While consumer confidence has dipped slightly due to recession scares, for the most part, this year's economy has been extraordinary. There are still a lot of leads out there for your business.
Given that fact, if you have had a soft year, you shouldn't have. There is more opportunity to grab new customers than ever before and things are going to get a whole lot harder as we push further into the digital age.
Fortunately, the year isn't over yet. If you want to pick up some new leads and finish the year strong, look no further than our lead generation suggestions below. We will lead the way...
1. Lock Away Your Premium Content
If you provide well-researched content on your website that is targeted at B2B audiences, don't just give that information away for free. Make people exchange their email information for access to your business content.
Getting a B2B representative's email address means that you have the opportunity to market to them for years to come which could prove to be lucrative for your company. What is better is that most people don't put stock into the value of their email address which means that they will willingly share it in order to see a case study, whitepaper, or another premium piece of content. To learn more about B2B startup news strategies and industry trends, visit our marketing section on this blog.
2. Start Getting Published in 3rd Party Publications
Most business owners have a blog where they post valuable content for their customers. If you have already checked that box, great! In order to expand your reach, you are now going to want to start publishing on other businesses websites.
When people write blog content for another website or blog, it is called guest posting. While guest posting may not be mentioned as much as it was a decade ago, it is still an excellent way to get in front of a new audience and score backlinks to your website which can improve your Google rankings.
3. Advertise on Facebook
Google used to be all the rage when it came to digital advertising. While Google is still a good place to invest some of your advertising dollars, we have to say that our preference these days is to buy Facebook ads.
Facebook has richer data on its users than Google does which means that if you are targeting odd interests like movie preferences or political affiliations, you can. Also, we find Facebook's ad tools to be a lot easier to work than Google's, especially for beginners.
4. Optimize Your Landing Pages
All of the Facebook ads in the world aren't going to get you new leads if your landing pages are poorly done.
For the uninitiated, your landing page is where you send a prospective lead when they click on one of your ads. In theory, your landing pages should get your prospect hyped on a product or service that you're selling which will hopefully lead them to buying.
A great landing page is one that is concise, motivational and has clear call to actions that seamlessly guide your target towards an intended action. There are a number of great landing page optimization guides online that you can sift through to help streamline your page's performance.
5. Launch a Referral System
Word of mouth recommendations are incredibly powerful when it comes to bringing people into your business. The problem is that most of your customers are too busy to go around telling people about your company. In order to incentivize satisfied customers to spread the news about you, reward them through a structured referral program.
A good referral program is one where the person that refers somebody to you gets a reward for bringing a customer through your doors and your new customer also gets a reward for coming in. Rewards can be anything from discounts on services to gift cards.
6. Invest in Personal Marketing
Given the amount of digital clutter that's out there, many of the most successful marketers are transitioning towards personal marketing. Personal marketing is any means of marketing that is tailored to a specific customer.
For example, companies look at who their top customers are and regularly send them postcards thanking them for their business and offering them special coupons to make another purchase. When attracting new customers, you might modify that strategy and write hand-written letters to members in your community letting them know about what you are doing and asking them to support your goals.
Anything that makes a piece of marketing feel like it is intended for somebody and not for anybody can go a long way in grabbing people's attention.
7. Make Sure You Are SEO Optimized
It is the digital age of lead generation. Your online presence should be SEO optimized by now.
If you have no idea what we are talking about, read our guide on SEO to start getting on good terms with Google. With good SEO in your corner, you will notice that the number of passive leads that pour into your website go up dramatically.
8. Add a Chatbot to Your Website
If a customer lands on your website outside of business hours and has a question, how can they get them answered? If your answer is for them to "wait until tomorrow morning", you're losing business.
Chatbots are digital assistants that can answer most customer's general questions 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. That additional support can go a long way in netting fringe leads that are looking to make an impulse buy but need a push.
9. Work With an Agency To Load Up On Leads
Getting new leads can be tricky business. If you are not well versed in today's tech-focused landscape, you may find yourself spending a lot of money to roll out a lead generation process that never picks up steam.
To make sure that the time and money you spend on getting leads actually lead to results, consider hiring a marketing agency to help you with your B2B and B2C marketing efforts.
While agencies will set you back a few bucks, the extra investment for guaranteed traction is worth the spend.
10. Purchase Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising like Google Ads, Bing Ads, YouTube Ads, or Facebook Ads are about bidding on certain search or content keywords to drive relevant visitors to your website landing page.
Once you figure out your target keywords and conversion rate, you can begin to create a lead generation and sales machine. You want to get to the point where you bid $5 on ads and earn $10-15+ in the end after lead conversion so your online ads are always profitable.
Get New Leads and Give Your Business New Life
Nothing reinvigorates a business quite like landing new leads! Use our tips to get your lead generating efforts cooking and feel free to check out more of the content right here on our blog if you would like additional business advice.
Get New Leads and Give Your Business New Life
Nothing reinvigorates a business quite like landing new leads! Use our tips to get your lead generating efforts cooking and feel free to check out more of the content right here on our blog if you would like additional business advice.
Visit the Sales section of the Frugal Finance Blog to learn more about lead generation and sales strategies. Lead the way!
