B2C lead generation can be challenging, especially with so many distractions affecting your audience’s likelihood to notice and choose your brand over the competition.
If you want your business to grow, you need to be able to not just identify the right people but to also take them further down the sales funnel.
This article focuses on that first step of getting their attention by making sure they understand how your product or service satisfies their needs. Read on to learn what B2C lead generation means and lead generation ideas you can implement right away.
What is B2C Lead Generation?
B2C or business-to-consumer lead generation is a marketing activity where you capture a person’s interest on a plaform and get them to join your email list so that you can convert them into paying customers later on.
You can generate leads through various platforms where your audience might be present. Instagram, for instance, is a highly popular platform for food and supplement brands to grow their audience — and one way to do so is by posting user-generated content (UGC). This is just one of the many B2C lead generation strategies that work.
The B2C Customer Journey
Your ideal customer goes through a series of steps before they make a purchase. Here are three stages that depict what the customer journey looks like:
- Awareness: This is the first stage of their journey and it’s when they simply develop awareness for your brand. For example, they see your online ad for the first time or hear about you from a friend saying how amazing your products are.
- Consideration: In this stage, a person now tries to find out more about your product. They have a problem, and they’re thinking about whether you’re the right business that can solve it. They’re probably reading reviews from customers and weighing their options.
- Acquisition: This is where they make their final purchase decision. Working on providing valuable content will allow you to build trust early on so that your customers feel comfortable buying from you.
B2C Lead Generation Strategies
You may know these customer journey stages, but you can’t drive conversions unless you have a steady stream of leads. Which strategies and channels should you use to kickstart this process? Explore creative ideas below.
Create compelling lead magnet offers.
The right incentive will convince your ideal audience to share their email addresses with you. Lead magnets can be anything you’re willing to give for free with a high perceived value (meaning that they consider it helpful or informative.)
Examples of lead magnets that you can offer include ebooks, case studies, checklists, templates, worksheets, calculators, and swipe files. Here’s a list of 41 lead magnet ideas to give you some inspiration.
No matter what you’re giving away for free, your lead magnet should possess certain qualities. It has to solve a real problem, provide instant gratification, and be exclusive to your business. This article explains the qualities of a perfect lead magnet in more detail.
Lure in potential leads with user-generated content.
User-generated content or UGC is any form of content that fans and followers of a brand create for free. It can be an unboxing video where a happy customer shares their thoughts about your service or a photo of a customer wearing your product.
How does UCG work for B2C lead generation? As a business owner, you can use it to convince people to see you the way your customers already see you. This means that UGC increases trust.
As a result, people signup for your email newsletter, or even better, you drive more sales. What makes UGC powerful is that it can be used across different platforms — social media, your own website, and email.
Not sure how to collect user-generated content? Do a contest asking customers to share a selfie of them wearing your product on Instagram and refer others into your contest to win a shopping voucher.
If you don’t have any experience creating a UGC content contest from scratch, UpViral has a template ready for use. Watch this video where Wilco, the founder of UpViral, explains how you can take advantage of this amazing template.
Create a Google My Business Profile.
A person who’s interested in availing of a particular product or service will likely go to Google (the most popular search engine worldwide) and type [product/service] + [location].
This is where a Google My Business Profile becomes increasingly valuable for driving leads. Once you claim and verify your profile, which is free by the way, you’ll be able to add your information, offers, and call-to-action buttons.
Get customers to leave reviews on your page by linking to it from your website or emails. For example, you could write, “Got a minute to review us on Google? We would appreciate your feedback!”
Overall, Google My Business is a great lead generation tool because of its ability to drive interest through your information, images, products, and reviews.
Run recurring contests.
Recurring contests can be an unlimited source of qualified leads. Terry Mitchell, who owns Sew Much Easier, uses UpViral to do monthly giveaways that result in 2,000-4,000 new leads for his business.
Like Terry, you can do a monthly recurring campaign or choose weekly or quarterly. For some businesses, a monthly contest makes sense so they can have enough time to change the elements of a campaign — the prize and custom actions, for example — before starting it.
While recurring campaigns accomplish your main goal of driving more leads, you can take advantage of additional goals that will grow your business further. The good news is that UpViral makes this possible, thanks to our different features, such as Custom Actions and campaign templates that accomplish the following:
- Collect user-generated content
- Increase your event attendance
- Boost your online reputation through reviews
- Grow a pre-launch waitlist
What’s Wrong When You Buy B2C Leads?
It may be tempting to fill your email list as quickly as possible, but buying B2C leads can backfire. People buy from businesses their know, like, and trust — and purchased leads don’t know you. This results in you sending them unwanted messages.
Unless people decide to join your email list, there’s a huge chance they’ll mark your emails as spam. This will negatively impact your sender reputation and email deliverability.
As a best practice, grow your leads organically. Follow the strategies above and consider using UpViral to increase speed and ensure lead quality.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this article has given you ideas to jumpstart your lead generation efforts. No matter what you’re offering as a lead magnet or giving away in your contest, make sure that you’re providing real value.
With UpViral, you can create custom lead optin forms for any campaign imaginable. Run surveys, convert your leads into customers, and more. Check out these examples to learn the different ways you can take advantage!
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