Lead generation is an integral part of the sales funnel and a well-designed marketing strategy can help you in this process. 61% of marketing professionals or marketers say that generating leads and website traffic are among their biggest challenges.

Before delving in to lead generation, let us understand why are leads so important and why companies are placing this much importance on lead generation. For starters, the sales funnel starts with awareness and aims to convert leads to customers.

But before you get to the sales funnel you need to start with lead generation. Long story short, lead generation is the step before marketing begins and a key link for sales conversions. Things like email signature generator, webinars, giveaways, and beyond can help in the lead generation process.

Here are 10 creative lead generation ideas you need to try.

How to attract new leads in 2020

We have established that lead generation is vital in marketing and sales, but, how can you attract new leads in 2020? There are four types of leads: marketing, sales, product or service qualified leads.

The first step is to identify the type of lead you are targeting and the next step is to convert these leads into customers. This is where the lead generation process begins; the leads access your content in one of your marketing channels and they have the opportunity to get to your landing page through a call-to-action.

Start to write a blog

If you do not have a blog, you should start one. A blog is among popular marketing channels used today and it can supplement your social platforms and email marketing content efforts and help you increase leads and ultimately increase sales.

72% of marketing professionals agree that content marketing helps increase leads. Blogs are a great way to direct your content marketing efforts to encourage people to subscribe to your content and ultimately product or service.

Create a giveaway

A giveaway is an example of a value proposition. If you can attach a reward to social media like a mention or share or a referral to your website, then the likelihood of people subscribing to your content increases.

So, a giveaway is a great way to generate buzz and increase awareness of your content. This can ultimately lead to lead generation for your business. Conduct a giveaway for a relevant product and avoid generic giveaways. This way you will track leads that will be genuinely interested in your business and not just disinterested people looking to win a new product.

Connect via communities

Building and reaching out to a community are equally important in the lead generation process. Whether you are creating a list of leads from a community with similar interests or incentivizing influencer marketing, connecting via communities will help your lead generation process.

Create or curate valuable content for your prospects and clients and encourage them to engage. This will help you direct your effort towards existing customers and encourage them to help spread your word. In other words, make your customers your advocates and thrive in their communities.

Use a professional email signature

A professional email signature will not only make your business look professional, but it also provides an opportunity to track vital customer information. An email signature is a great way to direct traffic to your website and generate leads.

Based on a survey among marketers, 34% of email signature users use it for marketing and 34% use it for lead generation. So, email signatures go beyond just adding to your professionalism, they can even help your business grow by contributing towards lead generation.

Create an email course

In the process of convincing your prospects to subscribe to your service or process, educate them first. While a lead might not be interested in making a purchase the moment they come into contact with your company, they will be on the lookout for valuable information.

An email course gives this value proposition of knowledge and warms up your lead towards a buying decision. Use this tactic before any paid promotion to build trust with your target audience before building brand recall.

Offer a free trial

The best part of a free trial is that you willingly get lead information. Leads or prospects engage in this because they get the first-hand experience of software or platform. If someone is subscribing to a free trial then they are interested in the service you offer in some capacity. These individuals can be valuable leads.

But only 25% of free trial users convert to paying customers. In this case, either your product needs to work on its value or you are not nurturing your leads enough. Use the trial information to identify what the problem might be and improve your trial to subscription rates.

Make a surprising quiz

Social media marketing can become boring and it can result in disengaged followers. An interactive quiz is a fun way to keep your clients and prospects engaged and to keep your social media platforms busy. It is also a great way to gather prospect email addresses under the pretext of sharing quiz results.

Oftentimes quizzes can be fun for the prospects or can help you understand buying interests while generating leads. So, quizzes are a great way to keep your clients and prospects engaged, it can help you understand their preferences and it can help you gain new leads.

Make podcasts

There are more than 29 million podcasts and this shows that there is a lot of effort being directed towards this form of content marketing. Not everyone is interested in reading a blog on their smartphone and a podcast might be a great way to engage with the content they want. Plus a podcast is a great way for someone to engage with your content on the go.

Podcasts are a great way to add an audio component to your content marketing efforts. If people are making an effort to listen to your podcasts then they are fair game to direct your marketing campaign efforts. Just make sure you have a call-to-action for meaningful lead generation.

Create books and ebooks

Books and ebooks are part of content marketing efforts. Sometimes blogs can be overwhelming and can be a lot of information for your audience to process. Organizing this information in the form of a book or ebook can direct your target audience towards what they are looking for.

For example, if email marketing is your expertise and you have a blog, you can sift through your blogs about the value of email signatures and create an ebook on email signatures. Alternatively, you can generate a keyword search in your niche and create an ebook that has an influx of these keywords.

Remember, the purpose is to make it easier for your target audience to engage with your content and to encourage them to engage more.