At the end of the day, whether you’re just starting out or have been running your small business for a while, you no doubt know just how important small business lead generation is for growth. But you also probably know that lead generation for small business owners is also rather tricky.
From finding new customers to expanding your client base, there are many steps you have to take in these areas before you can even begin converting potential prospects into actual leads – and that’s before you even touch on the potential costs associated with marketing.
Fortunately, there are many steps out there that you can take to improve lead generation for small business plans. We included the most important ones below, such as advice on what lead generation is, as well as strategies to boost your lead capture efforts overall.
What is lead generation for small businesses?
First things first, let’s break down what lead generation for small business owners actually is; namely, what does it mean and what does it involve? After all, if you’ve never run a small business before, you might not even know what this term means or why it’s important.
So, to start with, lead generation can be defined as the action or process of identifying and cultivating potential customers into paying customers for your business’s product or service.
What this involves could be anything from indirect marketing, like adverts or event sponsorship, to direct outreach via emails and phone calls, anything that helps you get in front of the customer base that you want to sell to.
Why is lead generation important?
The importance of lead generation can be stated in just one word – growth.
Without growth, you can’t expand your business, and if you don’t expand your business, you can’t increase your revenue or take on larger projects. Even if you’re just starting a small business, growth is important, especially if you want to stay competitive in the local market.
However, lead generation is important for more than just expanding your business. It’s also a crucial step in cultivating good customer relationships, which in turn can enhance your reputation and identify you as the go-to option for your specific product or service.
How to generate leads for small business owners
Having looked at what lead generation is and why it’s important, let’s now look at the best lead generation strategies you can turn to in order to expand your customer base and grow your business:
1. Find your USP
First things first, if you’re looking for the best way to generate small business needs, then your first port of call should be to find your business’s USP. Simply put, almost every modern market is saturated with businesses doing the same thing. But if you can stand out from the crowd, customers will notice.
So, take some time to identify where your business’s strengths lie as well as what unique product or service you can offer your customers. On top of this, look for any gaps in your current market that you could potentially exploit in order to capture those leads and customers that aren’t having their needs met.
2. Invest in local advertising
When it comes to generating leads for small business owners, there will eventually be a point where you have to start investing your revenue into proper marketing for your business, particularly in the area of advertising.
However, while advertising does include the typical TV ads and radio segments we’re all familiar with, it could also be something as simple as wearing company-branded clothes, driving branded vehicles, or having business cards you can hand out – whatever is viable for your current budget.
3. Implement local SEO
SEO (better known as Search Engine Optimization) is all about making sure that your business appears as early as possible when someone carries out a Google search in your market. Therefore, in order to make that happen, you need to ensure you do the following:
- Create or update your business website to be in line with best SEO practices.
- Carry out keyword research so you can target your ideal customer base.
- Create a Google My Business Listing so customers can find you online or on maps.
There is, of course, a lot more to the proper use of SEO than we can write here, so we recommend doing more research in this area to get a better understanding of it.
4. Set up PPC advertising
Similarly to SEO, PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is another useful strategy for getting yourself in front of customers when online. However, unlike some lead generation strategies, PPC does require financial investment.
In simple terms, PPC involves paying for ad space on Google. For example, if you’ve ever searched for something and received sponsored ads before your search results, these are PPC ads. Again, PPC is a rather complex topic, so be sure to do your research on it before investing any of your hard-earned cash in this area.
5. Expand your social media presence
Nowadays, few online platforms are more powerful for promoting lead generation online than social media, particularly when it comes to how to generate leads for small businesses.
Therefore, no matter what your business does, it’s essential that you have a social media presence and that you regularly update it with posts that are both informative and targeted towards your desired audience, which in turn will lead to you getting more customers down the line.
6. Demonstrate your expertise
As a small business, one of the most important things you can do for lead generation is to demonstrate to your customers that you’re experts in your field of work or that your products will go above and beyond meeting their needs.
So, whether this is highlighting top reviews, producing products that are worth the asking price, or creating online content like blogs and videos containing information useful to your customers, there’s plenty you can do to show that you know what you’re talking about.
7. Deliver great customer service
Last, but not least, as with any business big or small, maintaining a good reputation with your customer base is vital if you want more customers to choose you over your competitors and grow your business.
And one of the best ways to do this is with a good customer service team that can handle all customer questions, complaints, and requests in a calm, quick, and empathetic manner. With a team like this, your customers will know they’re in good hands.
Deliver great customer service with VoiceNation
These are just our initial tips for boosting lead generation for small businesses, and you should experiment with all of them until you find a lead generation strategy that works for you.
However, if you want to start delivering great customer service now but don’t have the budget for it, then you should reach out to the team at VoiceNation today to see how we can help.
Experts in Live Answering, our Virtual Receptionists can take calls 24/7, every day of the year, so your business can take every call that comes its way. Get in touch with us to learn more about our services, ask about pricing, and inquire about our free trial!