This article on lead generation is written by guest blogger Ana Hoffman.

Lead generation is critical for every business. It's the process of attracting prospects to your business and ideally, converting them into clients.

This is something that shouldn't be done randomly: a strategic approach to head in the right direction is always helpful. Your sales team, knowing what entices your customers most, needs to be involved to select the best approaches to quantify your lead generation efforts. To focus your ability to generate leads, here are a few quick tips you should consider:

1. Lead generation requires the right tools

Lead generation requires you to keep track of your efforts and successes. There are lots of lead generation tools out there to help with your efforts. The right software provides better customer insights and focuses your strategies saving you time.

HubSpot is a well-known lead generation service that tracks keeps a record of all your leads in an organized way so you can effectively follow up.

Google Analytics is something you should be comfortable with as well. Not only is it free, but it helps analyze your website traffic and provides a record of your audience's activities. It tracks how many people visit your site, how long they spend on your website, how many – and which – pages they visit, the length of time they're on your website. Learn how to read your analytics here.

2.  Monitor your competition

You should know who your top competitors are and what what they might be doing to attract prospects.

Track what new services or marketing strategies they're providing. You can use their ideas or thoughts, add a bit of your knowledge and perspective to those ideas, and possibly come up with something a littler better.

3. Use social media to help your sales pipeline

Social media is helpful when you're thinking about lead generation. Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram can help you target audiences to generate traffic. But be aware each platform has it's benefits and restrictions. Read what some of Facebook's ad restrictions are here.

Develop top-notch content on your social media pages and direct your audience to more detailed landing pages on your website. Your content can be in the form of a blog post, or an existing landing page, with professional images that relate to your story.

Share videos highlighting your company’s expertise. However, make sure that you don’t talk only about your company, but about what benefits you bring to your customers. Remember: what you make isn't what you sell. You're not just selling yourself, your product or service: you're selling how what you offer benefits your audience. That's because everyone is more interested in what's in it for them, than they are about you. (Or us!)

Be sure to interact with your audience through social media so they develop a relationship with, and trust in, your organization.

4. Get an SSL certificate for your website

You can tell if a website is a secure site because the domain name starts with "https" (the "s" stands for "secure) instead of just "http." It's one of the least expensive and easiest investments to boost customer’s trust. Your hosting service might even offer one for free. If they don't, be sure to get an SSL certificate from another source.

For years, Google has marked websites without an SSL certificate as “Not Secure." With awareness of cybersecurity, people can be apprehensive to use websites that aren't secure. In turn, that could deter your prospects from purchasing or filling out online forms. In addition Google gives lower ranking to websites that aren't secure. Also, keep in mind you should update your Google Analytics once you get an SSL certificate installed on your website.

5. Quality over quantity

Let your sales team focus on quality over quantity. It's more beneficial that, out of 100 leads, 70% are converted to buyers rather than having 1000 leads with only a 20% conversion rate. This helps you save time and energy by not working with prospects who are not truly interested in buying. Your sales department's time is best spent focusing on fewer genuine buyers.

6. Make your CTA's stand out

Call-to-actions (CTA) are fundamental in converting a highly committed audience into buyers. This website shows examples of how good CTAs help direct prospects to your sales team.

Adding a free trial is a good option (if you can offer that). Most people might not purchase your product or service on their initial visit to your website. Letting them use a product or service for a defined period can boost their confidence, leading to a purchase. It also lets you gather customer details so you can keep in touch with them. Ask your prospects to subscribe to your e-newsletter if you have one. (And of you don't, you really should.)

Newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with both prospects and customers. Newsletters can highlight your expertise, share new trends and issues in your industry and talk about new products you might be planning to launch. See examples of e-newsletters here.

7.  Try A/B testing

Perform A/B testing on-page content, landing page layout, CTA's wording, and page design to see which variation might work better. 

You should continue to tweak your lead generation strategy. Try to develop three to four tests options to see which works best. Keep track of the data and use the information for future lead generation efforts.

Final thoughts

These are a few basic options you can use for your lead generation. Stay in touch with your sales team because they know what your customers' hot buttons are. Hopefully your business will expand by using some of these lead generation methods.

This article was written by Ana Hoffman. She can be reached at anahoffman98@gmail.com.