What is Freelance Lead Generation?
Freelance lead generation business requires that you a freelancer acquire leads for clients who could then sell a product or service to these leads. Afterward, your clients pay you a fee for your ability to direct intended demand towards their products and services.
In (B2B) Business to Business lead generation, clients will pay you for every lead generated as long as these leads meet specific criteria. So you actually don’t have to wait for your leads to make a purchase for you to pay for that lead.
Whereas, in other referral models, like affiliate sales, your lead has to make a purchase before you can actually get paid.
How to start Freelance Lead Generation Business in 6 Steps
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Freelance lead generation isn’t a straightforward or easy job, there is a lot of requirements, strategies, and skills required for you to be profitable in the business of freelance lead generation.
To successfully start up a lead generation business as a freelance, some of the fundamental requirements are stated as follows.
1. Pick a Niche
The very first step is to pick a niche or category of products or services you plan to sell. By choosing the right thing to sell will dictate your success in the business of lead generation services.
You need to consider how much knowledge about that market you have, how much your prospective clients can make in Long Term Value from your lead, how competitive the market is and if the market is saturated.
The first thing you should work on is to list out all the markets you desire and dream of becoming an expert in. And from this list, you can pick the ones that are least competitive, meaning they aren’t yet saturated and you could make the most commission from them.
Make sure to narrow it down to the category with the least or minimal competition in lead generation. By doing so, you will improve your chances of success in lead generation services.
2. Build Relationships With Clients
The next step is to start building relationships with prospective clients who might need you to lead generation services.
One of the ways you can do this is to sell your leads to your clients at a good price.
Also, you should make a list of companies that are operating in the niche that you wish to work with.
Then make use of social network platforms like LinkedIn to find people in Sales and Demand Generation roles that you can approach and sell leads to. You can also send out emails to potential clients too.
You can use these emails to stay in touch and build a relationship with your clients. And don’t forget to take advantage of project management software for individuals that can help you organize all of your efforts.
3. Create a Commissions / Fee Structure
Before you finalize the terms, make sure you have a clear overview of the entire aspects you want to bill your clients on.
Mind you, there are standard rates already which stipulates that for bigger ticket products fees per lead ranges between $100-$500 and lower products cost less.
These rates can be adjusted by you but make sure not to set outrageous rates. Else you discourage your prospective clients. Your model could be such that the more leads you convert, the more your fee. This is still a very reasonable approach.
4. Develop Effective Marketing Resources
You should develop marketing resources includes web contents such as websites, landing pages, blogs, e-books, podcast etc. These contents act as magnets that will attract leads who are looking for specific information.
After designing your content, you should also make them visible and accessible online. Because if your leads can not find these resources, your chances of capturing them will never be realistic.
You can make this content visible by utilizing effective SEO practices to rank your content on search engines. You can also share or post them on social network platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
You can also get your content out to a large audience and capture more leads by making use of lead generation campaigns and ads on your website.
5. Properly Nurture Leads Before Handing To Clients
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After you have successfully using your Marketing channels and lead generation campaigns to capture leads, you must make sure their probability of conversion is high enough before you hand them over to your clients.
This process can be achieved by enrolling them in a lead nurturing program whereby you can exchange more information with your lead and help raise their level of interest in your clients’ products or services.
This process is very important for you as a freelancer, because it makes certain that you are passing on quality leads to your clients and will help your client have better conversion which is the main goal.
6. Results Tracking And Optimization
Tracking and analyzing conversion data that are coming from your leads is a very important process in carrying out optimization.
After you have begun passing on leads to your clients, make sure to ask them to share their conversion funnel metrics with you.
In case you have different channels set up for your lead acquisition process, this conversion funnel metrics data will help you decide which channel to prioritize on.
This data will also help you in the process of re-negotiate terms with your clients. For instance, if your clients have actually been getting consistent conversions from your leads, you will need this data in order to re-negotiate your fee and also to run your business more efficiently.
Top 25 Freelance Lead Generation Strategies
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1. Create Captivating Success Stories
Success Stories is a very important marketing tool that can be used during every stage of the customer journey. Because they tell the wider and more detailed story of a project, they tell the story from start to finish.
Your clients’ case studies or success stories give your new prospects the opportunity to see how you helped a specific client achieve their objectives recently. It also enlightens your prospects about your services, client experience, and your ability to meet their business needs.
2. Answer Questions
Reach out to your ideal clients online on discussion boards, online communities and other social network platforms where they spend their time online. While there, make sure to give them as much helpful information as possible on a topic in your field of expertise.
This will make people see you as a true expert in that field and will in turn build their confidence in you. And you will eventually become their go-to resource and trusted service provider.
3. Posting Quality And Informative Contents Regularly
If you already have a blog setup, make sure that you publish new content to your blog regularly. The idea is to keep your clients or prospects coming to you regularly for information. It also proves your level of competence and wealth of knowledge.
And while you are focused on posting blog posts regularly, you must make sure that your contents are credible and well researched and fully useful and valid facts only.
If you are using social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc, also make sure you publish valuable posts regularly too, and always reply to their comments as much as you can. And follow up on their questions too.
4. Engage in Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is when you contribute to another person’s blog site aside from posting on your own blog. When you engage in guest blogging, it allows you to gain exposure, visibility, and access to a whole new set of audiences for your name, brand, and expertise.
5. Start A Podcast
When you start a podcast and on it, you interview other experts, service providers, and product owners who serve the same market you do it serves as a fast way to expand your network, earn you valuable connections, and tremendously increase your visibility. Additionally, don’t neglect the use of podcast promotion services to attract new listeners and broaden your audience.
