Trends #0029 — Lead Generation

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🔍 Problem

You need clients for high-trust transactions.

💡 Solution

Lead generation helps you find potential customers with high lifetime value.

🏁 Players

Use Cases

• Digital Agencies
• Lawyers
• Financial Advisors
• Senior Care Facilities
• Insurance Companies
• Recruiters
• Real Estate Agents
• Cosmetic Surgeons

Lead Generators

• Thumbtack
• Dribbble
• CarGurus
• Dental Departures
• moveBuddha
• Cyberleads
• 1-800-LAW-FIRM
• GrowthList

🔮 Predictions

• More platforms will offer lead ads which send user information to sponsors. See LinkedIn, Facebook and Product Hunt.
• High-trust transactions will be done faster with managed marketplaces. On Thumbtack, you compare providers, ratings and reviews. On Handy, the platform picks for you. Lowering transaction costs.

☁️ Opportunities

• Use tools to find leads. Are you a WordPress consultant? Use BuiltWith to find WordPress sites, Lighthouse to identify performance issues and Whois to find the owner’s email. Send an offer to fix the problem.
• Collect leads (like those above) and productize the list. Sell to consultants, agencies and investors. See CyberLeads and GrowthList.
• Answer questions in communities like Shopify, NextDoor, Quora, Twitter and Facebook to build authority. Jason Lemkin has more than 3,000 answers and 45 million views on Quora.
• Use lead generation strategies to find your first users. Wade Foster found Zapier’s first customers in forums. Do things that don’t scale.
• Show your work. Share on sites like Dribbble, Instagram and Pinterest to attract clients. Eddie Lobanovskiy has more than 200,000 followers on Dribbble.

🔑 Key Lessons

• Build a value ladder. With a free product and others that gradually increase in price. Have an offer for each stage of the buyer’s journey.
• Understand expected returns. Costly gestures, like custom videos, may be worth the investment with low close rates. Due to high LTVs.

😠 Haters

“Growth tools also have platform risk.”
Most growth tools depend on Google to be found. Newsletters depend on Gmail. Perfect is a myth but better isn’t. Are paid leads less risky? No.

“You forgot about events.”
Events are great for relationship building. But contributions don’t scale without artifacts like video. In online communities, one answer can help thousands.

🔗 Links

1. Customer Acquisition From Online Lead Generation • Solar industry players on finding and pursuing leads.
2. 10 Creative Lead Gen Examples • Lead generation strategies including cross-promotion, quizzes and helping community members.
3. Lead Generation: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Business • This guide covers the shift from outbound to inbound leads. And using multiple channels.