How To Effectively Use Twitter For Lead Generation

Last updated on May 7th, 2024 at 06:03 am

Twitter can be a great place to source leads.

But you need to be strategic about it if you want to harness the power of this platform to grow your online business.

Want to learn how to generate leads on Twitter?

Continue reading…

How to Grow Your Twitter Following

In order to consistently generate leads on Twitter, you need to have a sizeable following on this platform.

But how can you build one if you are starting from scratch?

Clearly Define Your Niche, Then Stick to it

The first step you need to take if you want to build a Twitter following is to clearly define your niche.

Focus on providing value to your dream customers:

• Selling info products that teach people how to lose weight? Share health and fitness advice with a focus on losing weight.
• Selling freelance copywriting services to tech startups?Share copywriting advice that is helpful to startups.
• Selling a SaaS product for software engineers? Share content that software engineers find interesting.

Note that the content you tweet shouldn’t just be in that general niche, it should be something that actually appeals to your target audience.

For example:

If you are selling a SaaS product for software engineers, don’t tweet “Learn to code” type of content.

After all, if your dream customers are software engineers, then they already know how to code!

What might be more interesting to them is tech news, salary negotiation tips, recent startup acquisitions, thoughts on Web3, diatribes against LeetCode, etc.

In fact, you can simply go to Hacker News, see what’s popular there, and start tweeting similar content.

Once you have chosen a niche, stay within that niche.

Avoid e-drama like the plague, don’t get into any political arguments, keep your opinions about Covid-19 policies to yourself, resist the temptation to share content unrelated to your niche, etc.

Remember, this is your professional Twitter account, not some anonymous handle for drunkposting memes on a Friday night!

Copy What Works – but Don’t Plagiarize!

One of the easiest ways to get traction on Twitter is to copy ideas that you already know resonate with your target audience.

This is something that the copywriter JK Molina, who has 65k+ followers, explained well in his Twitter thread “How to get rich (by copying other people)”.

Here’s an excerpt:

“2. COPY IDEAS

I do this with tweets.

Again, don’t plagiarize.

Think “what’s the idea behind this tweet?”

And write a bunch from that same idea.

Examples:

Challenge Conventional Wisdom

In every niche, there are cliches that have been repeated ad nauseam, so you can stand out from the crowd by challenging them.

For example:

If you are in the weight loss niche, where calories in, calories out is the conventional wisdom, you can challenge it with something like this:

“You’ve been LIED to – this research paper shows that eating less, exercising more DOESN’T WORK”. 

(Then post a summary of the paper + a link to the paper itself)

But don’t just dream up contrarian takes –  be prepared to back up your seemingly outrageous claims.

Give Away Everything You Know for Free

Daniel Vasallo, who has 105k+ followers, leveraged his Twitter following to make $210,822 by selling info products.

Here’s his advice on how to build and monetize an audience:

“You find something you know really well, and you give everything you know about it for free.

You do it on social networks, forums, and wherever people interested in your topic hang around.

If you manage to get some attention, you will inevitably start getting questions, and these questions become your market research. You start answering the best way you can, and whatever doesn’t fit in a short response becomes an opportunity for an info product.

Then, if you choose to do the product, you’ll have an audience to promote it to — an audience who already told you it wants to learn more about the topic, and that it wants to learn from you specifically.”

Teach People to Stop Scrolling When They see a Tweet From You

In 2019, Randall Kanna had 300 Twitter followers and zero email subscribers.

In 2020, she had over 35,000 Twitter followers and 7,000 email subscribers.

So how did she go from being an Internet nobody to building a sizeable audience on Twitter + a solid email list in just one year?

Randall did an AMA on the Indie Hackers forum where she answered questions from fellow indie hackers (entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping software products).

Here’s an interesting point that she made that’s certainly worth mulling over:

“I definitely don’t tweet a lot of things anymore because I would just lose followers.

For example, nobody wants to see my dog photos (or at least very few people!) so I don’t tweet dog photos anymore. Or at least, I rarely tweet them.

