Facebook is an important and essential business tool for businesses of every industry and size. It can help you in reaching out to the new audiences, whom you cannot reach physically or by any other means and methods.
Do you know?
Around 1.13 billion people (out of which 1.03 billion people on smartphones alone) use this social networking platform daily.
Facebook can also help you in getting found more quickly and easily in search, creating a community around the company, promoting the content you have created, and developing a strong identity of your brand.
But how about using this powerful social tool for the generation of leads for your business?
You might be attracted to Facebook for lead generation as it has the potential to convert its users into your paying customers. Thus, it is an intriguing reason to use FB Marketing.
We have found that only 50% of the marketers use FB to generate and source leads. This needs to be changed. Also, if you are currently using it to source and generate leads for your business, there’s always room for improvement i.e. you can try and boost your lead generation efforts.
Now, let’s dive into the 11 proven ways you can generate and capture leads (either direct leads or indirect leads) for your business.
Give offers by posting landing pages directly to FB
The easiest and best way to source and generate leads for your business on FB is to direct people to landing pages for the lead generating pages.
Keep in mind that your offer has a featured picture which is getting pulled into the FB post. You also need to optimize the picture size for FB and then add the proper graph tags to your landing page to ensure that FB pulls out the correct picture from your article or blog post into the FB posts.
You will also want to make sure that the reader isn’t confused about where you are directing them. For instance- Suppose that they think that they will be directed to a blog post, but instead they find that they need to fill out a form- it is natural that they will feel frustrated and confused.
To avoid this problem, you can use phrases like ‘Download your cheat sheet’ or ‘Get your EBook’ to signify where you are directing them.
Post blog posts which source and generate the maximum leads
Another simple and proven method to generate and source leads for your business is to choose the blog posts which generate the maximum leads, and post these selected posts to FB.
The title and topic of the blog article will intrigue the targeted audience to click and read. They will find a CTA within the blog post (place it high up- preferably near the intro) for either something they have been looking to learn more about or finding an answer to an issue they are facing.
Tip- We have found that blog posts that contain anchor text CTAs in their introduction are able to generate and source more leads from FB.
Stat supporting above claim- The anchor text CTAs are responsible for anywhere between 47% to 93% of the leads for a post.
Include links that direct to your landing pages in the captions of the images
Most of the marketers know the importance of using visuals such as videos and images in one’s FB digital marketing strategy.
Do you know?
FB Posts with pictures generate 2.3 times greater engagement as compared to those without pictures.
Thus, you should include links to your landing pages and websites in the captions and descriptions for your pictures- specially your profile photo and cover picture captions and descriptions.
You need to understand that links act as doorways for interested people to get to know your business and company better. The descriptions and captions of the cover picture and profile photo can easily help you to achieve this. It doesn’t matter if your targeted page is an ‘About Us’ Page, a lead generation content, or a blog post. This way people can directly access the download link anytime they view your profile or cover picture.
Tip- You can easily track clicks by shortening links and adding UTM codes.
Use visuals such as videos for promoting lead generation offers
Video content have 135 percent more organic reach as compared to the picture content as the FB’s algo favors video posts.
Therefore, you need to use videos for introducing and promoting the lead gen content, doesn’t matter if they are courses, events, offers, or something else- in order to increase your lead generation efforts on FB.
You can also add a verbal CTA with the text CTA in the description or caption of the video to ‘download’ or ‘register’, both in the beginning of the video and at the end.
Do you know?
In 2016, FB’s organic search dropped to fifty-two percent. This was due to the tweaks in the FB’s algo that helped in mitigating the ever increasing amount of content on the social media platform. Infact, posting visuals such as videos has helped in neutralizing some of the pain for marketers.
Use FB Live Videos for reminding the audience to register
It can take up a lot of time to make videos. Therefore, it’s not necessary that you have to create a perfectly edited and scripted marketing video by pulling together the resources and time for leveraging the power of videos on FB.
