(FREE) Revolutionize Your Lead Generation: Strategies for Digital Growth
Unlocking Potential in Digital Marketing, Real Estate, and Retail
Video summary (regular type)
My commentary (italics)
Focus Industries
Digital marketing agencies
Real estate brokerages
Specialty retail
Introduction and Understanding Lead Generation
The video by Antoine DuPont focuses on offering 10 lead generation strategies for small and medium-sized businesses. The presenter starts by outlining the importance of lead generation as the first step in a four-step process that also includes lead capturing, lead nurturing, and lead engagement (sale). Lead generation is positioned at the top of the funnel and aims to attract as many people as possible to a brand, products, or services, leading to potential conversions into customers. The more leads you have - the more customers you’ll have. The more QUALITY leads you have - the higher percentage of them that will become customers.
Some Lead Generation Strategies
1. Video Marketing
Videos dominate online content, and YouTube is the second largest search engine. Thus, video marketing is highlighted as a crucial tool for attracting customers and establishing authority in an industry. Don’t underestimate the power of disguising your company’s commercial as education, entertainment, or“infotainment.”
“The rise of video marketing seems unstoppable. With over 90% of individuals wanting more brand videos in 2023, video has become crucial for brand visibility and lead generation.
The following decade promises continued growth and success for video marketing, making it an essential brand strategy worldwide.”
Digital Marketing Agency
Highlight one or two services where the agency excels, such as SEO or social media management.
What do you KNOW you’re good at? What have existing clients raved about?
Create Educational Content: Develop short (1-3 minute) educational videos explaining these services and how they benefit clients.
Keep it short and simple. Creating MORE short videos might prove more beneficial than creating fewer long videos.
Utilize Existing Equipment: Use a smartphone or a basic camera for recording, and free or low-cost editing software.
Work with what you have. Don’t invest too much time, energy, or money until this strategy really starts to gain traction.
Leverage Social Media: Share the videos on your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc pages, targeting business owners and marketing managers.
Ahrefs, a well-known digital marketing agency, has used video marketing effectively to grow their brand. They have grown from 15 to 50 employees and over $40M in annual recurring revenue. All while being 100% bootstrapped.
Real Estate Brokerage
Focus on Listings and Neighborhoods: Showcase available properties and highlights of the neighborhoods where they are located.
Create Virtual Tours: Use a smartphone to record walk-throughs of properties, ensuring good lighting and stability.
Again, start small and simple. Get the fundamentals of production quality down pat - but don’t obsess beyond that.
Use Free Platforms: Upload videos to YouTube and share links on the brokerage’s website and social media channels.
Engage with Community: Include community events or features in some videos to establish a local connection and expertise.
In the real estate sector, digital marketing is critical and it can be a high ROI investment of time, money, and energy. For example, Straightline helped a 50-year-old real-estate company to revamp its online presence to stay competitive in the industry. By addressing an outdated web design and confusing architecture, they increased Google search traffic 70% and rank high for top keywords.
Specialty Retail Shop
Showcase Products and Usage: Create videos demonstrating products, their unique features, and how to use them.
Take the shopping experience TO the customer.
Highlight Store Experience: Share the in-store experience, staff, and store layout to attract local customers.
Familiarize customers with your store before they ever set foot in it.
Use Instagram and Facebook: Leverage these platforms to share short videos and stories, targeting a local audience.
Promotions and Events: Announce promotions, new arrivals, or in-store events through quick, engaging videos.
Ava Estell, a skincare company, has become a leading brand focused on making people more confident in their skin tone. The brand had two challenges to overcome: Reduce their customers’ research time by showing them the benefits their skincare products can deliver and use video content to create an interactive shopping experience without impacting website speed. They used Videowise, an eCommerce video marketing platform, to embed existing product videos on their Shopify store. These videos showed detailed product information and each video was linked to their product pages. Apart from product videos, they also used customer testimonial videos and video reviews to provide social proof.
Key Considerations for All Industries
Start Small: Focus on creating a few quality videos rather than numerous low-quality ones.
Engage with Your Audience: Respond to comments and questions on videos to build a community.
Communication is a two way street. Make your leads feel comfortable with you.
Analyze and Iterate: Use analytics to see which videos perform best and adjust the strategy accordingly.
