11 Lead Generation Hacks

I’m more of an SEO guy than a LeadGen but I’ve also done a ton of Lead Generation growth hacking. In this resource, I list out some of my favorite Lead Generation hacks. I hope that they work for you as they did for me.

Lead Generation Hacks 1: Use Proxies For A 10x Approach

Why be one person when you can be ten?

I absolutely don’t condone breaking any laws but I’m all for bending terms of service to get results for my clients.

One of those approaches is the use of proxies and cookie-swapping with everything that I do online.

I encourage my clients to create multiple accounts on social media.

This hack is to create at least a dozen accounts (preferably Gmail accounts) so that you can register accounts on LinkedIn, Quora, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.

So, let’s carry on with the method behind this growth hack (or strategy).

It’s better to start by buying pre-registered Gmail accounts to get this process going. Why Gmail? Because you can then create other (social media) accounts using the Google social login.

You’ll need to be quite technical here so bear with me.

If it’s too technical for you then give this hack to someone in your office to do it on your behalf.

Then, head over to the Chrome AddOn store and install the following AddOns “Swap My Cookies” and “SwitchyOmega”.

Here’s what we are trying to achieve, we want to install the proxies (which are IP’s) into our Google Chrome Browser so that every time we comment or take an action using one of our accounts it seems as if that user is coming from the same location in the world.

So, if you had a user “Sally” then “Sally” would always log in from (for example) New York City.

Why do we need to do this?

If we don’t deploy these tactics then a pattern can be detected and the accounts will be closed down.

Whilst having ten different accounts won’t move the needle too much with regards to boosting Quora or Reddit posts (I’d suggest using Microworkers or MTurks for that) you can use the accounts to post the initial content and get it going.

Lead Generation Hacks 2: Say Hello to Hello Bar

This next five-minute growth hack will genuinely take you five minutes.

Whilst there are at least a dozen effective tools that can do the job which we’ll outline in this hack, the Hello Bar is effective because it does it well and it does it fast.

What is a Hello Bar?

It’s a prominent ribbon that sits on the top of your website with a strong and enticing Call To Action message.

Adding a hello bar to your website or blog is a simple but effective conversion trick for desktop and mobile. “Hello Bars” automatically scroll with a user in order to ensure you are constantly providing users with a CTA.

It’s free, but you’ll have to include their logo or if you’d rather not have their logo then you’ll need to pay for the premium version.

What’s good about the Hello Bar is that you can track your clicks and conversions from the color of the ribbon (or strip if you prefer to call it that) and your copywriting and adjust accordingly.

Simply applying this tool will almost certainly give a boost to your sign-ups and conversions.

Personally, I use my own code to achieve this identical effect which can easily be coded by a developer. If you’re using the GeneratePress WordPress theme then you can activate an “element” to place as a ribbon.

Most themes within WordPress do allow you to insert a ribbon on the top too, I mentioned GeneratePress because it’s a favorite of mine and I know that it can add this feature out of the box.

I’ve also used and have had success with a Hello Bar called “Holler Box” (available on WordPress) which is just as good – and free!

Lead Generation Hacks 3: Add A Negative Statement To A Popup

Rather than just having an “x” to close a popup, use a negative statement that makes people reconsider your offer.

The same also applies to the “unsubscribe” message in an email. Here’s a nice one I read recently:

“Don’t want to receive helpful emails that will take your game to the top? Click here”

Such evocative language can trigger regret avoidance association and for the most part, you’ll almost certainly see an uptick in performance from a lack of unsubscribers to fewer dropouts.

Naturally, you can’t polish a turd so make sure you’re constantly finding ways to improve your product or service.

Lead Generation Hacks 4: Pirate Bay Torrent Hack

Some people will simply never buy from you.

Period.

They’ll never buy from you either because they are perpetually broke or simply because they don’t want to.

Whilst we can ignore these people, I’d suggest that we leave nothing off the table with regards to finding a use for this type of person.

If you have a popular course on Udemy, for example, then it’s almost guaranteed that your content will be shared for free (illegally) on a Peer-To-Peer torrent sharing site.

So, why not just beat the pirate and upload a shortened version of your content and offer the viewers a discount or promo should they want the entire course or content, perhaps even a donation or similar, or try to send that traffic to your site.

Driving traffic back to your money site using this tactic can work pretty well and you’re not doing anything illegal.

This hack is inspired by the fact that illegal uploaders sometimes watermark a link to their website or other on the content they’ve illegally uploaded.

Lead Generation Hacks 5: Scrape Instagram For Emails

I’ve seen and used many hacks to get emails from Instagram, but by far this is the best that I have ever used.

For this growth hack, we need to turn to Scrapebox and use a Google dork.

I’ve covered a lot of Google dorks throughout my site, but for this particular trick this is what we will need:

"@gmail.com" OR "@yahoo.com" OR "@ymail.com" OR "@live.com" OR "@hotmail.com" OR "@outlook.com" OR "@aol.com" OR "@zoho.com" OR "@mail.com" OR "@icloud.com" site:instagram.com

When I ran the above test Google found 14 million emails.

OK – clearly we need to drill down into those to find emails specific to our use case.

So, let’s modify the dork to suit our needs.

Let’s stick with the pet niche which I’ve referred to on other occasions.

Using the same string lets append the words “pet care”:

“pet care” "@gmail.com" OR "@yahoo.com" OR "@ymail.com" OR "@live.com" OR "@hotmail.com" OR "@outlook.com" OR "@aol.com" OR "@zoho.com" OR "@mail.com" OR "@icloud.com" site:instagram.com

And, great!

After less than a second I’ve generated 2,500 emails from Instagram profiles that have emails and are in the “Pet Care” niche.

Next, we fire up Scrapebox, add the above dork, hit scrape and it will scrape all the URLs that contain the emails.

