Most Effective Ways to Get Leads for New Businesses

So you launched a business.

Now you need to start generating leads.

Today we are going to share seven ways to do that!

Introduction to Lead Generation

Okay, so before we get into the main subject of this article, let’s review the basics of lead generation to make sure that we are all on the same page.

What is a Lead?

A lead is a potential customer who has:

1. Indicated an interest in your product or service
2. Provided their contact information

In the online marketing context, a potential customer becomes a lead once they give you their email address.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is the process of converting potential customers into leads by persuading them to give you their contact details.

In the online marketing context, that typically means offering them some sort of a freebie in exchange for their email addresses.

What is a Lead Generation Funnel?

A lead generation funnel is a system designed to convert potential customers into leads.

It’s the first stage of the Value Ladder sales funnel that we call the Bait stage:

Here’s how our co-founder Russell Brunson explains it:

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.

As our friend Alex Hormozi explains, it should be a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem that the potential customer is struggling with.

The reason why offering a complete solution, as opposed to a partial one, is so important is that it allows you to build trust that you can then capitalize on to sell your frontend offer (the next stage of the Value Ladder).

What exactly you should use as your lead magnet will depend on your business model but generally speaking, it should serve as a free sample of your Frontend offer:

• If you run a restaurant, offer free food
• If you provide services, offer a free service
• If you sell a book, offer a free chapter
• If you sell online courses, offer a free online course
• If you sell software, offer a free trial

…etc. 

Keep in mind that the more valuable your lead magnet is, the easier it will be to convert potential customers into leads and then into paying customers!

What Visitor-to-Lead Conversion Rate Can You Expect?

Your visitor-to-lead conversion rate is going to depend on how good you are at creating free offers, building lead generation funnels, and driving targeted traffic to those funnels.

If you don’t have any previous experience with that, you can probably expect to see a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of around 10%.

Meaning, that out of every 100 people that visit your lead magnet landing page, 10 of them will give you their email addresses.

If your lead-to-customer conversion rate is also 10%, it means that out of those 10 leads, 1 of them will buy your product or service:

100 visitors -> 10 leads -> 1 customer. 

These numbers are not great but it’s a start.

As you get better at creating free offers, building funnels, and driving targeted traffic to those funnels, you should see your conversion rates increase. 

Hopefully, you’ll be able to double or triple them eventually!

What is the Easiest Way to Increase Sales?

If you have a sales funnel that is profitable, the easiest way to increase sales is to drive more traffic to it from the same source.

Assuming that the conversion rates remain the same, more traffic means more leads means more sales. It’s just simple math.

Alex Hormozi recommends asking yourself this question: what’s stopping you from doing 10x more of what’s already working?

New entrepreneurs often have a misguided belief that they need to come up with some crazy innovative stuff in order to grow their businesses.

But there’s a reason why seasoned entrepreneurs keep repeating the adage of “Do more of what’s already working”: it may be boring but it’s the easiest way to increase sales!

How to Generate Leads for Your Brand New Business

The best way to generate leads is to build a lead generation funnel and start driving traffic to it.

Here are the seven most popular lead generation funnels:

#1: Homepage Funnel

You probably already have a business website so it makes sense to start by optimizing it for lead generation.

And that’s what the homepage funnel is all about.

It consists of three pages:

1. Your homepage where you promote your lead magnet above the fold so that it would be the first thing that the potential customer sees when they come to your website.
2. An email pop-up where you ask the potential customer to provide their email address in order to get access to your lead magnet. 
3. A thank you page where you thank potential customers and let them know what they should expect next.

This funnel can work well for any business that has a website!

#2: Squeeze Page Funnel

The squeeze page funnel is the most popular lead generation funnel out there.

It consists of two pages:

1. A simple landing page is known as a squeeze page where you pitch your lead magnet.
2. A thank you page where you thank potential customers and let them know what they should expect next.

This lead generation funnel is incredibly versatile: it can be a standalone website, a section on your website or just an email pop-up.

Once you have built a homepage funnel for your business, we recommend building a squeeze page funnel next. 

#3: Reverse Squeeze Page Funnel

The reverse squeeze page funnel has the exact same structure as the regular squeeze page funnel. So what’s the difference between them?

With the reverse squeeze page funnel, you provide some free value upfront, without requiring the potential customer to give you their email address.

Typically, that is done with a free video that they can play right there on the squeeze page. 

This funnel works especially well for online course lead magnets because you can let the potential customer watch the first lesson on the squeeze page without having to opt in.

Then, if they want to get access to the rest of your free course, they can provide their email address.

