10 Lead Generating Strategies for Small Business
Whether you’re just starting out or are an established small business, a good portion of your time, or your staff’s, is likely spent on lead generation. Lead generation is the actions or tactics you use to attract customers to your business and get them to buy your products or services, or interact with your company in a specific, desired way. Without lead generation, there is no way for your company to grow. There are all sorts of lead generation strategies. The secret is finding the ones that work best for your company, which might involve some trial and error. Following are XX strategies to consider for your small business.
- Email Campaigns
The quality of leads generated through emails is higher than any other marketing channel. With the right strategy and practices, emails can turn out to be your ideal lead generating tool. But these campaigns need to be well thought out. Consider these best practices for email campaigns:- Keep content precise. You won’t keep their attention for long
- Use catchy subject lines. There’s a lot of clutter to break through.
- Keep you email list up to date. This ensures you are still reaching the right recipient – a potential customer.
- Set automated campaigns. Makes it much simpler to stay in touch.
- Link your emails to landing pages. If the purpose behind your email marketing campaign is to drive traffic to your website, then link your email with a landing page that matches the theme, visuals, content, and headlines of the email.
- Mention clear call to action. Use a CTA button for the reader to reach out to you to express their interest in your offering.
- Have a great website
Your website is often the first point of contact for a potential client and your company. It needs to impress by combining smart design with speed and efficiency. But don’t build a website just for the sake of it. Make sure it quickly and concisely answers the who, what, where and why about your company. No matter how much content it makes sense to have on your site, make sure it is all compelling and valuable. Don’t waste your visitor’s time with fluff. Think carefully about what it is you want visitors to do on your site and then craft the main call to action (CTA). For example, if you are trying to beef up your email list, the CTA might sign up for your newsletter. If you are going for sales, the CTA might be to check out a product page. - Apply basic SEO
Perform basic search engine optimization (SEO) across your website’s pages with descriptive title tags. Optimize each page with a compelling meta description to inspire click-throughs from search engine results. Claim local business listings on online business directories, such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, Citysearch, and other local directories. - Create an incentive-based referral system
Ask your existing email subscribers to refer to others. When a friend or a relative suggests a brand, people tend to trust them without any second thought. Taking advantage of loyal subscribers who know your business in and out, you can grow your email subscribers list and leads count as a whole. But, don’t forget to incentivize your customer for the referral. You can offer a small discount or a voucher in return for their reference. Provide some encouragement for the energy and time your subscribers might spend on promoting your email list. - Use video
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. With over 1.9 billion users and one billion hours watched daily, it’s almost certain that your customers are active there. By telling your stories you’re creating a personal, one-to-one connection with your customers. There are several approaches you can take to video marketing including:- Showing what you do. Detailed videos about your products and services.
- Introducing yourself and your brand. These videos sit well on your home page.
- To educate. Establish yourself as a thought leader. Show your expertise in your industry and other trending topics.
- Let your customers speak for you. Video testimonials are very effective. Or make the customers the stars and tell their stories.
- Be active on social media
Find out what platforms your customers are using and meet them there, sharing content as much as possible. Interact with prospects in an informative – and entertaining – manner. Consider establishing relationships with influencers, who can help bring attention to your company as a trusted third-party voice. You might also want to look at investing in paid social media marketing that’s fairly inexpensive and generally goes further than organic posts, which typically only reach a handful of followers. Facebook and Instagram allow you to target very specific audiences with their paid ad solutions, as well as retarget audiences who have interacted with your business before.
- Publish a blog
A blog can feature articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, galleries, or any combination. The point is to create content that provides the answers to the questions customers search for. Learn and apply the SEO techniques that will improve your search rankings. - Guest post on relevant websites
Offer your expertise, for free, to online publishers in the form of guest posts.
Where possible, include links in your articles to useful resources on your website. Also apply this strategy to local print publications, remembering to include a mention of your website. - Podcast advertising to niche audiences
Podcasts have become super-popular over the last couple of years. And content creators need advertisers. Many podcasts have very specific topics that attract very specific audiences. So, you can identify the podcasts that best speak to your target audience and focus your lead generation strategy there—working with the podcast to run your ads and drive customers to your website or store. Advertising on this medium gives you lots of bang for your advertising buck. Probably much more than a traditional radio ad. - Know what is working
Setup a Google Analytics account and gather data from it regularly so you can see who visits, where they came from, what pages they spend time with and how they interact with those pages. Use this information to develop and customize your promotional and content strategies. Do more of what’s driving traffic and less of what isn’t.
As we said earlier, there are many lead generation techniques out there. These are but a few to get you started and to see what works best for your particular business. While we believe utilizing these techniques will go a long way in generating and converting leads for your company, know that drastic changes don’t occur overnight. Lead generation is a long and ongoing process. So hang tight and keep working at it. Eventually the momentum will carry you to the growth you are looking for.
