Lead Generation Strategy for Small Businesses

Every small business needs leads in order to grow, expand, and establish a client base. That's why it's imperative to create a lead generation strategy and ensure you have a consistent lead flow. It will help you grow your business while also learning more about your client base and what people want.

Over 50% of marketers see lead generation as their main priority for their marketing campaigns. Not only that, but 60% of consumers make a monthly purchase after reading an email from a brand. As you can see, lead generation can be very effective; it always comes down to establishing the right strategy and implementing it correctly for the best experience!

What is lead generation?

A lead is a person that's interested in your brand, but they didn't purchase anything from you yet. They are a potential client, one that could buy from you soon. It's certainly the person that you want to educate more about your products as you try to turn them into a client.

So, what's lead generation? It's a process through which you are generating leads for your business. As you can imagine, your business needs as many clients as possible. The more you have, the better it will be. However, you need leads that you can then turn into clients. So, it's crucial to have as many leads as you can because that's what will provide you with a great client flow.

Why is lead generation important?

Lead generation has always been at the forefront of any marketing campaign. The reason why companies promote their brand, be it online or offline, is to grow the business and bring in more clients. Naturally, not every lead will become a client, but the more leads you have, the better. That's the reason why having a lead generation strategy is a crucial part of the process. You need to make sure that your brand brings in as many leads as possible. Then, you can access many of the benefits listed below:

Lead generation can help expand your market; it will grab the attention of people who already have an interest in the type of product you offer.
It's also a great opportunity to educate people who are interested in buying a type of product you offer. The focus here is on showcasing what you can provide, the value that's there, and the return on investment you can provide.
Plus, lead generation is also a very good way to grow your following online. It can strengthen the image and power of your brand.
On top of that, with lead generation you get to boost your brand's awareness and visibility. It helps quite a lot, because you want as many eyes and ears on your products!
A lead generation strategy can also help you gather more customer reviews. Those can be effective because you have a larger pool of reviews you can use in your marketing campaigns.

Creating a good lead generation is one of the best ways to grow a small business. Plus, having the right guidelines and ideas is only going to help expand your company and connect with new people in the long run!

Designing a lead funne.

The role of a lead funnel is to grab the attention of a lead and then introduce them to what you have on offer. Depending on the industry and products, a lead funnel can differ in structure. But for the most part, lead funnels will have the following structure:

You have the marketing side designed to generate awareness, focus on lead capture, creating a prospect, and marketing your products to qualified leads.
After that, you turn to the sales side, where you have sales-qualified leads, opportunities leads, and then you turn those leads into a customer.

The lead funnel can be adjusted to your needs. However, lead generation can take a while, and these funnels are rather complex, depending on the niche. Always ensure that the transition from one step to the other is very smooth, and it helps the user understand more about the products and what you have on offer.

Best ways to generate leads for your business.

When you create a lead generation strategy, you'll notice that no two businesses are the same. However there are certain strategies that any business can use in order to expand and grow. With that in mind, here are some of the top ones to consider.

Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is by far one of the best lead-generation strategies. Optimizing your website for SEO is not only very effective since it helps you rank higher in search results, but it also boosts your brand's authority online. On top of that, it streamlines the website structure while making the content easier to grasp and understand.

SEO is divided in two. You have on-page SEO, and this involves everything from the website structure to content, internal links, meta descriptions, title tags, and many others. Then, we have off-page SEO. In this case, you focus on generating buzz regarding your website, with one of the main aspects being link building.

With link building, the focus is on creating content that other websites will link towards. That can happen naturally, or you can ask those people to link towards your website. Regardless, having links from authority, high-ranking websites is what you have to focus on.

Email marketing

Email marketing makes it easy to share info about your products and offers with your audience, but also newly captured leads. You need to accumulate email addresses from the people you know but also use lead forms on your website so you can add new people to the email list. And then, you can send new emails to leads as you offer them deals and many ways to convert them into your clients. Cold emailing can also be handy because you can generate leads that wouldn't be interested in your products otherwise.

Offer free trials and demos

Sharing demos and free trials for your products/services is always a great idea. The truth is that people want to try stuff before they buy something. Plus, not every company offers that, so you get to surpass competitors in this perspective. After all, everyone wants to be hands-on with a product before they spend their hard-earned money.

Host webinars

Webinars are great for lead generation since they are free, and anyone can join. The best way to harness webinars and their potential is to cover hard-hitting, popular topics. Showcase your expertise, accumulate data, and don't forget to connect with the audience. Webinars are a great tool for you to show off your expertise, and they can actively help you grow your client base.