Consistency is Key: Regularly release new content to keep the audience engaged and build momentum.
In my experience - EVERY platform rewards consistent posting.
2. Website Messaging
The video emphasizes that your website's message must be clear. Visitors should understand:
What problem you solve
How you make their life better
How to engage with your offerings within the first three seconds of landing on your site.
Digital Marketing Agency
Convey your agency’s expertise and how it can solve potential clients' digital marketing challenges.
Clear Value Proposition: Craft a concise statement that highlights your agency's unique strengths and results you've achieved for past clients.
Case Studies/Testimonials: Include brief case studies or testimonials from past clients on your homepage.
Contact Form: Implement a simple contact form with a compelling call-to-action (CTA), like “Get Your Free Marketing Consultation.”
Live Chat: Install a live chat plugin to answer visitor queries in real time.
Service Breakdown: Clearly list and briefly explain the services you offer.
FAQ Section: Address common questions potential clients might have.
Don’t leave your clients guessing about anything. Provide them with ALL the information they need to know about you.
Apollo Digital helped a client increase their monthly organic traffic from 0 to 200,000 in just 2 years. They achieved this by revamping the client’s content strategy, identifying and prioritizing top keywords, and improving the user experience to make the blog extremely easy to read.
Real Estate Brokerage
Showcase properties and the value your brokerage brings to buyers and sellers.
Property Listings: Have an up-to-date listings section with high-quality images and essential information.
Make sure your site reflects reality. If a property is off the market - make sure your site reflects as much. If you have a new listing - get it on the website as soon as possible.
Clear Navigation: Ensure visitors can easily find listings, contact information, and learn about your agents.
If they can’t find the information they want -they will leave and go to realtor.com or another website.
Client Testimonials: Display testimonials from previous buyers/sellers.
Social proof is VERY valuable. If a client has something positive to say - ask them if they will give/write a testimonial. Offer incentives if necessary.
Resource Guides: Offer guides or articles for buyers and sellers, positioning your brokerage as a helpful resource.
This further establishes you as THE expert on local real estate.
Contact Form: Include a simple form for visitors to get in touch or inquire about a specific property.
Specialty Retail Shop
Highlight your unique products and create an online shopping experience.
Product Showcase: Clearly display featured or best-selling products on your homepage.
Put your best foot forward.
Clear CTA: Implement strong CTAs like “Shop Now” or “Explore Our Collection.”
User Reviews: Include customer reviews and ratings for your products.
Again, social proof is VERY valuable. Get it wherever and however you can.
About Us Page: Share your shop’s story and what makes your products unique.
Add a “human element” to their online shopping experience.
FAQ Section: Address common customer queries about products, shipping, and returns.
Not only is this helpful - it saves you from having to answer some of these same questions online and in-person.
Newsletter Signup: Include an option for visitors to sign up for updates and special offers.
This moves the visitor from lead generation to lead capturing and lead nurturing.
Cumulus Radio Station Group worked with a national golf retailer to improve in-store sales through targeted digital tactics. While the specifics of the website messaging aren’t detailed, the case study underscores the importance of digital strategies, likely including clear website messaging, in driving foot traffic and sales.
3. SEO and Blog Content
Content still plays a vital role in SEO. However, the content must be rich and relevant, not just 200-400 word articles. While I’m no expert on SEO and blog content - its my understanding that you can’t get away with “dipping your toe” into this lead generation strategy. You HAVE to deliver quality along with consistency. Even then, Google is VERY hard to please unless you’re a legacy site spitting out cookie cutter content - in my humble experience. Examples provided include a barber writing a blog post on trending hairstyles.
Digital Marketing Agency
Utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) and creating relevant blog content to increase the visibility of your agency's website on search engines could attract potential clients searching for your services.
In this competitive industry, showcasing expertise through informative content can set you apart and demonstrate your knowledge and skills to potential clients. It gets you in front of lead and it shows them that YOU are THE expert.
Plan of Action:
Keyword Research: Identify keywords relevant to your services and industry.
Content Creation: Write informative blog posts centered around these keywords.
Deep, informative content focused on search intent.
On-Page SEO: Optimize each blog post for search engines (meta tags, headers, internal linking, etc).
