Content
What is lead generation and why is it important?
So, after a long drought, youâve finally found some new leads! But your initial excitement begins to fade as you realize the contacts you went to painstaking lengths to dig up are not even remotely interested in your company. The purpose of generating leads is to make contact with people who are potentially interested in what you have to offer. Get them to warm up to you, and they could become qualified prospects willing to purchase your service or product. That means more revenue. But if you spend ages looking for leads that have no potential, youâre wasting your time.
61% of marketers rank lead generation
as their number one challenge
(HubSpot)
Why is lead generation difficult?
If generating leads is part of what you do, you donât need us to tell you how difficult it is, but weâll tell you anyway. Here are four problems with lead generation:
1. There are no guarantees
Even when leads seem promising, thereâs no guarantee they will become sales. A âdream leadâ may have already found an alternative to your service or product or simply doesnât have the budget for it.
2. It's hard to get clicks
Getting people to visit your website is a tall order. The SEO competition is stiff, with everyone who is anyone on the internet vying for attention. So getting people to find and click through to your site is an enormous challenge. Even if youâre doing an excellent job, getting a piece of content to rank high on Google takes months.
3. People donât answer your calls
Letâs face it â no one likes answering the phone these days. A phone call from known numbers is perceived as an emergency, and from unknown numbers, it is seen as a form of spam.
4. People don't respond to your emails
Getting people to click on emails is almost as hard as getting them to take your calls. Most people have more than one email address, and the one you have is likely the one they never bother to check.
80% of marketing automation users saw their number of leads increase, and 77% saw an increase in their number of conversions
(VB Insight)
Itâs time to face facts: manual lead generation is a waste of time. Yet only 49% of marketers use automation to find leads, and just 55% of B2B companies have adopted the method.
Believe us when we say that this is not because it is ineffective. According to VB Insight, 80% of marketing automation users saw their number of leads increase, and 77% saw an increase in their number of conversions. Many people simply donât realize there are better ways to find leads. And one of the most efficient ways is web scraping.
What is lead generation scraping?
Web scraping is an automated method of web data extraction. Lead generation scraping is therefore utilizing this method specifically for leads. If you want to scrape any publicly available information from the web, you might use a tool like Web Scraper, which can crawl and scrape data from any website. But for the technologically challenged, especially if youâre only interested in finding business leads on LinkedIn or some other specific platform, a better option is a lead finder explicitly designed for the task.
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Is it legal to scrape leads?
Scraping publicly available online data is legal. But there still are regulations regarding personal data (such as the GDPR or CCPA) that you need to comply with. Accumulating this kind of data is illegal, so always double-check your results and ensure they donât violate any personal data or copyright regulations.
How do you scrape leads?
Thereâs a range of business lead scrapers on the Apify platform to speed up lead generation. Contact Details Scraper and LinkedIn Company URL Finder are two of the most popular.
Use Contact Details Scraper for lead generation
The first step to automating lead generation is harvesting contact details. Web scraping automation saves plenty of time on building targeted lead lists. Contact Details Scraper is the ideal tool for the job. As with all Apify scrapers, this emaile extractor tool automates data collection and exports it into structured formats such as CSV, JSON, or Excel. You can use it in a spreadsheet or integrate it with other data processing tools. This simple step-by-step guide shows you how to use it.
Video tutorial: How to use Contact Details Scraper
Find local leads with the Google Maps Email Extractor
Google Maps Email Extractor is an efficient web scraping tool designed to save you valuable time while creating targeted lead lists. As part of Apify's suite of B2B scrapers, this email scraper automates contact data collection from places on Google Maps and conveniently exports it into structured formats like CSV, JSON, or Excel. Whether you prefer to work within a spreadsheet or integrate it with other data processing tools, this short guide will walk you through the process of using this powerful tool for lead generation.
Natasha Lekh
Use LinkedIn Company URL Finder for business leads
LinkedIn is among the most popular starting points for building a lead database. A LinkedIn scraper makes the process considerably faster. LinkedIn Company URL Finder speeds things up by automating the collection of LinkedIn page URLs and storing them in a list for your marketing or sales team. Instead of chasing leads, you can let this lead finder do the job for you. This simple step-by-step guide shows you how to do it.
If youâre interested in more automation options and web scrapers for lead generation, donât forget to explore the Apify platform. We have over 1,000 tools you can try for free. Or, if you have grander ideas for automating your marketing and lead generation tasks, you can reach out to us and tell us what you need. Weâd be happy to discuss your case and create a solution just for you!
