Are you a small business owner looking to expand your client base and overall business spectrum? Then you need more sales leads! A sales lead is a business or a person with an interest in the services or products offered by your company.
Of course, the leads will not appear overnight, and they are not the only way to grow a business, but working on your sales leads influx is one of the most beneficial ways of improving your business. Without further ado, read about the best ways to generate sales leads for small businesses below!
Know Your Target Audience
According to Raven Creative, knowing the demographics and the needs of your audience is key to developing an effective marketing strategy. To do so, you need to think like your average customer or client. You need to determine who benefits the most from your company’s service or product portfolio, what is their age, what are their spending habits, why should they choose your company over the competition?
One of the best ways of finding all of this crucial information is by using social media and digital marketing effectively, and tracking the metrics of your social and web pages, so you can determine who is interacting with them the most. The people represented by mentioned metrics are your target audience, simply put.
Strategize Your Branding and Marketing Methods Carefully and Thoughtfully
What distinguishes an excellent company from a mediocre one is its marketing campaign. You need to wisely deduce the best promotional materials and methods you can muster to attract as many new clients or customers. There is an infinite amount of marketing techniques, and to generate the most leads, you will need to use only effective ones, because your marketing budget is limited, no matter how much you invest into marketing, so invest intelligently!
Some of the best lead-generating marketing techniques involve info pages, blogs, and statistics pages on a comprehensive company website. In addition, you should consider investing in social media marketing, influencer marketing, client referrals, attending trade shows, and pay-per-click marketing.
Furthermore, you don’t need to exclusively utilize modern marketing techniques. You can use pamphlets and brochures, email newsletter marketing, and work on product and service quality which will promote word of mouth marketing. Some target demographics are better targeted via video ads, while others are more receptive to audio marketing techniques, such as radio commercials. Revert to the previous tip if you need ideas on pinning down your target audience.
Develop a Sales Funnel and Use Email Newsletters
Have you already developed a sense of your target audience, and put a solid marketing campaign in place? Then it is time to collect contact information via funneling all of your prospects into a landing page which motivates the audience to share contact information. The best ways of achieving that are via various promotions, such as discount coupons, gifts, samples, and other value-driven approaches.
A good example would be adding a newsletter option to your website, and offering a 30% discount on the first purchase as a reward for signing up for the newsletter. This won’t only incentivize your website visitors to try out your products, but it will also give you their email address and possibly other contact information.
The most important thing about newsletters is, to be honest to your word and deliver on the promised goods, e.g. discounts. After a customer receives a discounted product, they will trust your website and your company. You can continue to build that trust via a scheduled weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletter, that will be informative, and add value to the reader in various ways. Remember not to spam your audience with emails, and don’t send repeated newsletters, because that will steer the visitors away from you.
Social Media Is the Modern King of Sales Leads
If you are a small business owner, and you are not working on improving your social media presence, you are missing out on many potential sales leads. Social media pages are free to create, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and more. YouTube and Pinterest are also excellent visual promotional platforms for companies. Use as many of these platforms to your advantage by interacting with your audience. If you have funds to spare, you can also invest in paid ads on these platforms to gain more followers and views.
Once you get the attention of your target audience, you can funnel them through various means into becoming sales leads. Additionally, when you acquire the mentioned leads, you may interact with them on social media platforms and ask them about their desires and needs. Users appreciate companies that value feedback and cater to their needs, so this will positively affect your brand and company reputation. In connection with the point previously mentioned, it is important to mention the possibility of real-time conversations by using chatbots. An improved reputation again results in more leads, word of mouth promotion, and an additional positive impact on your business.
Remain Patient and Focus on the Long-Term
Once again, don’t expect to generate sales leads overnight. Lead generation requires a continuous effort, and it should be a long-term goal of your business. Building a solid base for your company’s marketing, the funnel of leads, lead generation, and sales conversions takes time, money, and effort. However, once you create a system for generating leads that work, you can streamline it, grow your business, and exponentially improve your reputation and user base.
Remember that not all leads end up converting to sales, so you will need as many sales leads as possible, but that won’t happen instantly. A small business takes at least over four years to grow and become popular, according to Fresh Books. Walmart is a great example, it took seven years for Walmart to expand to a second store, and the big “boom” in business came after 25 years of steady expansion. Even the most successful companies needed time to grow, and yours will too if you input your energy and resources into generating leads!