6 Crucial Lead Gen Tips for 2023

So, it’s 2023, and given the current economic situation, generating marketing-qualified leads for your business has never been more challenging. 

How many of your site visitors know what they want and fully understand how you serve those needs– usually less than 4 in every 100. Those numbers are staggering. 

With that in mind, you need to optimise and capitalise on every opportunity– and based on these stats, the simplest way isn’t to “get more traffic”– it’s to engage your existing traffic differently.

In this article, we’ll give you six tangible actions you can take to kick-start your lead-generation goals for 2023. (If you’re not using these tips as we roll into the new year, you may find yourself behind the curve.)

Let’s get started.

Boost Your Lead Generation in 2023

1. Know Who Your Buyers Are

This may sound simple, but having a clear understanding of who you’re trying to reach is one of the most overlooked facets of lead generation. Many companies have no idea who their ideal customer is. By taking the time to look at the available data, you can learn who your buyers truly are and what they’re connecting with that leads to a sale. 

One of the richest data sources is live chat transcripts and behavioural stats. Using this information, you can find patterns such as repeated keywords, consistent behaviours, frequently asked questions, and more. Using this data, you can make product recommendations, proactively answer questions, and move site visitors further along the sales funnel smoothly.

Taking this one step further, you can use live chat to target specific customers. For example, if you’re looking to grow in specific markets, you can proactively engage those customers in conversation based on their location. The possibilities are virtually endless. Using live chat will give you a clearer picture of who your buyers are– and the tools to convert them.

2. The Right Content for Your Target Audience

It’s an easy mistake, but many companies assume they know exactly what their site visitor’s problems are. But remember the stat from earlier? You may even get lucky and hit the 10% accuracy mark, but why guess? This is low-hanging fruit for improvement. 

Using conversation, you can begin to understand each visitor’s unique position in your sales funnel. Here are some examples of people you’ll want to reach with conversation and specific content:

• Unaware: these are the people you need to educate about who you are and how you can solve their problems.
• Problem Aware: These people know they have a problem and are considering you as a solution in the market.
• Solution Aware: These people know you are one of multiple solutions, and you’re trying to win them over. 

As you can see, it’s key that you listen to what the market is telling you and shape your content in a way that reaches people in all the stages of your buying funnel. 

Using live chat and a well-planned content strategy, you can meet each of these buyers where they’re at with relevant content to their journey. This results in more people going through each stage of your funnel, bringing increased leads and sales.

3. Engaging in Real Time

In any sales process, timing is key. Any delays can cause prospects to abandon the sale, but conversely, if you act too quickly, you can come across as too “salesy” and overly eager. So how do you know the perfect time to engage? And what’s the best channel to engage with?

There will always be a time and place to use forms and email (and even phone calls). But at the speed of today’s modern commerce, you have to be able to respond, and pivot to customer needs almost instantly. You can look at a few key indicators using live chat and make data-driven decisions. 

With live chat, you can see key metrics such as:

• How long has a user been on the page
• Which products or services are they browsing
• The content they’ve downloaded
• Pricing call to actions
• For eCommerce - what items they have in their shopping cart
• Much more

Using these metrics and live chat conversations to interact with buyers in real-time, you’re connecting with them when their interest is at a peak. You’re also connecting with curious site visitors proactively to turn them into buyers potentially.

4. Take a Proactive Approach

Another strategy to drive leads using real-time engagement is to use a proactive approach. Many businesses using live chat make the mistake of taking a reactive approach where they’re waiting for the prospect to engage with them. But you can actually see much stronger stats by taking a proactive approach. 

Proactive doesn’t mean pushy– it’s just enough interaction to bring people into a conversation. It has to be thoughtful, well-timed, and meaningful, or the connection won’t be made, and you’ll likely do more harm than good. 

This is even more crucial when talking about high-ticket items. Using a white glove, VIP, proactive approach on these pages can give online buyers the experience they deserve for items of higher value. A bespoke, proactive approach is key, whether it’s a Software as a Service subscription for £1,200 per month or a mattress for £1,650 (or anything else). Warm, one-on-one conversation allows customers to have peace of mind and feel valued from the first touchpoint of the sale.

‍5. Personalise Where You Can

Everyone strives to deliver a personalised experience, but it can be costly and challenging to do that at scale. Many channels are limited and have a damaging impact when the “personalisation” attempt feels phoney.

Enter live chat, the powerful way to personalise the user journey. When customers navigate your site, a personalised experience can be the difference between a sale and a curious browser. Live chat delivers a unique experience that;

• Uses the customer’s name
• Sends specific proactive messages based on pages they’re visiting
• Gives specific product recommendations
• Recommends coupons based on items in the cart
• Chat histories
• And much more

Using live chat, you can also strengthen and personalise other marketing efforts. By leveraging the data gathered in chats and UTM parameters for your marketing campaign, you can tailor a visitor’s marketing experience based on past behaviour. Live chat can allow you to put variables into other marketing channels that can auto-populate based on how you want the user to navigate on your site– i.e., taking advantage of your next sale.

6. Saving Lost Opportunities

If people are on your site, they are somewhere in your sales funnel. As we mentioned, they’re either unaware, problem-aware, or solution aware (as discussed in point 2). It’s a big mistake to assume their position in your funnel. Instead of guessing, use conversation to find out where they are– and save lost opportunities. 

If a user demonstrates exit-intent behaviour, this can be for many reasons. They didn’t find what they were looking for; they don’t believe in your product, and pricing could be a sticking point– the list goes on and on. 

Live chat can help you save lost opportunities by engaging at that critical moment when the user is about to exit the page. It can use the right key phrase at the perfect moment, such as “Did you find everything you’re looking for today?”

This opens up a conversation with a site visitor planning on exiting and uses conversation to create an opportunity to let them share their unique scenario or problem. This is a powerful way to use conversation to capture opportunities that would otherwise be lost.

Fancy More Lead Gen Tips?

These are just some tips– and a handful of examples– of how you can boost your lead generation in 2023. Here at The Chat Shop, we work with companies of all sizes to improve lead generation– from global PLCs to start-ups and everything in-between.

We’d love to hear who your ideal customer is and share insights on capturing more opportunities– all via live chat. 

Chat with one of our live agents now to find out more.