I want to train my audience to stop and not scroll when they see a tweet of mine.”

You need to realize that with every tweet you post you either train your followers to stop scrolling and pay attention or to keep scrolling and ignore your content.

Treat your followers’ attention with respect – it’s better to tweet less, but share content that is genuinely valuable to them.

Interact With Other People in Your Niche

In that AMA, someone asked Randall what she would suggest to someone who wants to get from 0 followers to 300 followers (assuming that they already had good content lined up).

Here’s her response to that question:

“I would suggest you still do what I did.

Reply to other people’s tweets who are in the niche/topic you want to establish yourself as an expert in, and provide value to their tweets.”

This is solid advice because that allows you to get in front of people who might be interested in your content – if they are following someone else in your niche, they might decide to follow you as well if they see you posting thoughtful stuff in the comment threads.

However, don’t be the low-effort reply guy or gal – don’t just respond with a few words or a meme.

You need to contribute to the conversation if you want other people to notice you!

Respond to Everyone no Matter Your Follower Count!

Another tip from Randall was to respond to everyone:

“I think it’s great to respond to as many people as you can. It’s something @arvidkahl discusses quite a bit! That you should always respond to anyone no matter the follower count.

I think it also makes your tweets more engaging to other people knowing that they’ll actually get a response.”

As your following grows, you might reach a point where it’s simply not possible to respond to everyone due to time constraints. And that’s okay.

However, if you have 37 followers right now, there’s no excuse not to respond to people who reply to your tweets or send you DMs!

There’s this misconception that being aloof as if you were some A-list celebrity is the way to signal high status on social media – and thus attract more followers.

However, being approachable and down-to-earth is much more effective, so schedule time every day for interacting with your followers.

Stay Away From Controversial Topics!

We have already touched on this but we want to reiterate it because it’s so important:

Stay away from controversial topics!

That includes:

• Politics
• Religion
• Social issues
• Covid-19 policies
• E-drama

There’s simply no benefit in getting involved in any of that from your professional Twitter account.

Also, if you have a personal Twitter account or any personal social media account for that matter, we recommend you to avoid controversial topics there as well. Why?

Because if your professional account is on point, but your personal account is full of hot takes, that might damage your business. 

Let other people squabble over the latest controversies.

Stay focused on making money.

How to Generate Leads on Twitter

Okay, so now that you know how to build a following on Twitter, the question is how can you turn those followers into leads?

That’s where your lead generation funnel comes in…

What Is a Lead Generation Funnel?

Online lead generation is typically done via lead generation funnels:

1. You create a lead magnet.
2. You create a landing page for that lead magnet.
3. You drive traffic to that landing page.

Once the potential customer gives you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet, they become a lead and enter your sales funnel.

Learn more:

The Lead Generation Funnel – What It Is & How To Build It

How to Build a Lead Generation Funnel

So how can you build a lead generation funnel for your business?

Let’s take a closer look at the three aforementioned steps…

Step #1: Create a Super Valuable Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.

It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:

• A report
• An eBook
• A webinar
• A video course
• An email course

…etc.

What matters is that:

1. Your lead magnet offers a solution to a problem that your potential customers are struggling with.
2. That problem is either the same or related to the one that your frontend offer addresses (more on the frontend offer later).

You also need to understand this:

People won’t give you their email addresses unless you offer them something SUPER VALUABLE in return.

That’s why the key to designing an effective lead magnet is to create something that your dream customers desperately want…

And then give it away for free!

Learn more:

How To Create a Lead Magnet That is Highly Effective [With Examples]

Step #2: Create a Landing Page for That Lead Magnet

Your lead magnet needs a landing page.

This page is going to serve as an entryway to your sales funnel – that’s where you will be sending traffic from Twitter.

You can start with a simple squeeze page that has these three key elements:

• A headline that explains what your lead magnet is all about.
• An opt-in form where the potential customer can type in their email address. It can be either displayed immediately or shown after they have clicked the call-to-action button.
• A call-to-action button that encourages the potential customer to get the lead magnet.