The final step is to use the “grab email” in Scrapebox and scrape all the emails from the URLs we’ve obtained.

Now, what good is this?

What value do these emails give us?

Aside from contacting them directly, you could also use those emails for “look-alike” profiles for Facebook advertising.

This hack works great and the way that the search engines are built means that this trick will remain possible in the coming years.

Lead Generation Hacks 6: Loom Video Is Now Standard. Use It!

This is a mega-simple but brilliant tool you have to start using ASAP.

Sending emails to potential clients, existing clients or customers is all well and good but to really relay your message and make sure it is crystal clear, make it into a video.

Install loom and you’ll be able to create videos (with or without you being in it) in a much more engaging way.

Trust me on this, a hack like this will propel your relationship with all your stakeholders.

There’s even a free version!

Let’s take an example.

Imagine that you have an inquiry from a prospective lead. Rather than sending them a generic email with a great copy, go ahead and record them a two-minute video introducing yourself and addressing your prospect by their name, and demonstrating your service and how it would help them.

I’m positive using a tool like Loom will boost your sales.

Try it and see.

Lead Generation Hacks 7: Clearbit LeadGen Autopilot

If you want a one-stop data enrichment tool then this is it: Clearbit.

Whilst being on the pricey side it does pack a major punch with regards to being able to turn all your data into leads.

For example, the platform comes with an enrichment tool that is able to turn any email or domain into a full person or company profile.

Phatombuster and other tools mentioned throughout my site can all do the same, but this is a service that Clearbit does really well.

Another feature of this tool is the ability to turn your anonymous web traffic into full company profiles, i.e. it allows you to see who is hitting your site.

Matomo is an open-source web analytics tool that can also do this for free, but Clearbit is more effective and accurate.

If you’re looking for a one-stop solution to all your data enrichment needs then I would certainly recommend Clearbit.

Lead Generation Hacks 8: Scrape For Shopify Store Emails With ScrapeBox

If you’re wanting to get more B2B leads, backlinks, or want to contact Shopify store owners, then this hack has you covered.

You need to do two things:

• Run a Google Dork;
• Have a copy of Scrapebox

Step 1, enter this into Google:

.myshopify.com + keyword

Of course, change “keyword” with your preferred niche keyword, preferably industry-related, and you’ll see that it will pull up hundreds (if not thousands) of stores that are within your niche.

Next, to get the emails, we open up Scrapebox, enter the Dork and enter the keyword. Use Google as our preferred search engine to use in Scrapebox and it will scrape all the domains that we saw on the results page on Google.

Next, we scrape those URLs for emails and that’s it!

Now, open up Lemlist, Mailshake, or GMass and you’ll be in touch with these store owners in no time at all.

Lead Generation Hacks 9: Happy Birthday To You Growth Hack!

Birthdays: We all have one.

Knowing a prospect’s birthday is a fantastic opportunity to reach out and convert, and that’s what we’re interested in.

Many companies contact their customers with a “Happy Birthday” message, but I’m suggesting a different approach.

Here’s the suggestion: target your prospects a month BEFORE their birthday.

How do we get this data for potential leads that we haven’t connected with?

Simple, turn to Phantombuster, and use it to scrape LinkedIn.

Interestingly, LinkedIn, when scraped correctly (using Phantombuster and proxies), provides a ton of information on leads. For example, the scraped data for individuals on LinkedIn will provide information on where they studied, their phone numbers, and important for this hack, their birthday!

Now, whilst LinkedIn does NOT provide you with the year of their birth you’ll be able to find out their actual day and month of about 30% of your scraped list, and that’s ideal. Besides, we are more interested in their actual day and month.

Once you’ve scraped a ton of leads that are applicable to your niche you can filter their birthdays and send out cold emails one or two months BEFORE their actual date.

Here’s an example of this hack that I used in Hong Kong.

I advised a client, who owns a bunch of restaurants, to send their regular customers an email two months before their birthday inviting them to a 30% discount for their Birthday. Low and behold, reservations went up and their email reach-out became automated.

A tool that works great for this is called Jarvee that will automate your outreach based upon sending out automated emails on a set date before the recipient’s birthday.

Lead Generation Hacks 10: Scrape Conferences For Your LeadGen Outreach

Conferences, either held online (Webinars) or physically, are a fantastic place to scrape leads and make connections within your industry.

For example, from an SEO perspective, you can scrape the speakers at an event and email them asking their opinion on subject matter that you can then produce content on.

When you email the speakers, ask them to reply to questions you’ve created on a Google Form.

Don’t agree to a “phone interview” or an “in-person” interview, instead insist on sending them the questions either by email or an online form because the chances are that when the recipient starts typing they’ll get in the mood and end up writing some prime SEO keyword-rich content that you can then rank for.

The other hack here (with regards to scraping conferences) is that you can see who has sponsored the event. Why is that important? Because it tells you who has the budget to spend on marketing.

And yet another hack here (in tandem with the SEO suggestion) is to connect with the speakers on LinkedIn. They are likely to be influential within their space so why not connect with them?

Tools to automate these tasks would include Data Miner or Phantombuster

Lead Generation Hacks 11: Expensive But Good If You’re Lazy: Rocket Reach

Whilst my favorite growth hacking tool is Phantombuster I’d recommend RocketReach for all the lazy folks out there.

RocketReach does what Phatombuster does without the tweaking and usage of proxies.

So why not just go with RocketReach?

The reason is the cost!

RocketReach can get very expensive.

What is RocketReach?

The tool can verify data for 430 million professionals across 17 million companies, worldwide.

RocketReach helps with prospecting, connecting, and conversing with your leads.

I’ve included this tool as a hack because even if used for five minutes a day and you’ll generate more than enough leads for that day alone.