Feeling stressed and sad because your pipeline does not have enough quality leads?🤯 Let me be the bearer of good news: you are not alone!🙌

Jumplead states that lead generation is one of the biggest challenges for 61% of marketers. Finding a product-channel fit is a tough task for both enterprises and startups. This is a never-ending task, and no market is fully protected from it – channels that worked perfectly fine yesterday may bring zero leads tomorrow.

Lead Generation Strategies Worth Trying in 2021

While there are tons of lead generation channels and activities the scope of which is only really limited by your creativity, this article covers some evergreen strategies. Scroll down to find the list of tools that will make your lead generation process easier, more straightforward, and accelerate its performance.

Website Optimization and SEO

While SEO is a long game, the leads that you get organically have the highest buyer intent as they are already searching for products and services like yours.

SEO content that targets the highest volume keywords is definitely a wrong strategy for 2021. Most probably, you’ll need to create long-form pieces and get an enormous number of backlinks to rank high. It takes time and energy. That’s why you should focus on long-tail keywords with lower difficulty instead. Usually, the topics that meet these criteria are found at the bottom of the funnel. Just base your content on the questions that interest BOFU leads.

Also, think about contributing to media and writing guest posts – it will give you additional high-quality backlinks and establish you as an expert.

Content Marketing

Content serves as the currency of your website, which is why you should post new pieces regularly. Not only does it validate you as an expert in your industry, but also increases your brand awareness and audience reach.

Just remember to make sure you stay mindful of the content you create. Creating content merely for the sake of an illusion of activity is not going to get you far. Create engaging content, which is actionable and provide an action plan for readers as only this type of content will help you leverage the benefits of content marketing.

Attract more leads by producing content that is unique and valuable: share your own experiences, discuss the strategies that work for you and the ones that do not, etc.

Create blog articles, guides, ebooks, videos, record podcasts – the more diversified type of content you have the better.

In 2021, it is also necessary to focus on content distribution. There is absolutely no point in creating star content if no one sees it. Pay attention to relevant expert groups and communities on Facebook or Slack that are getting more and more popular nowadays. Use your existing audiences to send them useful content via the newsletter and share it on social media.

Cold Emails and Outreach

If someone says that email marketing is dead, simply do not believe them and start generating leads using this channel. The best way to achieve your end-goal with an email campaign is to send hyper-personalized emails.

However, if you want to generate leads with cold emails, you will need to not only select the content that is relevant to the interests of your email recipients but also send your emails out at the right time. A great way of tackling this problem is to use email automation software. It will help you set up drip campaigns and focus more on the content rather than on remembering to send follow-up emails.

If you do not know how to ensure the success of cold emails and are struggling with where to start, you can find a selection of cold emails tips that sales experts provide on personalization.

Social Media Communities

Even though platforms change, communities remain a source of leads regardless of the circumstances. Previously, offline events would generate lots of valuable connections, however, after 2020, online communities have taken their place and are currently on the rise. Find groups that are centred around the problem you are trying to solve. Ask questions, answer questions, engage in conversations, and establish yourself as an expert.

As mentioned above, you can use communities for content distribution, just make sure not to be too promotional. You shouldn’t abuse your posting privileges and only share your articles when it’s appropriate and relevant. Remember the main rule of communities, give and not only take.

By the way, why not build your own community? That’s much more effective in terms of increasing the visibility and awareness of your brand. One fool-proof community-building tip is to concentrate on solving the problem first, and only then shift the focus towards your brand.

Omnichannel Marketing

We do not recommend focusing on a single platform to engage with your audience. Instead, involve various platforms to communicate with users at multiple touchpoints. Follow your audience and stay on top of their minds.

For example, if you host a webinar, share it on your social media afterwards, upload it to your website, and include the recording in your newsletter. This helps to increase the visibility of your brand.

Be sure to provide the same experience for audiences along multiple channels. They have to complement each other.

The lead generation process is impossible without using proper tools that help you capture the contact information of potential customers, make more contacts, create new opportunities for the pipeline, and scale. It eliminates manual work which lets you focus on high ROI activities instead.

Lead Generation Tools to Use in 2021

Here are my top picks to touch on every aspect of web-based B2B lead generation. Besides, I’ve tried to list the combination of tools which functionality does not overlap, meaning that you save money by covering a few lead generation activities by the same tool.

NetHunt CRM

NetHunt is a powerful CRM platform, handy for sales and marketing teams who rely on Gmail and other Google Workspace applications. It automates the entire customer journey from lead capturing to the automated creation of tasks and notifications. It helps generate leads in one click from multiple sources (website chat, web form, email, LinkedIn, etc.), set up nurturing campaigns, track progress of every deal, communicate with your team, and more effectively manage prospects and clients.

How NetHunt CRM helps to generate leads:

  • Lead generation through webforms or website chats: capture leads from the website with native web forms or collect them by sharing direct web form link;
  • One-click lead creation from email.
  • Lead generation on LinkedIn: due to native integration, check what companies and profiles already exist in your CRM and new ones. Create new records in CRM already enriched with available data, such as profile picture, contact details, job position and company, etc.;
  • Cold email outreach: send personalized cold emails in bulk, set up follow-ups and triggered email sequences to reach out to potential customers.

