How do you generate leads for a small business?

Small businesses have this common problem of limited resources. This limits most of the activities that the business can engage in including lead generation. We don’t know how true this is for your small business. If you are reading this, then we assume that you are looking for ways of generating leads for your small business. What we cannot assume is whether you have limited resources or not for conducting a digital marketing campaign to drive more leads.

However, the methods that we will be discussing here are not only exclusive to small businesses. You can still apply them to increase leads for your already established enterprise or a corporate company. So, just feel free to use them for any business. Maybe, you need advice on what can work best for your type of business. Even though they are all supposed to increase leads, some are very efficient and cost-effective for some businesses.

Lead Generation Facts and Tips

Whether a small business or a corporate company, lead generation is still useful for the continual success of the business. Lead generation is at the top of the list for any marketing strategy that is developed. That is because of the very many benefits that come with it. We may not find time to talk about these benefits, but we will make you know what lead generation is all about before we can talk about how you can generate it for your small business.

Before you can begin your lead generation campaign, you first need to devise a strategy and revise your business goals. When done, then you need to provide an answer to the following questions:

• Who is your target audience?
• What are their interests?
• How will you measure and evaluate the results?

A good lead generation strategy should have measurable results. With that, you will clearly tell what you get from what you invest in it. And if it is not working as expected, then you can use a different technique that is more efficient for your business.

A simple lead generation strategy should take the following into account:

Educate your audience – This is where you will be telling your potential customers about your products and services. This can be done by every means possible.

Include a call to action – You need to prompt them to take an action such as visiting your website, office, send an email or contact you directly through a phone call, whichever is appropriate.

Collect audience insight – You are sure that your information has reached your intended audience. So, you will need to know everything about the reception. This is possible with some techniques such as Google AdWords that come with Google analytics.

Make the process simple – People have commitments and will simply skip your ad if it is long and boring. If you used a media where they cannot skip it, they will simply lose interest in it and may not respond to your call to action. The entire process from marketing to adding the leads to your lead management system should be simple and straightforward.

After a research done by the business consultant at NXT LVL ROI Business Consulting Services, and from the experience that we have in the industry, we have come to conclude that the following techniques are the most effective in generating leads for small businesses:

Google AdWords

Google has made it simpler and cheaper to have your ads displayed on the web. The ads are displayed to your potential customers when they are online. Google has its ways of displaying your ads to the right people in the right places. For small businesses, this an asset that you can use to globalize your business or just reach customers countrywide.

Depending on what you prefer and who your target audience is, you can use any of the following options provided by the Google AdWords:

• Search Ads
• Display Ads
• Video Ads
• App Ads

Remember that these services are available to anyone anywhere across the globe. Just know your audience and go for the best option. You can also use a combination of two or more for better and faster lead generation.

Facebook Ads

It is common these days to see ads on Facebook feeds. These also work the same way Google AdWords work. For your advert to appear on the feeds of your target audience, you will need to specify some parameters that will help Facebook to display the right ad to the right audience. You may need to specify an age bracket, location, interest, etc.

Running a Facebook ad is relatively cheap and ideal for small businesses that are still interested in gaining publicity. It is this publicity that will increase traffic to your website and generate more leads for you. Remember that you need to be precise and to the point, as many people don’t have time to click on the “load more” option.

Email Marketing

Email marketing still remains to be one of the most commonly used lead generation strategies among many small business owners. With the advancement in technology, you can easily track and measure the performance of your email marketing campaign in generating leads for your business. This makes it very efficient and easy to use. By just monitoring the open rate, read rates, and click-through rates, you can make sense of your campaign.