Lead Generation Best Practices That Help You Find New Customers

In a crowded online marketplace, successful marketers are attracting potential customers by using lead generation tools. These tools are designed to help you find and encourage potential customers (also known as "contacts" or "leads") to reach out to your business to express their interest, enabling you to build and nurture relationships until they are ready to make a purchase.

Help ensure your lead generation efforts are as effective as possible by leveraging key tactics.

Offer more ways to connect

Appeal to more audiences by offering more ways to connect through lead generation tools that help people reach out via different modes of communication, such as forms, calls or messages. Consider how your prospective customers may prefer to reach out and communicate to express their interest in your business. Lead generation tools from Meta help you show ads on Instagram and Facebook, enabling people to easily get in touch.

For example, with lead ads, potential customers can complete a customizable, mobile-first contact form, (or Instant Form), so they can easily provide relevant information without leaving the app. With ads that click to message, you can prompt people to chat with your business on Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp. Call ads make it easy for people to contact your business over the phone by including a "Call now" call-to-action button. Try experimenting with one or more ways to connect with people to determine what works best for you and your potential customers.

Build impactful lead generation ad creative

It's important to create advertising assets that communicate your brand and encourage potential customers to engage. Whichever lead generation ad type you choose, you can make them stand out with these tips for developing impactful ad creative — just like Delhicious Body, a London-based skincare business, who used simple video and eye-catching images in its lead ads to help drive newsletter signups and Instant Forms to gain insights about their prospective customer base.

It's best practice to clearly communicate the value a potential customer will receive when they reach out to your business. For example, visually showing your product or service in action gives people a preview of what you may be asking them about in your contact form, call or chat.

If you're directing potential customers to a lead ad, reinforce your brand with a form image that reflects your brand identity. Leverage the copy on your lead ad's contact form to remind people what it is they're signing up for, or provide value by describing a special offer. This space can also be used to answer a frequently asked question that might help your potential customer make a purchasing decision.

Manage your leads

Once potential customers respond to your lead generation efforts, it can be challenging to view and keep track of each lead. To do this, you'll need effective ways to organize and maintain the information you receive from your contacts, so that you can quickly build relationships with those most likely to become customers. There are integrations and tools that can help you manage and communicate as your prospects respond to your ads.

For example, many businesses use CRM (customer relationship management) software to help manage their leads. By integrating your CRM with Meta technologies, you'll no longer need to manually download your leads and save them in spreadsheets or upload them to other tools you're using. You can also manage your leads directly through leads center¹, a tool from Meta that helps you easily organize and re-engage with your leads. You can use leads center to track and categorize your leads with organizational features like setting reminders to follow up, assigning an owner to your leads or adding notes to their contact information.

Follow up quickly

What happens after you receive your leads as a result of all your efforts? Set expectations with your team internally regarding how fast you all intend to follow up with potential customers. The faster you respond to leads, the more likely it is they will become customers later. In fact, leads are 9x more likely to convert when businesses follow up within 5 minutes².

You should also set expectations with the potential new customer on next steps and promptly request any other information you may need from them. For example, if you're an interior design business, you may ask for photos or measurements of a room.

Reaching and connecting with new people can be key for long term business growth. Keeping these tips in mind can help you optimize your lead generation strategy, and can help make the difference between a curious consumer and a new customer.

Interested in getting started? Learn more about lead generation tools on Meta technologies.