20 Unique Ways To Generate Leads

One of the most crucial part of any business is have the ability to generate leads. Without having leads, you business will not survive.

Now, if you have been search the web for “how to generate leads” and have seen answers like do cold calling, create a landing page, send post cards in the mail, etc. which is all great. But they can be a little old school and take up a lot of your time.

I am going to show you 20 (unique & new) ways to generate leads for any type of business.

How To Generate Leads?

Some of these ways might seem a little old or different but keep you mind open and I will walk you through how to use some of the tools and websites correctly to turn them into lead generating machines.

#1 – Quora

If you have every used Yahoo Answers before, Quora is very similar to that. But it is a thousand times better.

When you are trying to get answers to your questions, you probably do a quick Google search. Most of the answer or links that pop up on the top of the search results are Quora questions and answers. This means Quora has high search engine optimization (SEO or getting found on the first page of Google) which mean it is a huge lead generating magnet.

So how do you generate leads on Quora?

What you need to do is go on Quora first and search for topic or question related to your business.

For example for a fitness business, you might want to search questions like “how to lose weight” or “how to loss belly fat” or “how to bulk up fast.”

When you find these questions, you need to provide your answer to them. The goal here is to provide them with value and not just promote your business. If you provide value, they will come to you.

Few things to keep in mind when answer Quora questions to get the best possible results (upvotes):

• Respond to questions with LONG answer, short answers will not work
• Add as many image or video to your answer as possible
• Have bullet point or steps to follow in your answers
• Write answers as if you are responding to one person

Make sure you also fix up your Quora profile with all the links to your LinkedIn, website, blogs, products, etc. so people know where to find you. (see picture of my profile below)

#2 – Indeed.com

Now, you might be thinking “Indeed is a place where you go to look for jobs” and you are correct but if you think outside of the box and get a little creative, you will find HOT leads here.

For example, let’s say that you want to sell a cold calling course. You would go on Indeed and post a job for cold calling. Within a few hours, you will get hundred of application.

On the application, it will include their email address and phone number.

You can export this via a CSV file and import them into your email marketing or SMS marketing tools and send everyone a mass email or SMS (with SMS you can reach their phone instantly)

You tell them that you are reaching out to see if they would be interested in taking your cold calling course, which could certify them to get them the jobs of their dreams.

You might be thing “will this work for me?”

Well, I have done this over and over and over again. We own a podcasting platform. We posted a job for podcast host. And guess what? We have hundreds of application within a few hours and every podcast host needs our software. Just like that we had hundreds of hot leads.

#3 – PPC Ads on Facebook & Instagram

If you want to learn how to run ads, you need to do a quick YouTube search and figure that out. (it’s not that difficult to do)

I can’t teach you how to run ads on this article because it would take too long. But I can show you how to run ads effectively for the cheapest price.

I don’t typically run ads on Google. Google Ads are VERY expensive and might not work if you have a limited budget.

Running ads on Facebook and Instagram are less expensive than Google and if done right, can get you really good leads.

Facebook Ads

If your email signature is not done correctly, you could be missing out on many many leads.

#5 – LinkedIn

You probably already know what LinkedIn is (so I will not go into details on what it is). And you have probably heard or read that LinkedIn is a great place for leads.

Now, most people think they should connect with people and then send them a message and etc.

That is a good process and will get you leads but that takes a lot of time and effort. And it’s not very creative (remember this list is all about creative unique ways to generate leads)

First step – Search for people (for example dentist, self-employed, real estate agents, etc.) on LinkedIn

Second step – Connect (or add) with these people

Now it’s time to get creative!

You then need to go to Upwork.com and post a job for an assistant, who will go through each of your contacts and manually collect your connections information. This shouldn’t cost you more than $5 per hour.

Once you have hired them, you will need to give them access to your LinkedIn. You should then ask them to go to all the recently added connections contact information to take their email and to put it in an excel sheet.

LinkedIn Ads

Just like running ads with Facebook and Instagram to generate leads, you can do the same with LinkedIn ads.

But remember, LinkedIn ads are not cheap.

However, they have one feature that is worth every penny. It allows you to send ads directly to your prospect’s Inbox. Makes it look like your message is personal to them.

