Top 10 Lead Generation Tools in Digital Marketing [Infographic]

Let’s be honest lead generation is a challenge for all businesses regardless of the type of industry or niche they are in. Search engine optimization or SEO, when done correctly and focussed on regularly, will produce consistent lead generation through popular search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Once a business is up and running the biggest challenge is lead generation or customer acquisition. You may have heard digital marketing is the best bet and offers the best value for money when it comes to targeted lead generation.
Investing in Search Engine Optimization on your business website is a good start. But SEO efforts take time. If you are looking for the best places to generate those targeted leads for your business here are 10 tools you should check out. Some tools such as Facebook ads and Google ads are well known and are the best places to start generating those leads.
LinkedIn ads and Twitter ads are not as popular as the two previous giants Facebook and Google but they can be effective as well. LinkedIn is great for targeting a specific organizational role for example if you are trying to reach CEO’s of companies or Chartered Accountants for that matter. You can target people who can see your ad based on where they are on the corporate ladder. Twitter ads are great if you want to reach influencers in your industry. Again, these two tools serve a specific purpose.
Quora is a free tool that is great for lead generation but like any free tool, it will take time and effort to see some leads. No list of tools will be complete when it comes to digital marketing and lead generation without a tool to create and manage landing pages and an email marketing tool. For landing pages, you can use Instapage or Unbounce that allows you to create stunning landing pages based on templates that are set up to convert or capture the lead. Once you capture the lead you may need to nurture them using an email autoresponder such as MailChimp or any other email marketing tool.
Here is an infographic with the Top 10 Lead Generation Tools in the Digital Marketing World created by PageTraffic.

11 Killer Free Tools to Launch and Build Your Startup

Image credit: dseadon | Foap.com
Yeah, we’ve all heard of the $100 startup, but free is way better, right?
Building startups can be hard. They’re worth it, but definitely not easy, although starting can be simplerthan people make it.
There has never been a better time to start a company. Mobile proliferation has led to a world that is always connected. Moore’s Law is in full effect with computing faster and cheaper than ever before. There are endless free and useful products online that can help you launch and build your startup.
This is a very short list, as there are thousands of products and tools out there for startups, but here are some I’ve found to be useful.

1. Startup Stash

curated directory of resources and tools to help you build your startup. This is a good starting point.

2. Due

This versatile free tool helps track your time on projects for billing and productivity as well as offers invoicing templates for domestic and international clients, recurring invoices, automated payment reminders and acknowledgments, reports, client and project database, digital wallet, domestic and global credit card processing and more. 

3. Shake

Here you can find free legal agreements. You can create, sign and send legally binding agreements in seconds. It's effective and simple to use.

4. The Name App

free name generator. Search for domains and social profiles for your startup. Helpful when first starting and trying to come up with a strong web presence.

5. Content Idea Generator

This helps you figure out content ideas. I love this tool to help get my creativity flowing. Check it out.

6. Pablo by Buffer

Design engaging images for your social media posts for free. It's super quick and easy to use.

7. Stock Snap.io

Go here for free beautiful stock photos. I use them when building websites.

8. Freebbble

This site features more than 1,000 high quality designs made by Dribbble users. Most are editable and can be used for web or mobile. Such an awesome collection.

9. Type Form

There's a free plan for creating surveys, forms, payment forms, etc. It's an awesome way to display font on the web and mobile (Hiten Shah turned me onto this).

10. SumoMe

Everyone uses SumoMe now to grow traffic. It's great for building lists, heat maps, popup email boxes, etc. Thanks Noah.

11. Awesome Screenshot

This sites makes screenshots simple and it allows you to mark up the images as well. The site says it's "the easiest way to communicate with images."

Bonus: Great F**king Startup Advice

Everyone needs some strongly worded advice from time to time.
Like I said, there are thousands of free products and tools to help us start and build our startups. Do you have any other recommendations? Tweet me @andrewmedal or add your favorites in the comments section below.