Harness the power of video marketing

Video marketing allows you to educate leads and turn them into your customers. It's also a novel way to establish an emotional connection with your leads. Another thing to consider is that videos can be great for showcasing testimonials. You can even take people behind the scenes, not to mention you can advertise special deals, or even solve common issues. Video marketing is an exceptional tool that, if it's used rightfully, can provide amazing results for your company.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing also comes in handy, mainly because you get to connect with the entire audience of an influencer. That means you can generate a large number of potential leads, and it will also make it easier for you to showcase your expertise to them. Plus, you can even offer great deals to the influencer, which makes it possible to actively turn some of those leads into paid customers as well.

Paid advertising

PPC advertising can be a good option because you can target certain keywords and bid on them. You only pay for the ad if it generates a lead, aka someone will visit your website. You can also set your budget. After all, it's very easy to go overboard with expenses when it comes to paid advertising. But that's why it makes sense to set a budget and focus on the keywords you want. That adds more control to your hands while still keeping the process cohesive.

Use social media

Social media is very good when it comes to generating leads. There are billions of people on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and so on. Creating content and being active on such platforms can generate tons of leads. And obviously, some of them might even become paid customers. You never know how many people you can reach via social media, so having an active presence on those websites can help more than you might expect.

Create landing pages

You can also advertise specific pages, like a landing page. These pages should be a great introduction to your products or services. It's also the ideal page where you can have a short description of your brand, testimonials, FAQs, deals, and a call to action. Yes, a landing page can be very effective when it comes to lead generation, and it's certainly a great idea to have at least one for your products/brand.

Guest posting

We think that guest posting is extremely important for a company mainly because it allows you to access people from someone's audience and turn them into leads. Plus, guest posting also helps you build authority and backlinks. It also helps you extend your reach without spending a huge amount of money. That's why we think guest posting has a lot to offer, and it's certainly one of the most common lead-generation strategies you can use.

Write blog posts

Writing blogs is helpful because each one is a separate entry in search engine results. It's a very good idea to write blogs mainly because you can show off your expertise and you can also educate people about products and services. These posts can also have different formats; you can use them as a case study, for educating clients, or even sharing customer success stories if you want.

You can use a vast array of lead generation strategies, all of which come with their pros and cons. It's important to understand where and how you can generate leads, but also the best strategies that you can focus on. In general, great lead generation is not that difficult to do, but once you implement it appropriately, it can provide a very solid return on investment.

Also, remember that different traffic will have different conversion rates. For example, traffic that comes from nurtured, targeted leads will have a higher conversion rate than just regular traffic. It's important to target certain types of leads since qualified leads will usually bring a better return in the end.

The best tools for lead generation

Chatim is a great lead-generation tool that helps you identify and nurture leads, while also enhancing customer interaction. The platform focuses on chatbot automation, along with advanced CRM, streamlined analytics, and drag-and-drop chatbot building.
Unbounce is a great tool if you want to create landing pages and focus on lead capturing. The drag-and-drop approach, combined with AI optimization, makes it very useful, especially if you need to create multiple landing pages.
Yesware is very useful when it comes to email outreach. You can focus more on email outreach while also seeing the email engagement info.
HubSpot is a large platform that helps you manage, but also organize and track leads. It's very effective, and it features all the customer solutions you want in a single package. It's also a connected platform that focuses immensely on the idea of helping clients and bringing them the best value and insights.
Leadfeeder is extremely useful for companies that want to focus on B2B lead generation. It's a very reliable solution, dependable, and easy to customize, and you can turn those high value leads into customers.
OptinMonster is an effective tool because it can help you create a variety of lead pages, and it focuses on geolocation targeting, along with a variety of lead-capturing techniques. It's feature-filled and fully customizable to fit your brand.
Callingly is, as the name suggests, a tool that focuses on generating leads via calls. You can track leads and every call you had with them. Not only that, but these can provide valuable insights into the process and experience as a whole.

Best tips and tricks to nurture leads.

Sure, getting leads is the main focus, but you also want to know how to nurture them and ensure they will turn into a paid customer. Here are some ideas that you can use for lead nurturing!

Always create targeted content and provide unique insights that no one has. Doing that helps build authority, and it can boost your growth in the long run, which is something every business wants.
Use as many marketing channels as possible to connect with and nurture your leads. Social media, email, paid ads, these can be very powerful!
Follow up with your leads if they seem quiet and there's no action from their side. That means you need to generate engagement so they can interact with your products/services.
Always be honest and ensure that you don't overpromise. Leads value transparency and honesty, so these should always be at the forefront of any offer.

Conclusion

There's no denying that using the right lead-generation strategies can help your business grow. Having access to more potential clients is always helpful, and it can boost the value of your brand, too. We highly recommend using these lead generation tips, tools, and ideas shared in this article. Doing that will make it easier to expand your reach and generate more sales while also getting valuable insights from your audience!