We don’t need to remind you that growing a business is difficult – but we will.
Tracking conversion, creating content, taking care of SEO, regularly posting on social media… and that’s just the beginning. Managing all of those growth strategies can easily leave you confused, with seemingly no end goal in sight.
As a matter of fact, some business owners have trouble understanding the impact of certain channels.
For instance, according to eMarketer research, roughly 60% of SMB owners are unable to track the ROI of their social media activities. Simply understanding what is and what isn’t working for you can be a difficult task.
However, you have to juggle it all, because you have to grow your business.
Let’s face it – customers won’t actually be able to find you if you don’t make yourself more visible. Luckily, there are some things that can be accomplished on a reasonable budget that will help you attract more leads. Here’s how you can get started.
Craft a compelling message
Everything starts with a compelling message. Why should you be so concerned about your “brand” message? Just consider this: according to VentureBeat research, there are over 2.1 million negative social media mentions about brands in the United States alone.
Therefore, if you want to attract new people, you have to make an effort to spread your brand message and control your reputation.
Now, the most important thing you need to keep in mind is that your message should be less about your company and your offerings, and more about your prospects and their actual needs.
Start by creating a list of client issues you’ve managed to successfully address in the past. Some of the items on the list should include the following:
- The pain points you’ve successfully removed
- Problems your company managed to solve
- The actual results you’ve achieved so far
Customize your sales process
Your clients are individuals; each one of them has specific desires, goals and opinions. In order to connect with a prospect on a personal level, you have to customize or personalize your approach.
However, as with everything, this is easier said than done. According to recent Gartner research, less than 10% of top-tier retailers believe they are effective at personalization. Moreover, almost 33% of them feel like they have “limited capability” to support their personalization efforts.
You have to realize that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution in this case. Lead generating has to match the context of your customers and allow your sales team to find the right focus.
This means you have to maintain a seamless flow of communication between the marketing and sales department. The marketing department has to customize every pitch to address the concerns of individual customers and the sales department can coordinate new messages to minimize the overall pain points.
Expand your network reach
While you have to maintain your current user network, you cannot possibly expect it to grow on its own. Some business owners even struggle with expanding their lead database beyond family members, friends and close business acquaintances.
Finding new leads is naturally expensive, which is why some organizations choose to outsource it. For instance, you can hire a company that can help you with appointment setting and schedule meetings on your behalf while you deal with other aspects of your business.
Choose quality over quantity
Most people simply focus on trying to capture as much leads as they can. But even if you manage to build and maintain a huge network, you still have to think about the quality of your leads.
In a recent lead generating report from BrightTALK, almost 70% of B2B marketers said that generating quality leads is more important than generating a large volume of leads.
In order to generate high-quality leads, here are a few things you need to do:
Ask your existing customer base for referrals
This is perhaps the most effective lead acquisition strategy out there. Your existing customers probably know some people who can benefit from your products or services, so why not use this to your benefit?
Target potential customers with SEO and SEM
Publishing fresh, useful content will not only help your current customers but will also attract new ones. Plus, most marketers know that the placement of the right keywords on their site is vital for attracting customers based on the words they use to conduct online searches.
Identify and engage brand advocates
A brand advocate is a person who recommends your product/service to other people, mainly their own audience. And you shouldn’t just look for celebrity endorsements either – you can simply find a few strong influencers in your niche that have a hefty following on social media.
The bottom line
Needless to say, lead generation techniques are constantly changing and evolving. If you want to stay one step ahead of your competition and grow your business properly, you have to make an effort to stay on top of things. In the end, even when you find a few strategies that work for you, you have to be ready to tweak and correct them along the way.