10 Proven Ways to Find Leads

1. Organic Traffic from Search Engines

Organic traffic includes potential clients who arrive at your website on their own, not through paid ads. The most effective ways to boost organic traffic are:

• regularly publishing relevant content on your website, such as news or blog articles,
• optimizing your website for SEO.
  
  

The more effort you put into these two areas, the higher search engine algorithms will rank you.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Simply put, affiliate marketing is about collaborating with other websites. Blogs, magazines, or other non-competing sites can promote your products or services, for example, in exchange for a backlink—or for a share of the revenue from successful orders generated by the clients they refer to your site.

However, keep in mind that only websites related to your product will bring in quality leads. If you’re selling hammer drills, a backlink on a hamster care website probably won’t help much.

3. Social Media

Find out which social media platforms your customers use most frequently, and then explore ways to reach them. In B2B business, this is most often LinkedIn, where you can easily connect with key company managers or buyers.

We’ve covered how to use LinkedIn for sales in more detail in a separate article.

4. Direct Marketing

Direct marketing means reaching out to potential customers directly. The goal is to prompt them to take action—such as subscribing to a newsletter, visiting your website, or even making a purchase.

Direct marketing comes in many forms, including:

• sending personalized sales emails,
• targeting paid online ads,
• handing out flyers,
• or calling customers—known as cold calling.
  
  

We cover when and how cold calling makes sense in a separate article.

5. In-Person Meetings at Events

Trade fairs, conferences, or networking events—these are just a few examples of opportunities to meet potential customers. A brief interaction and a business card exchange or a LinkedIn connection request is all it takes to gain a lead. Live events offer great opportunities for salespeople to start building a closer relationship with potential customers right from the first contact.

6. Referrals

They say a satisfied customer is the best marketing—and that’s exactly what referrals are based on. If you have very satisfied clients with whom collaboration works perfectly, take advantage of it:

• write or record a case study with them,
• offer them discount codes for their contacts,
• or ask them for a testimonial for your website.

7. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing is still a suitable way to find leads for companies whose clients don’t spend much time online. This includes:

• TV commercials,
• radio ads,
• billboards,
• advertising in newspapers and magazines.

8. Guest Posting

Publishing expert articles on well-established websites in your industry is not only a great way to generate leads. It also signals to potential customers that you are an expert in your field, helping you quickly earn their trust.

9. Landing Pages

A landing page is the first page potential customers "land" on when they visit your website. It could be your homepage, a product page, or even a blog post. However, some companies create dedicated landing pages focused on a specific customer group or keyword they are searching for.

For example, if a company manufactures swimming pools, they might create a seasonal landing page that highlights the best time to place an order so customers can enjoy their pool in summer—and include an order form. The landing page can then be promoted through performance advertising.

10. Performance Advertising

PPC ads and social media ads are among the most popular lead generation methods because they can attract a large number of leads in a short time. On the other hand, they don’t contribute to long-term business growth, so it’s wise to combine them with strategies like improving organic traffic (see point 1).