43 Ways to Generate More Leads with Inbound Marketing

We often talk about lead generation as part of inbound marketing. But not all leads come from your website — off-site marketing is important, too.
For small-to-medium businesses, here are 43 ideas to generate more leads:

1. If you have a retail outlet, put the old fishbowl on the counter and collect business cards. Remember to add them to your lead nurturing campaign before throwing them out!
2. Tell everyone about your business. They may not be a good prospect, but they know other people.
3. Ask you happy customers for referrals. This is easy, but often overlooked.
4. Join online social networking groups. Answer questions and offer help to those in need. Look for industry-specific social media platforms.
5. Be a guest blogger. Great inbound links, and an opportunity to talk to a different audience.
6. Make sure your email signature is a marketing tool, with a link to your blog.
7. Promote your blog posts in social media. Use Hootsuite or a similar tool that allows you to bulk upload your 140-character messages.
8. Go to industry events, conferences, associations, seminars. Lead one of these seminars.
9. Maintain a regular email newsletter, in addition to your lead nurturing program.
10. Create and promote a free tele-seminar or webinar.
11. Interview someone who is a leader in your industry, or in your targeted industry. Blog about the interview.
12. Use press releases to reach out to a larger audience. Be newsworthy and let the press know about it.
13. Create an ebook and offer it for free on your website or blog.
14. Give a seminar to local business groups or community organizations.
15. Comments on other blogs to draw people back to your site.
16. Do some pro-bono work for your favorite charity or non-profit organization.
17. Create a discussion group on Linkedin.
18. Socialize and always have your business cards with you. Create a special report and offer to send it to them if they give you their business card.
19. Join an industry organization and get listed as a member in it.
20. Create an online radio or TV show and provide it free for web visitors.
21. Create a video for viewers to watch and share — post it on your YouTube channel.
22. Create a Facebook Fan page and offer specials and contests. Engage your fans.
23. Create a Twitter account and offer specials and contests.
24. Participate in a virtual trade show.
25. Pitch articles to to newspapers, magazines, and online outlets.
26. Send promotions for your products or services with your invoices.
27. Cross-market with outher businesses.
28. Join a Chamber of Commerce.
29. If you’re a woman-owned business, join the National Association of Women Business Owners.
30. Add social media buttons to your blog, making it easy for people to share your content.
31. List your company in online business directories.
32. Holidays are your friend! Send a clever holiday greeting to clients showing your work.
33. Promote a free first consulation service.
34. Offer to speak at industry and networking events.
35. Submit tutorials or how-to’s to websites.
36. Search-optimize your website and get more Google traffic.
37. Have a follow up conversation with all potential leads
38. Keep in touch with freelancers that will offer clients a complementary service to yours and throw each other work.
39. Create a local business directory and use it to get to know other business owners who might later need your services.
40. Go out there and meet people, communicate and build relationship.  Be genuine, track conversations and respond to inquiries promptly and thoroughly.
41. Drive prospects to your website by having information and educational content about design and development that they (not you) care about. Capture their contact info via your web site.
42. Set up a network of complementary professionals and colleagues who want to help each other succeed. Meet for lunch to exchange leads and ideas.
43. Using your network of professionals, encourage them to launch blogs, start reading each others blogs, leave comments for each other, link to each other when they can and promote each other by sending each other’s articles to other people.