For a small business, a steady stream of leads is vital to nurture its customer base and increase revenues. Unfortunately, many small businesses don’t have an efficient lead generation strategy in place to capture market share. This results in these businesses falling out of favor with the target audience and incurring losses.
The good news is that it’s never too late to reach out to your target audience. They are constantly searching for service providers who offer quality products at the right price. Ensure you are visible when your target audience searches online or offline for an offering similar to yours.
Before we continue with this article, let’s understand “Lead Generation” better.
It is the process of creating consumer interest in a service or product with the goal of converting that interest into a valid sale. For example, in the online marketing world, leads can be generated when visitors fill in their contact information through web forms.
Do you know your target audience?
You can’t access leads if you don’t know their attributes. Here are some ways to understand your target audience better:
- Analyze your existing customer base and understand their interests. You can engage with them directly or through social media to know them better.
- Analyze competitors and understand their communication strategy to reach out to customers. What is the messaging used by them?
- Use the extensive data and insights provided by Google Analytics to understand website visitors better. Which part of the world are they from? How old are they? This will help you make data-driven decisions while planning your lead generation strategy.
Let’s look at some ways to boost your lead generation efforts:
- Use efficient tools to monitor your leads
It’s important to measure ROI when you pursue lead generation methods. For example, a lot of businesses invest huge amounts in Google Ads and Social Media with little or no returns. Allocate the right budget for your lead generation campaigns and ensure that you get the right results!
Use Google Analytics to track the performance of your Google Ads. Make frequent updates to your marketing campaigns for best results and leads.
- Keep an eye on competitors
It’s important to stay ahead of competition and gain maximum leads. One way to do this is by keeping a track on how your competitors are faring. Have they launched a new product or service? Are they doing something special to lure your target audience? Get inspired and do better than them!
- Focus on the quality of leads (rather than quantity of leads)
There is no point getting hundreds of leads with none of them interested in purchasing your product. Focus on getting quality leads that are interested in your services. For this, it’s important that your marketing campaigns are precisely aimed at the right target audience.
- Create fabulous CTAs
Your Call-To-Action must encourage viewers to take an action. Use engaging text and colorful buttons to ensure they click and convert into a sale.
- Keep your online forms short and simple
Nobody likes filling a contact form that requests too many details. Your form should only feature 4 or 5 fields that can help your marketing team reach out and connect with the leads.
- Make a splash on social media, blogs, and your primary website
Create quality content and engage with followers on a regular basis. Ensure that negative feedback received on social media is attended to and resolved immediately. Offer discounts and launch contests on your website and social media profiles to keep your target audience interested in your brand.
- Focus on an effective email marketing strategy
Also called the “conversion-rich” strategy, emailers are used by popular brands to reach out to potential customers, even on a minimal budget. For successful implementation, ensure that emails are sent to genuine customers who are likely to be interested in your offerings.
- Generate quality backlinks back to your website
- Don’t take “guest content” for granted
- Free trials never fail
Free trials can never let you down and this strong strategy has been successfully utilized by some of the world’s biggest brands, including Amazon and Apple.