#6 – Podcasting

Podcast are taking over!

If you are not podcasting, you are losing out on a lot of leads.

How To Generate Leads From Podcasting?

First, you need to create a Podcast with a company called Podmio.com Why should you use this company? It is because no other company offers the same type of lead generation features that they do.

Once you create your Podcast, you need to interview someone who is well-respected in your industry. They will most likely agree to be on your show.

Prior to interview, ask them if they can share the podcast on their social media etc. Even if you don’t ask, it is likely that they will. People love to toot their horn, when they have been given the honor of an interview.

Now here is the creative or unique (or evil 😈)

Podmio.com offers a podcast player that lets you capture leads directly from your episodes.

This is will help you to bring in leads from the person that you interview and other listeners who find the podcast through organic searches.

#7 – Live Chat

On all of my landing pages, I have added “Live Chat”, as a trust factor. However, it is also as a lead generation tool.

When people have important questions about your offer, they will ask questions and you can use this opportunity to collect their information.

Once you have their information, you can send them occasional information about your products. I recommend TWAK and TIDIO LiveChat services, which have free plans.

Things to keep in mind while choosing Live Chat Platform

• Supports Lead Capture.
• Has an iOS/Android App.
• Reputable company.
• Supports FaceBook Bot (Optional).

#8 – Social Share

People love other people’s opinion. This is why people love to share links of product, video, articles, etc. that they find online.

If you need to add this on your website or leading page.

If you send PPC traffic to your landing page and someone likes your offer and shares it on their social media, you will get more bang for your buck. However, you have to make it easy for them to share.

If you look at the end of this article, you see social share button that we have added to make it easy for you to share this on your social media accounts.

#9 – Google Places

When someone is search for help that your business provides, they are going to Google and searching for it.

So you should know by now that it’s important to be found on Google. Now you can spend hours, weeks or even months, trying to master SEO and get your website or landing page ranked.

How To Generate Leads On Google Without SEO?

You are going to do this by using Google Places.

Google Places lets you add your business on Google Maps and let’s you add information like website link, hours, reviews, etc.

This does require you to have an address.

People who have physically office buildings (not working from their home) normally just have one entry with the name of their company. And it’s pretty each for them to list on Google Places.

But if you don’t have an address, don’t worry there is a creative way to get listed on Google Places. (and you can do it in more than one city)

This “trick” works under the assumption that consumers will search Google for the actual service. Some examples could include a dry cleaning service or a roof repair company.

If you use this method, you will rank at the top of Google Places for important keywords, without having to pay Google.

Register DBA Business Names

You can go to your local county clerk’s office and ask to register a DBA (Doing Business As). You can register the company name “Dry cleaning Service” in every city. This will cost you about $10 each.

Get virtual address

One of the Google Places requirements is that you have to verify the address. Since you won’t be buying 10 offices in 10 different cities, you need to visit UPS in each city and ask for a small mailbox. This costs about $20 every six months. They will give you a REAL address, and not P.O. Box #.

Create Google Places in each city

You can do this from the Google Places website. After you have done this, whenever people search for that service, the phone number and website for your company will be shown.

#10 – Buying Leads

Doing all this work might be hard for you. Or you might be just starting your business as a side hustle. This is when buying leads (instead of generating leads) makes sense.

There are companies that sell b2b (business-to-business) leads. However, purchasing these leads is very expensive.

Here are two that I recommend:

US Biz Database

This service charges you a one-time $49 fee, which gives you access to the entire U.S. b2b database. The only drawback is that they are not updated daily. However, for $49, it doesn’t get any better.

Zoom Info (ZoomInfo.com)

ZoomInfo charges you PER lead. This can get pretty expensive. However, the advantage of this resource is that the leads are updated weekly. Therefore, you are getting the latest information. This can be used for direct mailing.

#11 – YouTube

Creating content for YouTube is a great way to generate leads.

Similar to how blogging on a website can help generate leads, YouTube can do the same but much faster.

When someone search for an answer on Google, YouTube videos always rank higher.

So the goal here is to try to rank your videos on YouTube so they rank on Google, which will lead to you having more leads.