💰 Pricing: starts at $24/per user per month. The tool offers a 14-day trial period.

eSputnik

eSputnik is a data-driven marketing automation platform that helps businesses collect contacts and manage customer communication at every stage of the client lifecycle. It provides tools for contact collection and segmentation, personalization, omnichannel marketing, behavior tracking and customer engagement analytics.

How eSputnik helps to generate leads:

  • Lead generation through website forms, web push tokens and app tokens;
  • Automated mass messages (email, SMS, browser notifications, app notifications, Viber messages);
  • Personalized website recommendations;
  • Automated omnichannel sales funnels;
  • Cold email and SMS outreach;
  • Integration with the biggest CRMs and analytics platforms.

💰Pricing: Pricing depends on the channel and starts at $5 /mo for up to 1,000 contacts. Pricing plans for enterprises are flexible and customizable: you pay only for the features you use.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s tool for finding prospects on their social network. It includes advanced search filters for finding prospects, displays more detailed information for prospects such as a phone number and job title), allows to save leads, qualify lead recommendations, and gives InMail credits.

How LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps to generate leads:

  • Social selling to over 500 million business people.

💰Pricing: starts at €61.97 per user per month

Leadfeeder

Leadfeeder is a B2B lead generation software that identifies the companies and individuals that visit your website. It also tracks how they get on your website, what pages they visit, and how likely they make a purchase or registration. The valuable thing about it is showing the industry breakdown which helps businesses to adjust their messaging and content strategy. Leadfeeder also determines decision-makers of the companies that visit your website.

How Leadfeeder helps to generate leads:

  • Account-Based Marketing: monitor accounts that are interested in your product, identify new ones, reach out to them or launch ad campaigns;
  • Sales Prospecting: find emails and social profiles of your ideal contacts, assign prospects to your sales reps, and make them move down those contacts through the pipeline.

💰Pricing: has a free pricing plan with limited functionality.

Crunchbase

Crunchbase is a directory and database of company-related information from startups to Fortune 1000 companies. It’s like a LinkedIn for company profiles. Get to know their company news and updates, acquired funding or latest releases. This will help to personalize your outreach and contact them at the right time.

How Crunchbase helps to generate leads:

  • Database of potential buyers and companies.

💰Pricing:has a free plan with limited data availability and no-CRM integrations

CloudTalk

CloudTalk is a user-friendly cloud-based phone software helpful for sales and support teams. CloudTalk enables sales and call centre teams to make and receive calls anywhere, on any device, supporting international numbers from more than 80 countries. CloudTalk functionality includes: Basic call features, Automated Call Distribution, Interactive Voice Response, Click to Call, Call statistics, Real-time dashboard, Conference call and many others.

How CloudTalk helps to generate leads:

  • Outbound cold calling to reach more prospects.
  • Handling inbound calls, storing communication history from other channels.

💰Pricing: starts at $20 per user per month. Offers 14-day trial period for any plan.

Intercom

Intercom is a Conversational Relationship Platform, helping businesses build better customer relationships through personalized, messenger-based experiences. The platform allows users to chat with leads, engage them, and convert into paying customers. It delivers conversational experiences across the customer journey, with solutions for Conversational Marketing, Conversational Customer Engagement and Conversational Support.

How Intercom helps to generate leads:

  • Online chat to answer any questions and convince website visitors to buy in real-time.
  • Custom chatbot to proactively engage website visitors.

💰Pricing: Starts at $59/month for small businesses

AeroLeads

AeroLeads can automate your email marketing and lead generation process by finding emails and building email lists. It also eliminates duplicate email addresses from the developed email list. You can also measure the real-time data of the email marketing campaigns and lead generation campaigns. The features will also decrease the bounce rate. Aeroleads can capture leads from websites like LinkedIn, AngelList, CrunchBase etc.

How AeroLeads helps to generate leads:

  • Find contact details, such as emails and building email lists for further prospecting.

💰Pricing: starts at $49 per month, giving you 1000 credits. Offers a trial for 10 credits.

Demio

Demio is a great ‘set it and forget it’ platform for hosting automated webinars. The tool has intelligent ease of use features, it is quick to start with. You can entirely automate the event from landing page registration to reminder letters to after-webinar emails. You can co-host webinars with invited guests, share screens, bring attendees to the stage, and more. It is easy to brand your event with a company logo and styles: slides, registration page, replay pages, email notification, landing pages etc.

How Demio helps to generate leads:

  • Conduct live product demos for potential customers, explaining how your product works.
  • Attract larger audiences by hosting live webinars.

💰Pricing: starts at $49 per month. Offers a 14-day free trial.

ProProfs Survey Maker

ProProfs Survey Maker is a lead generation tool that helps you understand the behaviour of your potential customers. By editing and sharing the ready-to-use survey templates, you can monitor the purchase intent of your online consumers. It also allows creating interactive quizzes, tests & assessments

How ProProfs Survey Maker helps to generate leads:

  • Interactive business-related activities, such as quizzes and tests.
  • Surveys to get people involved with brands.

💰Pricing: has a free plan with a limited number of responses to 10.

Wishing you broaden your visibility and reach, get tons of high-quality leads, and win more deals by incorporating the most effective generation strategies along with tools for your business.

Good luck!🤞