The FB’s Live Video Portal which allows anyone to broadcast live videos from their smartphones directly to the FB News Feed is known as Facebook Live.
The best thing about Facebook Live is that they are meant to be more spontaneous and a little scrappier as compared to the normal marketing videos- this is what makes Facebook Live special.
Another great thing about these live videos is that they have proven to be pretty incredible for the engagement rates.
Stats Time- FB’s initial data has revealed that users comment ten times more on FB Live Videos as compared to regular or normal videos.
Just like with normal videos, you are allowed to add a verbal CTA with the text CTA to the video.
Tip- Repeat the CTA more in a FB Live Video. This is because when you start a live video on Facebook, there are no or zero viewers watching you. In next few seconds, more viewers will join you. Thus, you need to repeat your CTA a few more times to catch users up.
Pin posts to the top of the news feed that link to the lead generation
You are allowed to highlight the post which you have pinned to the top of your Page’s Timeline. It will stay at the top of the Timeline for a week, after which it will return to the time and date it was published to the Timeline of your page.
You can pin any type of posts, from videos to images to text; and even FB Live Videos.
Pinning a live video will show it up with the whole recording at the top of your FB Profile, indicating that you or the page ‘was live’ at a certain point.
Add a call-to-action button to the FB Page
The call-to-action button is powerful yet simple, and it can easily help you to generate more traffic from your FB Page to your site- including contact sheets, landing pages, and other lead gen forms.
You can select from seven built-in button options: Play Game, Watch Video, Use App, Book Now, Contact Us, Shop Now, and Sign Up. Once you select any of the above-mentioned button and link it to a webpage of your website, the chosen button will appear at a fixed place to the bottom right of your cover image.
Pro Tip- Consider switching up the button and the webpage it links to match your campaign and business goals.
Ask for inputs on your items and products
You can post a status on FB asking for feedback on one of your tools or products, and linking it to a landing page where users can sign up for a trial of the product (if it is free) to download it. Linking directly to the page will encourage sign-ups and your audience will love this to happily give their 2 cents.
Tip- Be ready for negative comments. You can minimize these by being selective on the products and tools you post for the feedback process. Respond quickly to the negative comments as it signifies that you care and will do your best to rectify the tools and the products.
Run a giveaway or a contest
Users love giveaways or contests. Aside from being fun to your audience, they can help to teach you a lot about your viewers and targeted audience- all the while driving traffic to your site, growing your reach, engaging them, and generating leads.
Publish posts on FB and on other social media platforms/ accounts including an attractive and appealing featured video or image, language that is simple and compelling, and a link directing to the contest page where the users can fill out the form- all this to generate and source leads for your business.
Make a FB event page for the next webinar
Webinars are a great way to capture leads. You can promote the sign-up form of your webinar by posting them to your Timeline. Other way to do it is by making a FB Event with a separate page for the registration page on your site.
You can convert leads by inviting people to a FB Event and encouraging them to register on a separate page.
Do you know?
FB Events have greater visibility on the News Feed as compared to the standard FB posts.
Run lead advertisements to simply the phone/mobile sign-up process
In 2015, FB added an entirely new feature which is known as the Lead Ads. This allows users to sign-up for lead gen content and offers without leaving FB.
It has been specifically designed to simplify the phone/mobile sign-up process as it has made filling out forms super easy for smartphones users.
The forms will be auto populated instead of the smartphone users trying to pinch-and-zoom and type into the small form fields.
To sum up, a form opens up with all your contact information (auto populated). The info is based upon what you have shared with FB already, such as email address, phone number, and name. Click on ‘Submit’ after editing your contact information.
Conclusion
We hope that you found these ways and ideas to generate and capture leads from FB useful. However, you need to remember that technology (especially Facebook) is changing constantly.
The ideas and ways stated in this article can provide you a strong and head start to success, but nothing can beat testing your each strategy for your targeted audience.
