Lead Generation Strategies for Small Businesses

You have a desire for succeeding, and you are ready to take your small business to the next level. Getting your business off the ground is no doubt challenging, and to double its growth, more so. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, things have become hard for business owners.

The marketing world is changing and lead generation can seem a very difficult task. They are very important because, without effective lead generation, your sales force is basically trying to move in the dark. A hundred effective leads are much more valuable than a thousand random email addresses.

Lead generation is the process of creating and nurturing interest for a product or service, in order to increase the customer base and revenue. It is the first step in the process of completing a sale.

Your company needs customers to survive. Custom lead generation solutions are designed to connect local businesses across sectors with more potential customers in their target areas. Through lead generation, you can attract as many people as possible to your brand, service, or products, and educate them about your best business ideas. It is the beginning part of a relationship with a future prospect, and ultimately convert him into a customer.

Why is lead generation important for small businesses?

You cannot serve clients until you get them. Lead generation will help to convert an unknown person, into an interesting prospect, and finally into a paying customer. Normal advertising is not working anymore, since people have become immune to them, being bombarded by ads from all sides. So, marketers are moving towards more subtle ways of communicating with prospects and starting meaningful conversations with people.

Marketing

Building strong customer relationships is at the core of any business, but acquiring customers can be a challenge. Marketing and sales strategies are the corner-stones of business development. Lead generation is a key part of marketing. Often overlooked marketing tactics, can lead to increased lead generation. Some companies often amplify their small business leads with a bigger budget. They outspend their competitors in advertising and public relations. These days, the most important way to catch the eyeballs of your customers is to expand your presence in the digital space.

Online Lead Generation

An effective and successful marketing campaign needs a targeted approach, and a specific message needs to be sent out. While lead generation can be done in a variety of ways, most businesses focus on online lead generation, because it is so effective. Developing leads online can use several different strategies, but the ultimate aim of these strategies is to help land the prospective customer on the sales page.

There is a simple formula to succeed in the digital battlefield:

Traffic x Conversion Rate = Leads

This means that if you can increase the conversion rate or traffic to your website, you can improve the online lead generation for your small business.

As a small or medium-sized local business owner, your budget must be tight. So, you should go for such kind of lead generation to realise your new business ideas that require spending as little money as possible. You have to outsmart, rather than outspend your competition. In this article we will share some tips on how to grow your business:

Top Tips to Generate Lead Generation

1. Establish your goals

The first step is to develop realistic goals and create plans to achieve them. Your goal can be to increase lead conversion that is turning potential customers into paying and loyal ones. Any business has to acquire new customers if they want to grow.

Develop a plan on how to get the best results out of your marketing efforts, and create offers that will elicit the best response out of your audience.

2. Video Marketing

Video is dominating the internet as our favourite way to consume content. Video sharing site YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, just behind Google. Chances are that your potential customers are looking for products or services that you offer in this medium. If they watch your videos, the chances are that at one point they are going to call you for your products or services.

Your videos are going to position you as the authority in the industry. That is why, for most small businesses, video marketing is the best lead generation tool by far.

3. SEO Content Marketing

You can create a brand campaign, and promote your business idea through blog posts, news articles, podcasts, and slide shows. These will be hosted on the various digital platforms that are available and will help to improve your online reputation and increase your brand’s visibility.

Getting your website to rank high on Google keywords, depends on amazing content. The best way to get that done is by having great blogs on your website. The content should be what your target audience is looking for in your industry, and will be willing to read. They will be so amazed by the content that they would be sharing it with their friends.

For example, if you own a barbershop, you can write a blog on your website about “Top 10 hairstyles in 2021”. That blog should contain pictures of trendy hair-cuts and ways to get it done.

4. Content Distribution

If fresh and engaging content is important, then distribution is no less so. Just writing great content is not good enough. You have to get it in front of the people who matter most to you - your target audience. You can ensure that your blog reaches the maximum number of people, by following the three simple ways given below:

• Share your blog on social media like LinkedIn or Facebook. These are the places where your target audience is most likely to be hanging out.
• You should pay close attention to influencer marketing. Share your blog with social media influencers in your industry, who would be willing to share your content. A lot of them will share it for free if they feel that the content is valuable. Some may want a little bit of money to promote it as a sponsored post.
• Invest in social media ads on social media platforms. If you have a blog that is doing well on the search rankings, then it would be a good idea to spend some money and put an ad for that blog on Facebook that will help viewers to come to your website.

Placing ads is not very expensive. The small amount of money that you will spend, can send a decent amount of traffic to your blog.

5. Clarify your website’s message

People can watch your videos and land on your website. If the message is confusing, they might want to leave. So, clarifying your message and value proposition is very important. Also, you have to give a reason for people to visit your website. Research shows that the span of attention of customers has decreased considerably. You have to ensure that the visitors to your website get an answer to these three things within three seconds of landing:

• How are you solving my problem? What do I get?
• How are you making my life better?
• How do I get it? (Call To Action)

Spend some time to simplify and make comprehensible the content of your webpage, so that when a prospect lands on your page, he/she is clear about what they are going to get, and how. Your website should give your phone number or contact details. You can have a form for the visitor to fill in, to get more information about them.

Lead generation is a very hot topic in the marketing world, especially related to small businesses. We hope that the techniques used to generate more leads that we discussed here, will be of help to you.

Also read:

1) Best Tips for Customer Retention for a Small Business
2) Tips to Understand Your Market while Starting a Small Business
3) Tips for Businesses to Overcome the Covid Blues - Revival Tips for Businesses
4) What are the keys to success when operating a small scale business?
5) OkCredit: All you need to know about OkCredit & how it works.

FAQs

Q. What is lead generation?

Ans. Lead generation refers to the deployment of various strategies by businesses to build interest in their products or services among potential customers.

Q. What are the benefits of lead generation?

Ans. Whether your business is small or big, leads are invaluable for your business. Leads generate revenue and allow you to grow.

Q. What are sales lead?

Ans. A sales lead is a business or person who can eventually become a client.