visit your site, which can lead to more traffic and leads.
- Improved brand awareness – you’ll gain exposure for your business, positively impacting how people perceive it. This can help your branding efforts that could attract new customers as well as current ones who may be interested in learning about what else you offer.
- More conversions – content marketing isn’t just about attracting leads. It’s also important to create content that is optimized for conversion so your business can generate more online sales or signups.
- Improved customer relationships – by creating useful, relevant information in blog posts and other forms of content, you’re demonstrating expertise that can help customers trust you even more than before. This just increases the chances that they will do business with you, and also recommend you to their friends and colleagues.
If you’re looking for a way to increase leads and grow your business, content marketing and SEO are two great strategies worth exploring.
2. Landing Pages and Lead Magnets
Landing Pages are a very effective tool to generate leads. A Landing Page is a web page that is designed for a specific purpose, such as collecting email addresses or getting people to subscribe to a newsletter.
Landing Pages are often used in conjunction with Lead Magnets, which are incentives offered in exchange for contact information.
Lead Magnets can take many forms, most common of which are eBooks, industry reports, templates, whitepapers and video. Lead Magnets are designed to provide value to the reader and entice them to provide their contact information in exchange for access to it.
The combination of Landing Pages and high-quality Lead Magnets can be extremely effective at generating organic leads from your website.
3. Webinars
Webinars are a great way to connect with potential customers and convert them into leads.
They can be educational in nature and attract potential customers who would like to learn about your product or service.
You can also use webinars to promote events or new products and collect information from potential customers.
You could also use Webinars as a lead generation strategy together with other strategies.
For example, if you do cold calls for lead generation, your callers could invite prospects to a webinar. This can be a great way to convert a cold lead into a warm lead.
4. Online ads
The benefit of online ads is that they can be precisely targeted to people who fit the profile of your ideal customer.
Your ads can be placed on websites specific to your target audience, which allows you to reach a more qualified customer base and increase the likelihood of conversions.
Using Google Ads or Facebook Ads, you can target people based on demographics such as age, gender, location, and interests.
You can also target customers who have recently visited your website or who are already in your customer database.
This level of precision makes online ads a powerful tool for lead generation. By targeting the right people with the right message, you can dramatically increase your chances of attracting new leads and even converting them into paying customers.
5. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is the marketing of a brand, product or service through various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin.
The benefits of Social Media Marketing are that it is cost-effective and has a massive reach. With Social Media Marketing you can have thousands of people following your brand, product or service within hours.
You can also use Social Media to precisely target your desired audience. You can run specific marketing campaigns for each social media site and reach your target market on the platform they prefer to use most.
You can acquire leads through social media organically (that means they search your brand on a social media network) or through ads.
You can also use social media to build relationships with potential customers who can become leads in the future.
6. Email Marketing
You can use email marketing to send out information about your company, products, or services.
You can also use it to build relationships with potential customers.
When you create an email campaign, be sure to include a call to action. This is the part of the message that encourages people to take a specific action. For example, you might ask them to subscribe to your blog or purchase a product from your website. This is when an email recipient will become a lead.
Email marketing can be very effective because it can allow you to reach out and communicate with customers on an ongoing basis without spending much money on advertisements or phone calls.
7. Cold Calling
Cold Calling is often an underrated technique for generating leads. While it lacks the trust that comes from referrals or recommendations, when done correctly it can still be an effective tool for generating new business.
If you’d like to add cold calling to your lead generation strategies, read our 10 simple tips to do it right.
8. Telemarketing
Telemarketing is the process of contacting potential customers by phone in order to generate leads. It can be used to reach out to new customers (cold calling), as well as those who have already expressed interest in your product or service.
So Telemarketing encompasses cold calling but is much more as it includes all forms of phone-based communication to generate new leads.
Telemarketing is also a great way to get in touch with potential customers who may not be reached through other methods. It allows you to build relationships with leads that can then be nurtured into future business.
Consider deploying telemarketing strategies that work for lead generation.
9. Customer Referrals
Customer Referrals Programs are a very effective way to generate new leads because you are being recommended by someone who is already familiar with your company and what you have to offer. Also, the new lead is likely to trust you more because you came recommended by someone they trust.
If you’re looking for a way to increase your lead generation, consider implementing a referral program. It can be a great way to get more leads from existing customers and help build loyalty among your customer base.
10. Direct Mail
While it might seem counterintuitive for technology companies to use direct mail (so non-tech!) as a lead generation strategy, it can be surprisingly effective.
Direct mail could include brochures (can be handed out at conferences), industry reports in book-form, monthly newsletters, etc.
Because so much of what we do is online, a prospective customer might spend more time reviewing a physical document received from you and could get in touch with you to become a lead.
11. Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth Marketing is a marketing technique that relies on a customer talking favorably about a product within their professional circle or with peers.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing is an effective way to generate leads because of its low costs and high conversion rates.
Lead generation for technology companies can especially benefit from word-of-mouth as consumers could use a technological product and talk positively about it on social media.
12. Conferences and Trade Shows
Conferences and Trade Shows are made for connecting suppliers with customers and so are the ideal locations to find new leads.
