Though technology can be a blessing, it can be easy for businesses to experience pitfalls as a result of not using it effectively. Some businesses are completely online, and so it becomes difficult to generate new and interesting strategies to get leads when your competition exists in the vast abyss we call cyberspace. It’s important as a small business, to keep your lead generation ideas fresh and relevant to your audience. In turn, we have gathered some pointers from credible sources for you to keep in mind to help you get the most out of your potential audience at all times.
1. Reach out to past customers. It’s important to get in touch with your existing network. Reach out to people who have shopped from you before and implement a predictive analytics program to help you develop your customer relationship management database. Use this to observe patterns and make predictions on their next move in the marketplace.
2. Minimize costs by being creative. If you don’t have the resources to do a lot of marketing, think outside the box for ways you can generate leads. Use guerrilla marketing tactics to get the word out about your business. Brand your collateral and order personalized swag to pass out at local events to spark brand awareness!
3. Be clear about your call-to-action. The market in any industry can become oversaturated by giving the consumer too many choices. Be clear about what you want the consumer to do after being presented your ad or social content. If your goal is for them to watch a video, be clear in the manner in which you set up your social media campaigns on the back-end. If your goal is to get people to visit your site, be transparent. Adding calls-to-action like “Learn More”, “Shop Now”, and “Contact” help the consumer take the desired next steps after being presented your ad. Don’t leave any content open-ended. Having one clear call-to-action has been proven to increase conversion rates up to 25 percent!
4. Develop your local market. Sometimes, growing businesses look too far beyond what is right in front of them! Develop your local market before you move on to other areas. People want convenience. They want to offer their business to companies that are in their area so that they don’t have to travel. Repeat business happens most right in your neighborhood.
5. Take a look at your “About” page. Usually, when companies write their “About” pages, they are in the infancy of their business and may not have an established customer base yet. They may also lack the experience to highlight certain factors that may be beneficial to their audience. Writing an “About” page is typically an easy place to start developing your content and thus, tends to be one of the first sections to cover when setting up a business. Once your business has been around for some time, revisit this page to ensure that it is fulfilling its main purpose – to generate leads. This page is where people initially go to read about what you do and what you can offer them. Implementing important keywords, utilizing a clearly defined headline, breaking up the copy into easier-to-digest chunks, including eye-catching graphics, and ending with a call-to-action are all essential elements to a successful “About” page.
6. Seek referrals. Seeking referrals does not have to be a daunting task. This can be done at community meetings with other industry influencers or even by joining a club/organization that is composed of a niche market you may be interested in tapping. Build relationships everywhere you go and eventually, reach out to these contacts concerning their needs and how your business can help them. Winning over your influencers to gain their business is effective because people are four times more likely to purchase something when it is recommended by a friend. The lifetime value for a new referral customer is actually 16 percent higher than for non-referrals! 7. Boost your online presence on social media. It goes without saying that social media has a monumental influence on today’s marketing and advertising capacity. Now more than ever, we are able to target our audience on the channels where they spend most of their time and often, the “shop now” aspect is integrated right into their news feeds! Having a presence on social media is one thing, but having an ACTIVE presence is another. Make sure not to clog the news feed with information completely irrelevant to your brand. Instead, research suggests 1-2 daily posts on Facebook and Instagram specifically, that incorporate relevant information to influence someone in your audience to make a purchase. Boosting social posts to gain more engagement, creating online ad campaigns to target the right people, and running contests/giveaways are excellent ways to generate leads. Make your presence known in the social media hemisphere!
For more guidance in taking your business to the next level with lead-generation, contact Amaniac Design. We’ll steer you in the right direction!
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