Feel free to experiment with various additional elements such as subheadlines, social proof, relevant images, etc.

Here’s an example of a simple, yet high-converting squeeze page that we use for one of our lead magnets:

Learn more:

10 Tips For Killer Lead Generation Landing Pages

How To Create a Squeeze Page That Converts [With Examples!]

Step #3: Start Driving Traffic to Your Lead Magnet Landing Page!

So how can you start driving traffic from Twitter to your lead magnet landing page?

Simple:

• Add a link + a call-to-action to your Twitter bio.
• Pin a link + a call-to-action to your Twitter timeline.
• Regularly promote your lead magnet to your followers.

Also, if someone on Twitter praises your lead magnet, make sure to retweet that.

Bonus: Start a Free Email Newsletter

Twitter is a great place to promote your email newsletter. So why don’t you start one?

That way, you can draw people in by posting teasers, snippets, quotes, etc. from an upcoming issue.

There’s also the element of scarcity – they need to subscribe before it goes out in order to get it.

Quite a few content creators promote their paid newsletters that way, but if your goal is to generate leads, then you want to keep yours free.

How to Convert Twitter Leads Into Paying Customers

Lead generation isn’t about collecting a bunch of email addresses – it’s about getting the contact details of your dream customers so that you could then sell them your products.

What is the Value Ladder Sales Funnel?

We believe that the best way to sell anything online is the Value Ladder sales funnel.

It was created by our co-founder Russell Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!).

This sales funnel has four stages:

1. Bait – You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address. That’s your lead generation funnel!
2. Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product.
3. Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product.
4. Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product.

Ideally, you also offer some sort of a continuity program, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue.

The reason why the Value Ladder sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with that person by offering free value.
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email.
3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage.

Here’s how Russell explains it:

How to Create a Frontend Offer That Converts

The easiest way to convert leads into paying customers is to present them with an irresistible frontend offer.

What is an Offer?

Okay, so before we get into how to create that irresistible offer, you need to understand this:

A Product =/= An Offer

Watch this video by Russell before you continue reading this article:

Create a Logical Progression

You know how in the supermarket you sometimes see those stalls where you can get a free sample of some food item and then buy more of it if you like it?

There’s a logical progression from the free sample to the paid offer:

Here’s a free scoop of the new ice cream -> You can buy a whole pint of it if you want to.

You need to create a similar logical progression in your sales funnel – the lead magnet should serve as a free sample of the frontend product.

Matthew Hussey, a world-renowned dating coach, does it really well.

He has a lead magnet called “9 Magic Texts No Man Can Resist”that features nine text message scripts that women can copy-paste when texting guys they like:

And then, if a woman found those nine texts to be effective, she can buy Matthew’s “The Momentum Texts” guide that features 67 more text message scripts:

Price Your Frontend Product at $7

It’s important to understand that the purpose of your frontend product isn’t to make you loads of money, it’s to convert leads into paying customers.

That’s why we recommend you to price it at just $7.

It’s a price point that:

• Is low enough to not make the potential customer stop and think twice before purchasing.
• Is high enough to not make the potential customer question the product’s value.

By the way, the aforementioned Matthew Hussey’s “The Momentum Texts” guide costs just seven bucks:

How to Sell Your Frontend Offer With an “Indoctrination” Email Sequence

We don’t recommend hitting the potential customer with a sales pitch the moment they subscribe to your email list.

You should send them this “indoctrination” email sequence instead:

• Email #1: Who are you? Introduce yourself.
• Email #2: Where did you come from? Tell them a story about how you came to do what you do now.
• Email #3: What do you do? Provide more information about what it is that you do.
• Email #4: How did you gain this expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to do it.
• Email #5: Who do you do this for? Explain who are your ideal customers + share a case study on how you helped such a person.
• Email #6: How can you do it for me? Pitch your frontend offer.

We advise you to use the Hook, Story, Offer framework for all emails in this sequence:

Want Russell to Show You how to Build Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel

…in just five days!

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!