15 Lead Generation Tips for Small Businesses
A recent study found that 68% of businesses struggle with lead generation, which indicates that more than half of all businesses face this challenge. Are you looking for lead generation tips to find the right customers for your small business?
Lead generation is more than just finding potential customers. It’s about understanding their wants, needs, and behaviors. This allows you to target them with meaningful solutions and offerings. Our guide outlines a number of lead-generating techniques.
We provide valuable lead generation strategies to help you find success in generating leads that convert into sales. Learn the secrets to finding new customers and growing your business now with our actionable lead generation ideas.
Finding and targeting an audience that will become business consumers isn't easy. This guide features 15 lead generation techniques for small businesses. Read on to find out more.
1. Utilize Email Marketing
One of the best ways to generate small business leads is by utilizing your email list.
Email marketing is a highly effective marketing method that offers flexibility and easy measurement of results. It can help brands reach new customers and increase revenue, all at a low cost.
In order to generate email leads, you need to first identify your target clients and their specific issues. After understanding their pain points, create an offer that addresses these problems and make a landing page that includes an opt-in form to direct leads to.
If you're trying to build an email list, then consider using social media and running paid ads. This will target potential customers and gather their contact information. This will help you gain leads and have a better understanding of your audience.
After obtaining some leads, it's important to continue the process. Persuade them to use your service or product by providing personalized and valuable content. To achieve this, you can use email marketing software to customize the emails. You also might want to perform A/B testing for necessary adjustments.
2. Consider Doing a Drip Campaign
Small business owners should prioritize lead generation, keeping in mind that only less than 1% of prospects are immediate buyers. The remaining 99% may not purchase on the day they were contacted, but with consistent follow-up and communication, many of them may make a purchase in the future.
Implementing a "drip campaign" is an excellent way of boosting sales. Statistics show that over 80% of all sales happen between the 5th and 12th interaction between the business and the potential customer.
A drip campaign can help increase your business revenue by sending automated messages to customers or prospects at scheduled intervals. The best part is that once you create an enticing offer, you can break it down into smaller segments and consistently send it to your prospects.
Find out more about drip campaigns in this useful business book.
3. Optimize Your Website
Optimizing your website can capture visitors' attention. This could lead to quick conversions. To achieve this, several factors require consideration, but the most significant are as follows:
Page load time
Website design
Optimization for mobile
As page load time increases from one to three seconds, there is a higher chance that potential customers will leave your website. This statistic pertains to the probability of customers leaving your website.
It's unlikely for leads to provide their contact information on a website that appears outdated. Having a modern website design helps to attract leads.
Make your website mobile-friendly. A majority of your potential customers use their mobile devices to browse the internet. A study revealed that as much as 70% of mobile users are more likely to convert when they have a user-friendly website experience.
4. Offer Free Trials
If you have a small business, you might not have a lot of money for a fancy marketing campaign.
When people visit your website for the first time, they might be unsure if they should buy from you. This is because they probably don't know anything about you.
To overcome their doubts and get more people interested, you can give them a free trial. This is a good way to get more leads and make more sales since many people decide to buy something after they try it for free or get a sample.
You can also give away free content or products to people who sign up for your mailing list. This will increase the visibility of your business and help you build a strong customer base.
Periodically offering discounts and promotions can give your leads an incentive to purchase from you. You can also offer loyalty programs and rewards such as free shipping or gift cards to encourage people to come back and shop with you.
5. Get Customers to Leave a Review
Following on from our previous point, ask customers to leave a review after they've tried your product. This is another inexpensive way to gain leads.
Consumers are relying on multiple sources, including peers, industry experts, and review sites, to evaluate purchases. This makes reviews increasingly important in purchasing decisions. Having a strong presence on popular review sites for your industry can greatly boost lead generation.
Getting good reviews can enhance the effectiveness of this strategy. On the other hand, if your reviews are mostly negative, use feedback to make improvements.
6. Implement an SEO Strategy
Consumers use Google to discover or find a new brand. This means that search engines have become a popular starting point for product research among consumers.
If your website doesn't rank for target keywords, your audience may end up on competing pages instead. Therefore, search engines are a critical channel for generating leads. Focus on improving your SEO.
To enhance the discoverability of your products or services, try identifying relevant keywords that your potential customers are likely to search for.