Not all visitors to your booth will be potential customers, but some of them will be interested in what you have to offer.
The best way to generate leads at conferences and trade shows is by having a strategy in place before you go. Here are a few tips:
- Create a lead capture system
- Make sure your staff is prepared to engage with potential customers.
- Set a goal for each member of your staff.
- Give away free stuff!
Make sure you have staff at the booth to engage with customers and make it easy for them to give their contact information. This will help you convert visitors into leads who can be nurtured over time until they are ready to buy from you.
13. Sponsor / Host Events
One of the best ways to generate leads is to sponsor or host events. The great thing about sponsoring or hosting an event is that you can only invite those people who are likely to become customers in the future.
This makes lead generation easy.
Events can include mini-conferences, lunch meetings, networking evenings, charity runs, etc. Here are some more examples of events you could organize.
By sponsoring some of these events you can make your brand appear more prominently to potential customers.
14. Influencer Marketing
In Influencer Marketing, we identify and work with individuals who have the ability to influence others’ behaviors, decisions or opinions. We rely on their reach and credibility to help promote our brands or products.
Some of the most common tactics used in Influencer Marketing include:
- Creating content together
- Sponsoring blog posts or articles
- Placing influencers in our online or offline media channels
- Hiring an influencer to speak at a live event.
You can use Influencer Marketing to increase brand awareness, generate leads and boost sales.
Influencer Marketing works similar to Referral marketing, in the sense that we generate leads by getting a potential customer to trust us based on their trust for the influencer.
15. Co-Marketing with Partners
There are many benefits to co-marketing with a partner.
First, you can reach a new audience that you might not have been able to reach on your own.
Second, co-marketing allows you to share the cost of marketing initiatives, which can save you money.
Finally, co-marketing helps build brand awareness and credibility for both companies involved.
When choosing a partner for co-marketing, make sure that you have similar values and target markets. If the two of you don’t align on these points, your efforts will likely fall flat. It’s also important to ensure that you have compatible messaging and branding. If the two of you don’t look and sound like a team, your target market will be confused about what you’re offering.
16. Resellers and Distributors
Resellers and Distributors may be able to reach a market that you are unable to reach on your own.
They can have existing relationships with customers which they can leverage to sell on your behalf and save you significant time and effort. They can be very useful in building your brand especially as you enter new markets.
Resellers and Distributors can be especially helpful in lead generation for technology companies because they can handle not just the sales but also the after-sales support that most technology products need.
If you are looking to expand your business, using resellers or distributors may be the way to go. By leveraging their reach and relationships, you can focus on what you do best – running your business!
17. Affiliate Programs
Start an Affiliate Program and get affiliate marketers to sell your product for you. The heavy-lifting job of attracting leads and converting them into paying customers now belongs to the affiliate marketer who earns a commission on each sale.
Many affiliate marketers are individuals who sell someone else’s products through their website. Their responsibility ends once the sale is made and you will still be responsible for after-sales service and support.
18. Product Demos
Product Demos are an opportunity for you to show off your product in a live setting and answer any questions potential customers may have. This will help build trust and credibility.
Product Demos can be very helpful in converting prospects who know nothing about your product into Leads who have shown an interest in making a purchase.
Products Demos are a “must-have” marketing strategy in lead generation for technology companies.
Additionally, demos can help at the bottom of the funnel by encouraging people who are on the fence about buying to make a purchase. And they provide valuable feedback that can help you improve your product.
19. Free Product Trials
Hand in hand with product demos are free product trials. Especially with software products where the marginal cost of providing a product is zero, free product trials are extremely helpful in generating leads.
People are always willing to give their contact information in exchange for access to the free product trial.
If you do not wish to give away your product for free, you could charge a small amount of money for it. Most people would find that acceptable.
In any case, Product Trials are expected in the technology world and so should be part of the strategy of lead generation for technology companies.
20. Special Offers and Discounts
Everyone loves discounts. And everyone’s on the lookout for special deals.
Use this technique to generate new leads.
For instance, you could offer a 30% discount to all customers who sign-up for a full year of your product.
You could also run special promotions, such as a buy-one-get-one-free deal.
Special Offers and Discounts are a great way of attracting leads and quickly converting them into paying customers.
21. Outsource Lead Generation
By outsourcing lead generation you can reduce your fixed costs and pass on some of the risk of lead generation to an external company.
In exchange, of course, you will pay for every lead that the lead generation company brings to you.
But if this external lead generation company is better at generating leads than you are, then outsourcing your lead generation would make sense.
But before you embark on this journey make sure you understand the Pros and Cons of outsourcing lead generation.
Summary
Lead generation is essential for any technology company. By using a variety of techniques such as Content Marketing, SEO, Affiliate Programs, Cold Calling, Product Demos, Online ads, Free Trials, Special Offers, etc. you can generate new leads and turn them into paying customers.
In this article, we’ve shared with you 21 of the best lead generation strategies for a technology company.
But not all of them are going to be useful for your business. So be sure to understand the Pros and Cons of each strategy and choose the ones that you think are most likely to give you success.