Another way to go about it is to explain how to do something in your squeeze page video, then direct the potential customer to your lead magnet that can help them implement your advice (e.g. a meal plan, an exercise program, a printable workbook, etc).

Finally, you can explain how to do something in your squeeze page video and then use a free consultation with you as a lead magnet!

#4: Survey Funnel

The survey funnel is a lead generation funnel designed to pre-qualify leads.

It has two pages:

1. A survey page where you ask the potential customer questions that will help you determine whether they are a good match for your business.
2. A thank you page where you thank the potential customer for taking the survey and let them know what they should expect next.

This funnel can help you save a ton of time if you are selling a high-touch product or service that requires you to manually reach out to leads, set up discovery calls and close sales on those calls. 

Consider including a multiple-choice question about the potential customer’s budget. That way, people who can’t afford your product or service will realize it and drop out of the survey.

Alternatively, if you are working on custom projects with variable, per-project pricing, you can ask the potential customer to describe the project that they have in mind and then input their budget for it. This will make it easy for you to determine whether you can help them.

#5: Webinar Funnel

The webinar funnel is a lead generation funnel where you use a free webinar as a lead magnet and then pitch your product or service at the end of it.

It works best for selling consulting, productized services, and online courses but it can also work well for selling software. 

In fact, our co-founder Russell Brunson used the webinar funnel to get our software company off the ground and still swears by it to this day:

This funnel consists of three pages:

1. A webinar registration page where the potential customer can sign up for your webinar.
2. A registration confirmation page where you confirm that the potential customer has successfully registered for the event.
3. A webinar page where the potential customer can either attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

Depending on what you are selling, you will also need either a sales page where the potential customer can buy your product or service or an appointment booking page where the potential customer can schedule a free consultation.

We would like to emphasize that if you want your webinar to convert, you will have to provide genuinely valuable information so that the attendees will walk away feeling like they have learned something useful. 

Remember, just like any other lead magnet, your webinar needs to offer a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem.

Also, while it’s possible to automate this funnel, we recommend doing webinars live once a week for at least a year.

That will give you time to experiment, learn from the audience feedback and optimize your webinar script.

Once you are able to consistently convert at least 20% of your webinar attendees into paying customers, you can begin automating your funnel.

#6: Product Launch Funnel

The product launch funnel is designed to help you build anticipation for your upcoming product.

It has four pages:

1. Video page #1: In this video, you want to tell a story about how you were struggling with the same problem as the potential customer and how you overcame it. Then, introduce your upcoming product as a solution to that problem. End the video by bringing up potential objections to buying and promise to address them in the next video.
2. Video page #2: In this video, you want to address the potential objections just as you promised. Ideally, you should back up your claims with testimonials and case studies. End the video by hinting at how your product can help make the potential customer’s life better and promise to explain it in the next video.
3. Video page #3: In this video, you want to explain how your product can help make the potential customer’s life better just as you promised. Encourage them to take a step back and look at the big picture. Help them visualize what your product can do for them. Ideally, you should back up your claims with testimonials and case studies. End the video by telling them that the product will become available for sale tomorrow and mention the exclusive launch bonuses that they won’t want to miss out on.
4. Video page #4: In this video, you want to announce the launch of your product, make your sales pitch, and explain what’s included in the price. Make sure to emphasize the launch bonuses and encourage potential customers to buy your product now if they want to get all the extra stuff. Right below the video, you should have the order form so that they can make the purchase immediately without having to go anywhere.

If you want to launch a product to kickstart your brand new business, we recommend combining the squeeze page funnel with the product launch funnel.

First, create a lead magnet that is related to your upcoming product and use the squeeze page funnel to build your pre-launch email list.

If you are writing a book, you can use a free chapter as your lead magnet, build a squeeze page funnel for it, and then drive traffic to it. 

Then, email your subscribers at least once a week with updates, sneak peeks, etc. That will help you stay top of mind with them. 

Finally, once you are ready to launch your book, build a product launch funnel for it and start sending your subscribers one video per day so that the whole sequence would take four days to complete.

This approach works best for launching books, info products, and software but it can also work well for launching innovative physical products!

#7: Free Plus Shipping Funnel

The free plus shipping funnel is an advanced lead generation funnel where you use a physical product as your lead magnet and ask the potential customer to cover the shipping costs.

It has three pages:

1. A sales page where you pitch your free product.
2. A 2-step order form where the potential customer can make the purchase.
3. A thank you page where you thank the customer and explain what they should expect next.

For example, our co-founder Russell Brunson wrote three best-selling books about online marketing:

• “DotCom Secrets” (4.7 stars on Amazon with over 2,600 global ratings)
• “Traffic Secrets” (4.7 stars on Amazon with over 2,500 global ratings)
• “Expert Secrets” (4.7 stars on Amazon with over 2,000 global ratings)

You can get these books directly from us for free. All we ask is that you cover the shipping!

