In business, leads are the lifeblood of success.
Without them, it can be difficult to grow your customer base and make a profit on a consistent basis.
But what is a lead, and how do you get them? But there are many ways to generate leads for your business—and some are more effective than others. So, let’s explore what you can do to generate leads and turn them into customers…
Promotions & Prospecting
Promotional Lead Generation Activities
You can generate leads through promotional activities such as email marketing campaigns, online advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and social media campaigns.
SEO Search Engine Optimization Business Marketing Concept
These activities involve investing in a platform or channel that will allow you to reach out to potential customers who have expressed interest in the type of product or service you provide. By investing in promotional content (with time, effort and money), you can target specific audiences with tailored messaging that resonates with them and encourages them to take action.
With proper planning and execution, these activities can be highly effective at generating new leads for your business. It’s also worth noting that long-term nurture is a really effective method when used in tandem with promotional lead generation.
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Person-to-Person Prospecting Activities
Another popular way of generating leads is through person-to-person prospecting activities such as cold calling potential customers or attending networking events and trade shows.
Cold calling is a great way of reaching potential customers directly by phone while networking events give you an opportunity to meet potential customers face-to-face and establish relationships that could lead to future opportunities down the line. Trade shows are also great for getting your name out there and making connections with people from all over the world who may have an interest in what your company has to offer. Person-to-person prospecting activities require more time investment but can yield better results when done right.
Effective Lead Generation Activities for Small Businesses
If you are a small business owner looking for ways to generate leads, you may be feeling overwhelmed by the number of options out there.
The issue is that when you’re presented with a whole world of promotional activities, it can be difficult to know what’s best to focus on for you and your business.
Fortunately, there are a few tried and tested tactics that have proven to be successful at bringing in potential customers. Let’s take a look at four of the most effective lead-generation activities for small businesses…
Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is one of the oldest and most reliable methods of promoting your business. By sending out newsletters or promotional emails, you can reach potential customers who have already expressed interest in your product or service.
You can also target specific audiences with tailored messaging that resonates with them and encourages them to take action. Using email campaigns effectively requires careful planning and execution, but if done correctly they can be an extremely effective way to generate new leads for your business.
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Online Advertising
Takeaway coffee in shout concept on yellow background. Promotion or advertising sale.
Online advertising is another great way to reach potential customers and generate leads for your business. Platforms such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads allow you to target specific audiences with tailored messaging that resonates with them and encourages them to take action.
Of course, the missing step here is the creation of engaging content – but that should be focused on your key messaging with your goals in mind.
Additionally, online advertising is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional forms of advertising such as TV or radio ads, making it easier for small businesses on a tight budget to invest in this type of lead generation activity.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is an important part of any digital marketing strategy because it ensures that your website appears at the top of search engine results when potential customers are searching for products or services related to yours.
technology and business concept: man using a laptop with seo software on the screen. All screen graphics are made up.
It’s changed a lot since it first became a thing way back in the day and long gone are the days when you’d stack a blog article full of keywords to drive traffic.
In fact, search engines like Google are looking for quality content in the vein of the ‘you ask, we answer’ blogs, articles, and videos to drive traffic to.
Improving your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) is obviously the goal but optimising your website encompasses many different activities and strategies.
Content Marketing
Content Blog Create Analyze Optimize Concept
Content marketing involves creating high-quality content such as blog posts, videos, ebooks, brochures, and guides that provide valuable information to the reader.
The idea is that as an expert in your industry/field, you have knowledge to impart and by doing so, you’re providing value for reading (or consuming) to potential leads, as well as existing customers.
This will build trust over a long period of time and tie into the long-term nurture strategy we touched on earlier. Email marketing campaigns, SEO optimisation, informative blogs, videos, guides, and other content are all effective ways of generating quality leads.
And as ever, it’s not a case of picking and choosing what to do at random – it needs to be an informed decision based on what works for your audience…
Which might be a combination of various types of content.
Investing time into researching these approaches will help ensure that any effort made towards finding new leads will yield positive results over time!
Is Person-to-Person Prospecting An Investment Worth Making
When we talk about investment, it doesn’t always mean money.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase ‘time is money’, you’ll know exactly what we mean. Your time is the most valuable commodity in your business and what you do with it (because we’ve only got a finite amount of time) is crucial.
But, if you want to generate leads for your business, person-to-person prospecting activities such as cold calling, and attending networking events or trade shows may be an investment worth making.
The Benefits of Cold Calling
Cold calling is one of the most popular person-to-person prospecting activities because it allows you to reach potential customers directly by phone.
Cold calling can help you build relationships with customers who may not otherwise have been aware of your services or products. Cold calls also give you the chance to gauge customer interest in what your business has to offer and quickly identify potential leads that may need more nurturing down the line.
Bearded hipster man phone conversation. Call clients. Retro phone. Marketing automation. Calling on Past Customers Script. Outdated technology. Manager phone communication. Answering machine.
Cold calling is however both time-consuming and involves a large amount of rejection, as well as the potential for reputational damage if it’s not done correctly (sometimes even if it is).
Many business owners hate the thought of cold-calling but when it’s strategic and thought out, it can yield positive returns. There are many companies who you can outsource cold calling with the goal of booking appointments or meetings if it’s something that you think can add value.
Networking Events and Trade Shows
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Networking events and trade shows are also great ways to get your name out there and meet potential customers face-to-face.
Attending networking events gives you an opportunity to establish relationships with people who could become future customers down the line, whilst providing an avenue for connecting with people from all over the world who may have an interest in what your company has to offer.
Okay, so not every trade show is going to be a worldwide event, but what it will always be is a focused group of people.
If you’re in the gym and fitness sector, then a trade show that’s all about fitness is going to have many more relevant people than the average group of 1000 people, for example.
And nothing can really replace the impact of speaking to someone face-to-face – so any opportunity to do so in a room full of people who are ready to engage, whether that’s at a tradeshow or networking event, is invaluable.
Lead generation is an essential part of any successful business’s growth strategy. While there are many different methods of generating leads, both promotional activities and person-to-person prospecting activities can be effective depending on your needs.
So, the question is what lead generation activities do you do? And what do you think would work for you?
Then it’s a case of thinking about your long-term goals and working out how your lead generation strategy can help you achieve them.