Lead generation is a great way for small businesses to increase their sales and grow their presence. Here are some lead generation techniques you can try to boost your sales and create a loyal customer following.

What Is The Lead Generation Process?

Lead generation stars with random users who aren’t aware of your brand. They look at your marketing campaigns and become interested in the product or service. You need to use this interest to turn them into customers. There are different ways to nurture that interest, and that’s where the whole lead generation process comes in handy.

You need to find contact information so you can increase their interest. Once you’re successfully pushing the customer to make a purchase, the general lead generation process ends, and the customer turns into a product-qualified lead you can use to test new products.

The Importance Of Lead Generation

Lead generation tells businesses how far a customer is in the sales funnel. The closer they are to making a purchase, the more valuable the lead becomes. This is why it’s important to properly categorize the lead and use custom methods to attract them into the sales funnel. With lead generation, you can make educated guesses about your revenue, increase sales, and improve your business practices.

Types Of Lead Generation

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Marketing Qualified Leads or MQLs, are those users who have interacted with your marketing campaign. The interaction can be a comment on your post, a like, or even a share. In some cases, people also ask questions related to the new product. The more you engage a potential customer at this stage, the higher their chances of becoming a paying lead.

Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

Sales-qualified Leads or SQLs are those customers who haven’t made a purchase yet but are interested in your business. These customers usually ask questions or fill out forms. So you need to apply a personalized approach when answering these potential customers because one wrong answer can cost you a lead.

Product Qualified Leads (PQLs)

Product-qualified leads, or PQLs, are those customers who have already used your product at least once. So you need a different lead generation strategy for them compared to new customers. For PQLs, companies usually target them for free trials or new products to learn how the product will land in the market. These leads are valuable in determining whether your new product or service will be a hit or a miss. PQLs can save companies a lot of marketing budget if the product doesn’t do well.

Lead Generation For Small Businesses

Picking A Strategy

Lead generation starts with a strategy. It begins with defining what value your product or service offers for your customers and who are the target customers. You can’t market specialized enterprise software to a bunch of teenagers. Similarly, you can’t sell fashionable clothing to a corporate business. So you need to determine who your audience is and where they are. Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to start gathering information to generate leads. Lead generation and digital marketing for small businesses go hand in hand, so make sure your digital marketing strategy is in sync with your lead generation practices.

Collecting Information

Collecting information works in several ways. You can directly ask for the information, create forms at the checkout, and offers special discounts in exchange for information. This all depends on the nature of your business and your sales strategy. Whichever option you use, you’ll end up with a user information database for personalized emails or sales calls.

Newsletter

Once you’ve collected the content information, you’ll have to reach out to potential customers to turn them into paying ones. However, you don’t want to scare the potential customer away with constant calls and emails. This is where newsletters come in! Newsletters allow you to highlight your product and services without hounding the people. With newsletters, you can inform the person about upcoming sales, new product launches, and exclusive discounts tailored for them specifically.

Content

Content is currently the number one strategy for lead generation. With informative and authoritative content, you can rope in potential customers and turn them into leads. The content page includes an effective call-to-action, informative content, and a link to landing pages. It’s important for you to periodically review your content to ensure it’s in line with your business and offers something of value to your customers.

Landing Pages

The major part of lead generation happens on landing pages or forms where random visitors turn into potential customers with names and contact information. Landing pages usually offer something of value to the visitor in exchange for their information. For example, you can offer special sales discounts in exchange for email addresses. This will help you build your email list and grow your customer base. However, your landing page should be simple so visitors can navigate through it without getting frustrated.

Call-To-Action

As the name suggests, call-to-action or CTA is used to compel people to take action. CTA can be anything from a line of text, a picture with a link, or a separate button. These links redirect the potential customer to your landing pages, and from there, the visitors can browse your services or products.

However, when creating CTAs, it’s important to keep them engaging so people will interact with them. But you should refrain from using overly engaging CTA because it may confuse the visitor and make it difficult for them to figure out which link to click. A good CTA is catchy, tells the visitor what to do, and offers a convenient link. Once a person clicks through the link, they enter the first stage of your sales funnel.

Create Effective Lead Generation Strategies With Adfully

With Adfully, you get all the perks of working with a full-fledged advertising agency for a reasonable cost. Our services also include lead generation for small businesses, where you’ll work with industry experts to create effective lead-generation strategies. Not just that, but we also offer 360 digital marketing for small businesses, including website development, reputation management, social media marketing, and more. You’ll also get one-on-one consultations with our experts to define your strategies to make them more effective. So what are you waiting for? Contact us today and grow your business!