How To Generate Leads From YouTube?

The first step is to have a video created. This is a snapshot of your offer.

Then follow these steps as you post your video on YouTube to get it ranked to the top.

Video Title

The video title needs to what people would search for. An example would be Roof replacement Dallas, TX. Make sure to include the main keyword and the city, if there is one.

Transcription

You need to transcribe your video. YouTube does this for free and creates Closed Caption.

Keywords

When uploading video on YouTube, there will be an option to enter keywords. Make sure to enter keywords that describe what you are offering.

Description/CTA

Your description should have lots of information, including the CTA (call-to-action) link to your offer/landing page.

Spend $50 on Ads

You need to run ads and spend about $50. It is recommended that you run Google AdWords ads with a limitation of $50 for the city you are targeting. This will help the ranking of your video because it needs to have some views.

#12 – Quizzes & Contest

Believe it or not, people love to take quizzes to find out the answers. For example, take this quiz to find out your business’ weaknesses.

People also love to take quizzes, to see if they can win something. Everyone loves a chance to win free things.

It makes it interactive and fun when people respond to your offer. While they are taking the quiz, they will need to enter their information in order to get the results.

• You can find Quiz/Contest WordPress Plugins for Free
• Ask curious questions
• Offer to provide lucrative results via Email
• Ask for their name, email, and phone number

Once your quiz is ready, you can promote it via PPC for the best and fastest results.

#13 – Reddit

Reddit really is the front page of the internet.

People use reddit to get information, read news, get help, find solutions to their problems, etc.

With Reddit, you can take your lead generation to levels that you would never have imagined.

The goal here is to go viral on Reddit. (not as hard as you may think)

Content Formula

You will need to make a post on one of their “Subreddits,” which is a sub-forum. The content needs to actually provide real value.

Reddit users LOVE a good STORY. A rags to riches story is guaranteed to mess with someone’s mind to win their emotions. You should include several pictures. If you have children, use their pictures. Your English doesn’t have to be perfect. If you make little mistakes, it seems more real.

Do it for the Votes

Upvote is like “LIKES” on reddit. They actually have a “Down Vote.” Therefore, the idea is to balance them, so that you have at least 500 up votes.

Is this doable? Yes. Ask a few of your friends to upvote on the first day. Wait a few days and then get on Fiverr.com and Upwork.com to hire an agency for under $400 to bring in more upvotes.

Is $400 expensive? One of my clients wanted their content to go viral. She paid us almost $40,000 for content and 2000 upvotes. In return, she made all of her money back in the first week. She is still milking that content and is making a few thousand dollars each month.

#13 – Webinars & Workshops

Webinars are similar to “Seminars,” except they are done on the web. They are normally done “live” or at least simulated, to act like it is live.

To talk about how to host a webinar or even give you the webinar formula, would make this article too long. But if you visit sites like WebinarHacker.com there are plenty of resources there to help guide you.

The idea is that people love “Live Events”. Therefore, you create a free webinar event once a month or every day, if you want to use a simulation.

Many people stay away from this lead generation, because they are too shy to actually get their face in front of audience. The audience doesn’t really care how you look, as long as you don’t show up unprepared. Just have a good content and provide value.

Workshops are the same thing but are usually done in a face-to-face format. However, they can also be done via webinar. This is your chance to teach something about which you are an expert to your potential customer, in order to gain their trust and to increase your credibility.

#14 – Tool of the Trade

If you were a mechanic and someone handed you a box of tools to fix cars as a gift, wouldn’t you forever be in debt to that person? Would you think of them every time you used the tools?

The idea of offering free tools as a lead manager, has a long-lasting effect in creating loyal fans and customers.

In every industry, there are tools that people use to collect leads. In banking, there is the mortgage calculator. Marketing has analyzers.

These tools are great way to generate leads.

For example, when I sold SEO software in 2014, I created a tool that would analyze a website’s SEO and provide a report. On the backend, I scanned their WHOIS to grab their information.

If I couldn’t grab their details, it would be asked when they downloaded the report in the PDF form.

#15 – Video Outro

We already talked about how great and easy it is to generate leads with video.