7. Content Is King
Content marketing refers to the process of producing useful and engaging content that addresses your potential customers' needs and concerns. The aim is to provide solutions to any problems they may be facing.
To create a diverse range of content for your brand. You could consider:
Blog posts
Digital books
Videos
Infographic images
Specialized resources
Slideshow presentations
Webinars
Developing different types of content can help you engage with potential customers and establish yourself as an expert in your field, as well as improve your SEO.
8. Utilize Social Media Groups
If you discover a social media group that is relevant to your industry, you have an opportunity to connect with potential customers. You can engage with the members by sharing your relevant content. You'll also be able to provide deals or promotions you have,
However, remember to respect the group's specific guidelines for communication. When you participate in these groups, prioritize contributing to the group. Do this by asking and answering questions most of the time. Only share links to your products occasionally, a good ratio is around 10% of the time.
9. Run Events
Consider organizing events within your industry. This could involve various activities like conducting online seminars, delivering speeches at regional conventions, and participating in trade shows.
To encourage engagement, make sure you provide a compelling reason for attendees to participate in your events. If some people cannot attend physical events, consider live-streaming them on your social media channels.
This can help you connect with potential customers and boost leads. It's also a great way to gather feedback about your products or services.
10. Create Persuasive Landing Pages
Often these pages are associated with ads and feel overwhelming to the viewer. It's important to strike a balance between being attractive, incredibly informative, and straightforward.
Ineffective landing pages fail to communicate the value of your product or service, subsequently decreasing the number of conversions.
To ensure effectiveness, it is important to have dedicated landing pages rather than linking your ads to your homepage. We advise using a landing page builder to create landing pages that are tailored to your business.
11. Use CTAs
To generate leads, it's important to optimize your website for lead generation. This involves adding clear and concise calls to action (CTAs) throughout the website. This should tell visitors what you want them to do.
Examples of good CTAs could be:
Download our free guide
Set up a demo with us
Try our product for free
Click here to get started today
To ensure a good user experience, it's important to make sure your website is easy to navigate and the content is relevant and well-written for your target audience. Be sure to follow up on the CTA. There's no point in having a CTA button that leads to a dead end.
12. Add a Live Chat
One-effective way to generate leads from your website is through live chat, which can be implemented at minimum expense.
If you add this feature to your site, you can interact with visitors and assist them in resolving issues or questions they have without needing to contact customer support or refer to old FAQs.
By having a live chat feature, you can create an environment where visitors feel that their needs are taken seriously. Adding a live chat to your website could be the key to converting prospects into customers and helping grow your business.
13. Invest in Business Coaching
Investing in business coaching can be a great way for small businesses to come up with a lead generation strategy. They will help you develop an effective marketing plan that will reach the right target audience. This will increase the chances of turning them into customers.
Not only do they provide guidance in understanding marketing objectives but also offer advice on how to track and measure success.
A business mentor will also help small businesses create content that resonates with their target customers. They will advise on how to improve your website design and overall user experience.
14. Retarget Your Ads
Retargeting ads is an effective way to increase lead generation. Retargeting works by targeting people who have previously visited your website, increasing the chances of converting them into customers.
You can retarget ads on Facebook, Google Ads, and other platforms that support retargeting. By understanding the types of customers your business attracts, you can customize your campaigns and reach potential customers more effectively.
Retargeting also allows you to use the data collected from previous campaigns to create more effective ones. This will help you optimize your lead generation campaigns and increase conversions.
15. Use Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are a great way to draw in potential customers by offering something of value that they can't find anywhere else. It could be an e-book, a discount code, a free trial period, or some other type of incentive.
By providing them with something valuable, you can increase the chances of them signing up for your service or product and becoming a customer. Just make sure that the lead magnet is relevant to your business, so you can easily track it back to sales.
Lead magnets are usually used in combination with other lead generation strategies, such as email marketing and social media campaigns. This way, you can maximize their reach and potential.
Looking For More Lead Generation Tips?
Lead generation is a key part of any business’s success. We hope these lead generation tips have given you plenty of ideas to add to your strategy. Whether it's adding clear calls-to-action on your website or working with an online business coach, they will all help improve the effectiveness of your campaigns.
If you need more advice on creating an effective lead generation strategy for your business, head over to The Profit Finders. Our team of experts will be happy to partner with you and create a plan that works for you. Start driving leads today!
