Lead Generation Best Practices: Turn Traffic Into Customers

Everything in business is downstream from lead generation.

When you keep getting leads for your products or services, it becomes easier to make consistent sales, attract investors, and scale your business. But how can you nail that first part?

Let’s go through the best lead generation practices so you can avoid common pitfalls and set yourself up for success.

Understanding lead generation

In a nutshell, lead generation is about attracting your specific ideal customers, capturing their contact details, and nurturing them until they buy from you.

So, you must focus on:

Understanding your target audience’s needs, pain points, and preferences
Getting yourself in front of these people through optimised marketing channels, relevant content, and compelling offers
Collecting their details (for example, by asking for their email address in exchange for a lead magnet) so that you can stay in touch and message them directly
Building trust, demonstrating the value of your products or services, and nurturing these contacts through consistent and targeted communication
Identifying who is ready to speak to your sales team or take the next step

So, when you get strategic with your lead generation, you can guide these target customers through your sales funnel, boosting your conversions and fostering long-term relationships.

That’s why a ScoreApp quiz is the perfect starting point: you’ll get to attract more people by offering it as a lead magnet (more on that soon!), ask the right questions to understand their situation, and nurture them in a personalised way.

How many leads do you need?

To measure your lead generation success, you must first know what you’re aiming for.

The number of leads you need will really depend on your goals and several factors (like what products or services you offer, their price and so on), but a popular method to work it out is:

Start from your monthly revenue goal – For example, £10,000
Figure out how many new customers you’d need to hit that target – If your offers are £500 on average, that’s 20 new ones. But remember: only a small percentage of leads turn into paying customers! So, you’ll have to generate a lot more than that
Calculate the right number of leads – Your formula is [your lead-to-customer conversion rate] : 100 = [number of monthly customers] : [number of leads you should aim for]. So, to calculate that final value, multiply your number of monthly customers by 100 and divide everything by your lead-to-customer conversion rate. If you don’t know yours just yet, you could start from the average percentage: 3-10%

Not only do ScoreApp quizzes make it a breeze to capture new leads and convert them into customers, but you can always track that number on your dashboard and connect everything to your CRM. Easy!

Who is your perfect-fit customer?

When you target everyone to get “more leads”, you encounter problems like:

Making your message too generic and ineffective
Getting too many enquiries from wrong-fit people (we’ll cover how to pre-qualify them soon!)

Instead, base your lead generation on your specific target customers:

Who are they?
What are they struggling with?
What are their goals?
What about their personal preferences?

If you’re not clear on your perfect-fit customers, consider running a separate quiz for market research first.

How do you create a useful and engaging lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a free resource that you offer to your audience in exchange for their contact details.

So, to create a useful and engaging lead magnet, choose an idea that:

Appeals to your specific ideal customers, especially by solving a small problem for them
Positions your business as the logical next step
Is so valuable that you almost feel bad giving it away for free

You should also pick the right lead magnet format. The most common ones are downloadable PDFs, but they’re so generic and overused that they only convert at 3-10%.

So, to boost your lead generation, consider coming up with something unique. Quiz lead magnets, in particular, are more valuable, attention-grabbing, and personalised. No wonder they convert at a whopping 30-50%!

Create your quiz lead magnet for FREE with ScoreApp.

Which marketing channels are most effective for reaching your target audience?

You don’t need to be everywhere, but you also don’t want to put all your lead generation eggs in one basket. So, consider a marketing mix of:

Social media – Choose 2 or 3 platforms where your audience is active, and create engaging content for them. By offering them a ScoreApp quiz lead magnet, you’ll stand out from your competitors and turn your social media traffic and followers into actual leads
Content marketing – Write useful blog posts to answer your target customers’ questions, optimising them for the SEO keywords they are using. Then, capture their details by having your ScoreApp quiz as a call to action
SEO – Discover the keywords used by your target customers when they look for your type of business online, and use them on your web pages. Then, turn your website traffic into leads through your ScoreApp quiz lead magnet
Email – Show up in your target customers’ inboxes with insightful and engaging content. A ScoreApp quiz will segment your subscribers based on their answers so that you only send them relevant and personalised communications
Paid ads – Get more leads fast by bidding for relevant keywords with PPC ads or by targeting the right users through social media ads. And if you direct them to your ScoreApp quiz? You’ll get to learn all about them and nurture them in a more personalised and effective way

How do you improve lead scoring?

When you score your leads based on how likely they are to become customers, you only get on calls with right-fit prospects who are ready to have that conversation.

So, to improve your lead scoring, identify what criteria your ideal prospects must meet to be deemed “a good fit” (hint hint: start from your existing and past clients).

For example:

How much do they already know about your products or services?
How have they been interacting with your brand?
Have they got any misconceptions about your industry and business?
What are your non-negotiables? (For example, maybe they need to have something in place)
What’s their budget?

Some tools and CRMs have built-in lead scoring functions, but you can take this to the next level by pre-qualifying your leads through your quiz. How?

Include pre-qualifying questions to get those answers and insights, and target the right leads with relevant nurturing sequences.

For example, you could include strategic emails and additional resources (like blog posts and videos) to build trust and prime them for that sale. Then, only get on calls with pre-qualified leads who have a HIGH chance of becoming customers.

How soon should you follow up with a lead?

This depends on several factors (for example, is it someone who’s just signed up for a free resource or have they already gone through a call with you?).

In most cases though, you should follow up with a lead as soon as possible.

So, to keep up with this successfully and without human error, consider using automation.

With a ScoreApp lead generation funnel, you’ll get to:

Send personalised results as soon as someone completes your quiz
Set up different nurturing sequences with multiple touchpoints
Share each prospect’s data with your sales team so they can tailor their approach accordingly, speeding up your sales cycle and requiring fewer follow-ups

… all automatically!

What is the best time of day to follow up with leads?

There isn’t a magical time of the day. While it’s better to follow up during working hours, the best time for you will differ from other businesses and even from prospect to prospect.

For example, is this a phone or email follow-up? How long ago did this person interact with you? What’s their time zone?

So, test different follow-up times, and whenever possible, base it on your interactions with that specific lead.

With ScoreApp, you can automate your email sequences and connect your quiz to your CRM to keep track of all your touchpoints.

Are there any legal and ethical requirements when creating a lead generation strategy?

Yes! An important best practice for lead generation involves respecting your audience’s privacy and preferences.

Some rules might change depending on where you’re based (so, check out your country’s regulations, too), but the main legal and ethical requirements are:

Respecting privacy laws like GDPR by getting your leads’ consent before collecting their data
Giving them an option to unsubscribe and end all communications
Honouring that!

With ScoreApp, your quiz will always be GDPR compliant because your participants consent to receive email communications when they sign up for it.

How can you implement a follow-up strategy for leads?

You can plan and implement a successful follow-up strategy by:

Nurturing your leads automatically once they sign up for your lead magnet
Connecting it with your email platform and CRM to keep track of all your lead interactions and touchpoints
Only getting on calls with prospects who’ve been pre-qualified and nurtured correctly
Setting up reminders or automations to follow up after that call
Reviewing your follow-up strategy regularly and optimising it accordingly

With a ScoreApp quiz funnel, you’ll bring your marketing and sales teams together. So, by always being able to reference each prospect’s situation, you’ll make your communications, calls and follow-ups A LOT more effective.