Now let’s make that even easier!

If you want to make professional videos for your website or landing pages, don’t use YouTube.

YouTube is not meant for businesses or marketing. Therefore, they don’t offer analytics or features to help you grow your business. (it is still a great place to drive in traffic and generate leads)

I recommend Wistia or Vimeo, which both offer outro lead capture form at the end of the video. By adding this form, you should be able to easily boost your lead generation by almost 5%.

#16 – BuySellAds.com

BuySellAds is a hidden gem that no one talks about. That is because everyone is busy reaping the benefits, including our company.

This site allows you to buy ad space on popular and not so popular websites directly from the vendor. This is instead of Google Adwords, where you must pay $50 a click and the website owner only receives a small amount.

You must first go to categories that best match your industry. You will then see a list of websites that are working directly in the marketplace to allow you to run ads on their site. This has proven to work very well for us. It allows us to run an ad on a website that we know can bring us fresh and quality leads.

#17 – Text To Keyword

The text to keyword method can be used on direct mail, websites, and social media.

This is a great method to let people opt-in to your list, by texting to a keyword. This method allows you to reach out to them INSTANTLY on their phone via mass text (SMS).

We set up the cover of our Facebook group as a CTA (call-to-action) to encourage people to text “Deals” to our number, so they could be notified to receive texts for our latest offers.

The result was that we had over 6,000 people sign up overnight because they didn’t want to miss out when we were running special offers.

You can also use the same method for direct mail. This was done by using a software called MySMSBot.

The cost to use this software is very affordable. There is a $99 one-time fee and then it costs $0.00075 per text with your own personalized phone number.

#18 – Free Consulting

You read earlier that people love when you give them something free. They feel like they are in debt to you because you helped them out for free.

Now, if you do not have any tools to give out for free, then you should offer free consulting.

Free consultation and Freemium are classic methods of getting people to come to talk to you. There is free consultation in just about every industry.

The concept is that you get people to come talk to you or try your services for minimal or free price. You then you upsell them on other things that they may or may not need.

For example, why do you think that dental exams or annual exams are either free or low-cost, even without insurance? Why do you think auto service businesses have the lowest margins on an oil change? This is an opportunity to get consumers to try the service or to convince them on upsells.

#19 – Meetups

Meetups is not a dating website. (I know it sounds like that)

It’s a website where you can join group that you are interested in and attend networking parties, social gathering, events, webinars, and much more.

Now you can get creative and use this to your advantage in generating leads.

How To Generate Leads Through Meetup?

One way is to find groups that are related to the industry you are in.

You can join those groups and attend their meetups. Make sure to take lots of business cards and hand them out to everyone. Also collect business card because these are your leads that you can call or send email to later.

Another way is to create your own group.

Meetup charges about $100 every six months to create these groups. If no one joins the group, you can cancel the payment. Therefore, they send out emails to people who may be interested in joining your group.

Once you have created the group and you have members, you can run webinars for them, send them mass emails and collect their information. If the lead generation stalls, you can cancel the group, since you have all of their information to move forward.

#20 – Access123

Access123 is a tool that can be used as lead magnets to provide e-books, downloads, and white pages, by letting you create a storefront for free or even paid products.

The reason Access123 works so well, is because it offers multiple lead magnets on one page. To the consumer, it feels like they are going to a candy shop and wanting everything that they see. In order for them to get the freebie, they must enter their information. Everything is then sent to their email, which ensures that the email is valid.

I have often run PPC ad campaigns with a link to this system, which has resulted in a large amount of lead generation.

If you don’t have something to offer, you can find content on YouTube and then use it as an access URL, after they have opted in.

You could even charge a dollar or other small amount for a product to validate that the consumer has the ability to make a payment.

What’s Next?

You just went through 20 unique or creative way to generate leads.

This can be a lot and a little overwhelming.

Start with one way to generate leads at a time.

Once you master one way to do it, then add another. Before you know it, you will have 20 or more ways that you are generating leads for your business.

But the reality is that most people will read this article and not take any action.

They will say it’s hard (even when it’s not) and just give up.

Don’t be like those people. Be an Evilsalesman.