Here’s what the “DotCom Secrets” Value Ladder looks like:

We want to emphasize that our free plus shipping funnels are designed to generate leads for our software, info products, and masterminds. This is not about selling books.

In fact, if you are a writer and your book is your core product, then building a free plus shipping funnel for it doesn’t make sense. You’d be better off going with a simple squeeze page funnel where you use a free chapter as your lead magnet. 

However, if you are an entrepreneur, you might want to consider writing a book specifically for the purpose of generating leads for your business.

Ideally, you want to publish it on Amazon, send out review copies, and do a proper book launch with a product launch funnel.

Once you have a 4+ star rating and a bunch of reviews on Amazon, you can build a free plus shipping funnel for your book.

The reason why we advocate for publishing your book and getting reviews before building your funnel is because you want it to be a “real” book.

That way, the potential customers will feel like they are getting a great deal when you offer it to them for free.

Just make sure to find a reliable print-on-demand publisher so that you won’t have to order a bunch of copies in bulk and then store them and ship them yourself.

Needless to say, doing all that will take time, so perhaps this section is somewhat of a departure from our main subject of generating leads for a brand new business.

However, publishing a book can have outsized returns and help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. 

That’s what Russell did with “DotCom Secrets” which he published 2 years after launching ClickFunnels. 

So it might make sense to set aside 30 to 60 minutes every day to work on your book. At that pace, it should be ready for publishing in 2-3 years. Then you can use it to take your business to the next level!

Build Lead Generation Funnels for Your Business With ClickFunnels!

Our software, ClickFunnels, includes a template library where you can find lead generation templates and more to get up and running faster.

We also have an email marketing functionality that you can use to start, manage, and grow your email list.

All you need to do to build a lead generation funnel for your business is choose a template, customize it with our drag-and-drop page editor, and set up email marketing for it.

Once all that is done and your funnel is live, it’s time to start generating leads!

How to Drive Traffic to Your Lead Generation Funnels

#1: Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the best option for entrepreneurs who don’t have much spare time or disposable income but still want to build a side hustle without having to pay for advertising.

Getting started with it doesn’t require any money: you can simply pick a social media platform, create a profile, and start posting.

However, you might want to consider investing in a social media scheduling tool like Buffer or MeetEdgar because planning, creating, and scheduling content in advance can help you stay consistent.

Consistency is the secret to success on social media. If you can commit to publishing high-quality content every day for at least 36 months, you will probably manage to build a substantial following. But how can you turn those followers into leads?

Simple: promote your lead magnet in your bio with a short description and a call to action. As your following grows, more and more people are going to click on that link to check out your free offer.

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about building an audience on social media;

#2: Video Marketing

Video marketing is the best option for entrepreneurs who don’t have much money but do have a lot of free time and are comfortable with the idea of being on camera.

It’s a resource-intensive endeavor: to create a single YouTube video, you will need to find a promising keyword, do competitive research, write the script, shoot the video, edit it, create a thumbnail, upload it and then promote it as much as you can.

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about starting a YouTube channel:

In terms of filming equipment, all you need is a smartphone with a decent camera, a good microphone, and a camera light.

As for the video production, we recommend Descript for video editing and Firefly for creating thumbnails.

Also, you can use Opus Clip to repurpose your YouTube videos into YouTube and TikTok shorts and Instagram reels.

You can generate leads by promoting your lead magnet in your channel description, your video descriptions, and the videos themselves. 

Building a following will probably take at least 36 months, assuming that you upload high-quality long-form videos once a week to YouTube and engaging shorts every day to TikTok.

#3: Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is best suited for entrepreneurs who don’t have much time but do have money that they are willing to invest in ads.

Something to consider here is that running ads is a skill that has a steep learning curve. Realistically, you’ll be losing money until you figure out how to make your ad campaigns work.

We recommend choosing a platform that makes the most sense for your business, finding a reputable course on how to run ads on it on Udemy, and going through that course. That will give you a basic understanding of how it all works.

Then, create an ad campaign designed to promote your lead magnet and start running it with a small daily budget. Experiment with different concepts, visuals and copy until your campaign is profitable.

And if you realize that your potential customers simply aren’t interested in your lead magnet, go back to the drawing board and come up with something better. You need a free offer that resonates with your target audience. 

In theory, paid advertising allows you to get immediate traffic, but in practice, it will probably take quite a while until you get the hang of it. However, once you do, generating leads will become much easier!

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So we understand if you take what we say about it with a grain of salt.

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