6. Be A Guest on A Podcast
Even before starting up your own podcast, you can take your time to research which podcast targets the same audience or client segment that you do.
You should learn everything you can about those podcasts so that you can identify those that would be the most mutually beneficial to you.
You should also consider becoming a guest on these podcasts in order to create awareness and expand your brand visibility.
7. Engage in Public Talks
When you do this, you ultimately position yourself as an authority figure and an expert.
After speaking at an event make sure you are present and available to answer attendee questions and chat up the crowd.
8. Join A Leads Group
This is quite different from traditional networking groups. In lead groups, members pass active leads to other members of the group and at each meeting.
Members focus on exchanging leads for, referrals and building relationships.
9. Attend Large Conferences And Large Events
By attending networking events you can expand your brand visibility. When you attend large national or international conferences, you’ll find a large number of people who fit your ideal client description.
10. Also Sponsor Conferences And Large Events
Sponsoring an event or two gain increases your brand exposure and gives you an opportunity to speak and be highlighted in front of the room, or be showcased individually.
11. Engage in Volunteering
It is very helpful to be involved in some type of volunteerism and to get involved in fundraisers for social causes that you believe in.
This isn’t only one of the easiest ways to give back to your community but also a way to expand your network with high-level influencers and well-connected professionals.
Volunteering is a means of building relationships and getting to know others involved on a personal level.
12. Leverage Your Email Signature
You can leverage your email signature to include a call to action or promotion for a new service you are offering, a new lead magnet, a special event, or a sale.
13. Utilize the Holidays
Take advantage of the holidays to reach out to all your clients and subscribers and lead. Send out a holiday-related message with an update on what’s going on with your company.
Also share information about the new services you offer.
14. Invest In Re-marketing And Pay-Per-Click Ads
Re-marketing means serving targeted ads to people who have previously visited your website. When you invest in Re-marketing and Pay-Per-Click advertising, it makes those who have visited your website continue to search and browse your website online.
15. Make Use of Social Media Ads
Advertising through social media platforms like Facebook enhances your ability as an advertiser to target very specific parameters with your ads.
Social media advertising also helps to boost your brand visibility and recognition. It leads viewers to the next logical step such as opting-in to a free offer or registering for a webinar, liking a page, or it could even be to take advantage of a sale.
16. Make Use of YouTube
YouTube is technically the second largest search engine in the world and this makes Youtube a very important platform you must make use of as a Lead generation expert/freelancer.
17. Make Sure To Follow Up Regularly
You should make sure that following up regularly on prospects is a habit you inculcate fully. You can follow up by sending handwritten notecards, sending regular personal emails.
You can also establish a regular connection through email automation, social media, or making regular phone calls.
The more you focus on following up with connections and conversations, you will be able to build stronger relationships, greater credibility, and trust among your prospects, and this will earn you more business.
18. Make sure to Convert Email Subscribers
Converting your email subscribers should be your ultimate goal when preparing and sending newsletters out to them.
Make sure that in every email newsletter update you send, you include at least one call to action for them to take the next step which could be to book an appointment, buy, or hire you.
19. Properly Utilise Cold Emails
Before sending out any cold email to prospects, your ultimate goal should be to get the entire email read and to eventually make your prospects convert.
Therefore you must make sure that the contents of the email are catchy and compelling. And at the end of the email, you close with a call to action.
20. Always Create Lead Magnets
Many people will visit your website daily but not all your website visitor is ready to hire you or buy from you right away. Some will first need to get to know you and gain trust in you before they’re ready to make a purchase.
Make sure to add lead magnets on your website. These could be in form of video training, ebooks, Surveys, Quizzes, webinars etc.
21. Offer Complimentary Consultations
Give prospective clients a free consultation. Offer them free mini-sessions with you to get help on something small, to pick your brain, or to get some advice. By doing this, you will get an opportunity to show them how amazing you are.
It will also be an avenue to share some opportunities with them to take the next step.
22. Share Your Content Across Several Channels
It is not enough to simply publish content on your own websites only. Many business owners task themselves with only publishing content regularly to their blog.
You should not only post regularly on your website or blog, make sure to share the links on several social media platforms as well.
By doing this you can get a much bigger audience from the large numbers of prospects that come across your content via the social network platforms
You can achieve this by first publishing the original post to your blog and market it seriously. Then, after a few weeks, publish the same post on social network platforms and link back to the original article.
After that, you should then publish the same article on LinkedIn and link back to the original article.
23. Make Use of A Direct Mail Campaign
Utilizing the Direct mail campaigns really doe work, but you’ve got to get creative too. But you have to utilize a more custom approach.
For instance, you could use a colorful envelope, this will make your marketing piece a unique size. You can also put it in a box, or handwriting your message.
Also, make sure to send several pieces of direct mail campaigns over time.
24. Hosting A Contest
This is a good strategy but it also comes with its own risks so, you must exercise extra caution when creating or hosting contests.
One of the primary goals of a general contest is to add thousands of people to your list. And this is indeed a nice idea. But the possible downside is to end up having a bloated list of non-ideal leads.
If you must offer a contest ever at all, make sure to keep it as specific as possible, and make sure it is of value to your ideal clients.
25. Make Use Of Search Engine Optimization
Your existence and access to information about your existence by the public is what will really make your business thrive.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is simply the process of increasing traffic to a website by making sure that the site appears high on search engine results pages.
It helps new people who are looking for the content you have created and the services you offer discover your website.
Conclusion
There are a large number of prospective clients out there that you can sell leads to. When you end up getting paid for every lead you generate. The outcome reveals the fact that lead generation business is a really attractive opportunity.
As a Freelancer, trying to find a balance between serving your existing clients and finding new clients can be very challenging, but with all the above mention strategies, you are set for success