Again, I’m getting a little out of my lane here… BUT, keep in mind the Pareto Principle - that 80% of the results will come from 20% of your effort.
Promotion: Share your content on social media and through email newsletters.
Analytics: Monitor traffic to your blog posts and inquire about how new clients found your agency.
Build on what works and discard the rest.
Pros and Cons of a SEO and blog content lead generation strategy:
Pros: Builds credibility, attracts targeted traffic, cost-effective over time.
Cons: Takes time to see results (sometimes A LOT), requires consistent content creation.
Backlinko implemented the Skyscraper Technique 2.0 and increased organic traffic to one of their webpages by 652% in 7 days. They created a mobile SEO checklist blog post which cracked the top 10 results for the target keyword, got a huge spike in traffic in its first week, but then dropped to the middle of the second page. They realized the post was getting buried because it didn’t satisfy user intent for that keyword. They analyzed first page results to figure out user search intent for extremely competitive keywords (“mobile SEO”). Armed with this information, they changed the blog post format from a case study to an actual checklist.
Real Estate Brokerage
Creating and optimize online content related to real estate. Aim to appear in search results when potential clients search for properties or real estate advice. With many clients starting their property search online, being visible on search engines is crucial.
Plan of Action:
Local SEO: Focus on local keywords and create content relevant to your property locations.
Again…out of my lane a bit here, but go into this knowing that individual webpages won’t necessarily bring in huge traffic. However, the goal is to get these pages to rank HIGH for your target keywords.
Property Listings: Ensure all your listings are optimized for search engines.
Educational Content: Create blog posts with buying/selling tips and market analysis.
Once more - focus on LOCAL.
Promotion: Share your content on local forums and social media groups.
Analytics: Track which content generates inquiries and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Pros and Cons of a SEO and blog content lead generation strategy:
Pros: Attracts local traffic, establishes authority, long-term benefits.
Cons: Competitive market, requires consistent content updates, may take time to rank.
This real estate company applied the Skyscraper Technique to create hot sheets and community pages that rank high on Google. They found link-worthy content, made something even better. Furthermore, they embedded IDX search results using a modern IDX that renders MLS and IDX data as native content. They also wrote additional blog content that highlights the local community, businesses, and events relevant to that hot sheet, and reached out to the right people.
Specialty Retail Shop
Enhance your online presence through optimized content that highlights your products and expertise. Attract customers who are looking for specific products or niche expertise.
Plan of Action:
Product Descriptions: Ensure all product descriptions on your website are SEO-friendly.
Relevant Keywords: Incorporate primary and long-tail keywords that customers use to search for products.
Structured with Headers and Readable: Use headers and bullet points to organize content, making it easy for both search engines and readers to scan.
Optimized Meta Descriptions and Titles: Use product titles and meta descriptions with keywords to improve visibility in search engine results.
Niche Content: Create blog posts related to your products and industry.
As mentioned above, remember that the goal is to rank high for these keywords, NOT generate an insane amount of traffic. The leads generated here should be quality.
Community Engagement: Engage with niche communities and share your content.
Customer Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews online.
This is so important. Develop a process for gathering and conveying social proof.
Analytics: Monitor website traffic and sales originating from your content.
Pros and Cons of a SEO and blog content lead generation strategy:
Pros: Attracts a targeted audience, enhanced product visibility, trust building.
Cons: Requires time and effort to create content, results will probably take time, ongoing SEO efforts needed.
In each of these industries, SEO and blog content serve as powerful tools for attracting potential leads who are actively searching for related services or products. The key is to create relevant, high-quality content and do your best to ensure it is optimized for search engines to increase visibility and drive traffic to your business.
Remember, the key to successful SEO and blog content is to create high-quality, relevant content that provides value to your audience. You probably don’t have time to create this all yourself. Get some help - either through employees or freelancers.
More Digital Marketing Strategies
This is part 1 of a series on lead generation strategies for small business. There will be a total of 10 strategies covered.
Read part 2 (strategies 4 & 5) here:
Maximize Reach: Content & Guest Post Tactics
Video summary (regular type) My commentary (italics) Focus Industry Professional Development and Corporate Training More Digital Marketing Strategies This is part 2 of a series on lead generation strategies for small business. There will be a total of 10 strategies covered.