5 lead-generation ideas to try in 2025

TikTok trends. AI-generated everything. Influencer campaigns. It's no wonder marketers have shiny-object syndrome—we're distracted by every new and exciting trend and marketing opportunity, making it nearly impossible to focus our efforts.

One of those distractions? Trends. Despite the challenge of staying on top of what's new, an overwhelming 40% of digital marketers struggle to keep up with trends.

But the biggest challenge by far is generating leads. So, how do you balance experimentation with trends with tried-and-true lead generation strategies to hit your targets? Look at what's working and explore new trends within an established channel.

We've got five fresh takes on lead generation that you can use to experiment responsibly in 2025.

1. Engage your customers through education

It's not your clever ad copy or TikTok influencer campaign that increases the likelihood that someone will buy from you. According to Conductor research, it's educational content that increases the likelihood by a whopping 131%

When asked to choose between four brands, 83.6% of customers chose the company offering educational content. But there's a catch: your educational content needs to be high quality and provide value. 

Is it meaningful enough for prospects that they fill out a form and share their data with you? Prioritize value so they feel like they're getting just as much as they're giving.

Educational content resonates with customers for a few reasons:

• It builds trust. When you share knowledge and expertise, it establishes you as an authority in your field, building trust with your audience. Edelman's Trust Barometer backs this up: 66% of people trust “company technical experts” to tell them the truth about innovations and technologies, third behind only scientists and peers.
  
• It empowers customers. Educational content gives customers what they need to make better-informed decisions while sharing valuable insights customers can apply to life and work. It helps them understand complex concepts, solve problems, or learn new skills.
  
• It builds relationships. Offering value beyond your product or service helps you differentiate yourself as more than just a business. You're a partner in learning and growth, helping you build stronger relationships with your customers and fostering loyalty.
• ‍It promotes long-term engagement. Educational content has a longer shelf life than purely promotional material. Customers are more likely to return to learning resources, boosting sustained engagement. 

What better way to share educational content than through courses? Unlike other gated educational content (research or industry trend reports, ebooks, or podcasts), courses are highly interactive. Customers aren’t just consuming the content, they're participating. 

Mediafly found that companies that leverage interactive content saw a 94% increase in content views over those only using static content.

Aside from engaging with customers and providing value, courses are a great opportunity to collect feedback from people who have shown they're willing to interact with your content.

Use surveys to see what they thought about your course, what was most valuable, and what your customers would like to learn about next. Their responses can reveal insights into customer pain points that can help you refine future lead gen efforts.

2. Add some fun to lead gen with interactive quizzes

Quizzes—especially personality and product recommendation quizzes—are irresistible because they appeal to human curiosity and our innate desire to learn more about ourselves. These quizzes give us a chance to get to know ourselves better, including our traits, preferences, and behaviors in a fun way.

More than just fun, interactive content also gets 52.6% more engagement than static content. Product recommendation quizzes like the one below act as virtual gift guides that encourage conversions.

But if you want to combine educational and interactive content, try a personality quiz that relates to your product. Let’s say you’re a software company that sells product management tools.

A “What’s your project management style?” quiz that asks questions to assess the quiz-taker’s approach to project management—like preferred work style, communication preferences, and organizational skills—educates them on how they manage projects best.

And you can route your quiz takers to a custom landing page based on their results that includes resources about how your software helps them maximize their working style.

3. Use video to align lead gen with customer preferences

Video content has been growing in popularity for years now as we spend more and more time on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. And it's a powerful tool for marketers. According to Wyzowl:

• 91% of customers say they watch explainer videos to learn about products or services
• 82% have been convinced to buy something by watching a video
• 89% want to see more videos from brands 
• 87% say video quality impacts their trust in a company

It's not just a consumer preference either. 45% of marketers believe video is their best-performing content.

You already know the power of video, so why not double down and integrate video into your lead generation strategy?

Compelling video content captures the attention of potential leads, engages them effectively, and drives them toward conversion. It also lets you:

• Showcase products or services
• Educate your audience on industry trends and best practices
• Show off demonstrations and tutorials
• Share customer testimonials and success stories

You can even add videos to your forms or ask questions in video format. Record and upload videos with questions, prompts, or instructions, and let customers answer with video or text responses. This interactive format allows you to gather feedback, conduct surveys, capture leads, and provide customer support in a more engaging and personalized manner. 

4. Supercharge lead gen efforts with artificial intelligence (AI)

Salesforce research found that over 50% of marketers view generative AI as a "game-changer," with 51% already using it at work. It also shows marketers believe that generative AI saves more than five hours of work per week by eliminating busy work and allowing them to concentrate on more strategic work. 

Almost every popular marketing tool now integrates with AI to:

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Pull and analyze insights from data
• Optimize marketing strategies
• And more

AI algorithms can also analyze lead data and behavior patterns to score leads based on their likelihood to convert. 

But perhaps one of AI's more powerful abilities lies in personalization. AI can analyze the data you collect and customer behaviors to deliver targeted content, marketing campaigns, and offers. It can also automate outreach campaigns tailored to different segments of your target audience.

5. Analyze customer sentiment to inject emotion into lead gen

Customers want to know you care about them—nearly 70% said they're more likely to be repeat customers if they think you care about their emotional state. One of the best ways to do so is to gauge customer sentiment and use those insights in your lead gen efforts.

Customer sentiment analysis uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative data that you can collect by:

• Sending feedback surveys with questions gauging customers' satisfaction, preferences, and experiences
  
• Monitoring social media platforms to track mentions, comments, and conversations about their brand or products
  
• Collecting online reviews to understand customers' experiences and satisfaction levels

Customer sentiment helps you identify common pain points or challenges that potential customers experience. Understanding these frustrations or concerns, you can tailor lead generation to offer solutions that resonate with customer needs.

Analyzing sentiment lets you identify key messaging elements that evoke positive emotions and highlight them in your campaigns. Similarly, businesses can alleviate doubts and build trust with potential customers by addressing negative sentiments or concerns.

Sentiment analysis can also steer product development by providing data on how customers react to old and new features and services. You can use it to identify signals such as enthusiasm, interest, or dissatisfaction, helping you tailor offerings based on things they’ve reacted positively to.

It also helps you understand how current and potential customers feel about you and your product. You can then use this data to identify areas for improvement, act on them, and track changes over time.

Start with a template

Not sure where to start? Templates have been proven and give you a starting point, whether you're gathering sentiment data, building a personality quiz, or registering people for your course.

Using lead gen templates can simplify the brainstorming process, offering a structured framework to guide your idea generation. Check out some of our lead generation examples and templates for some inspiration before you go build your next form.