Small businesses are responsible for the innovative ideas that lead to the growth of an economy. Also, small companies push large companies to change and adapt. This is because small companies change more and faster, causing large companies to react to these changes. It doesn’t take much to conclude that we are talking about a great economic force with great entrepreneurs behind us struggling daily to overcome challenges.
But what does this mean concerning lead generation for small businesses? On the one hand, it means that you have a lot of competitors – and fierce ones, at that. So, if you want to expand your presence and grow your business, there is a need for you to keep your sales pipeline full of leads. Do you want to grow your leads? Then continue reading as this article is for you. Let us help you understand how lead generation can be a large factor in growing your small business.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is a set of marketing actions that consists of acquiring and generating a list of contacts who are most likely to be interested in the activities undertaken by a business. This means that it is not a strategy for increasing generic traffic to your website. Through this business model, these leads are the same users who express interest in your products and services. They try to get in touch with businesses like yours, leaving their data through social and email opt-ins to obtain specific benefits, deals, and communication in exchange.
To generate new contacts, multiple marketing strategies can be used which are necessary to attract the users’ attention and generate leads. This would be the request for contact by the user who completes an online form and leaves his or her details behind.
Why do you need to generate leads?
As most people probably understand, creating relevant content for websites and blogs is crucial to generate leads and market the product or service that you offer. It sounds unbelievably simple, yet true. This, perhaps, is one of the most effective and underestimated marketing strategies that exist, simply because of how simple it seems to be.
More than that, however, there are tons of other original ways for businesses to attract people. It is in this process that companies deliver to their potential customers what they want and what they need to arouse interest. With that said, it is always good to invest in a strategy that can pique your potential customers’ interest, as you guide them through the process until they reach the point where they buy the product or avail of the service that you have to offer. From the moment that these people show a genuine interest in your business, they are already starting to create a relationship with you. This in itself makes the process of obtaining information easier and consequently, makes it easier for you to close the purchase.
How lead generation works
If you are intent on making your small business grow, then one of the priorities you can count on would be lead generation. Let us show you how this works:
Capturing of leads
Lead generation starts with the first contact that your customers experience with you. The first visit to your website, a Facebook post, an advertising banner… you name it! Before this happens, however, you must first establish your foundation by knowing your personas, understanding your customers’ demands at each stage of their journey, offer good value propositions, and facilitate conversion channels.
Nutrition
Contacts, after being ‘captured’, enter what we call the lead nutrition cycle. At this stage, the goal is to educate the lead about the products or services you offer. To do this, you need to keep producing relevant content and sharing this information with your database contacts. Nutrition content should not be commercialized and must be informative enough for your audience to help them solve their problems as you present solutions to their needs and desires.
It also helps to remember to maintain segmented communication according to your customer’s profile. To do this effectively, it is practical to use a marketing automation tool to ease your tasks. Through the standards that you have defined, the system will know when to send different materials to different leads at different stages. Among the myriad of nutrition strategies, here are a few options you may be interested in:
- Email marketing
- SMS marketing
- Social media marketing
Before jumping on any of these ships, however, you have to take the time to understand how each one works. After all, how you perform this step would define how your relationship with your potential customers will go.
Qualification
Identifying whether a lead is qualified for sales and marketing or not is a key factor to help you get to the conversion stage. One of the most effective ways to understand whether he or she is qualified or not is through the Lead Scoring functionality. Sometimes a lead isn’t prepared to go into sales but is walking along with marketing and achieving better scores.
It is important to identify the stage of the funnel that the lead is in so that you do not send a lead to the sales team when they would be more efficient when they should be in marketing.
Conversion
The last step in lead management is to convert that contact into a paying customer. Understanding when a lead is ready to become a customer is a tricky yet very important step because this is where the sales team must not waste time on a contact that will not convert, or fail to activate a lead that is already ready to buy.
Why lead generation is important
Many entrepreneurs will ask themselves: why not just buy leads? Of course, many companies currently offer leads for sale. Through this, you can quite easily obtain your contacts list according to your specific category. However, this solution is not always the right one. In general, leads from these types of deals are often generated from conventional means such as quote requests, require an annual subscription at significant prices, and are not exclusive to you as competitors may also buy them. Furthermore, these contacts have not yet shown their interest in your business. These are unqualified leads, and it is often difficult to convert them into potential customers because these are the types of people who already have their minds made up against making a purchase. Therefore, generating leads properly is an excellent alternative for expanding your client portfolio without fail.
Lead generation offers your products and services not only to individuals but also to businesses and other potential customers. Using lead generation marketing actions may eventually turn into a winning strategy for both the consumer and your business. The consumer requests and obtains the information that he needs, and the company communicates with them directly.
However, the ultimate goal of lead generation should be understood as an immediate sale. The purchase process has now changed. Users are used to receiving communication and are overwhelmed by promotions and sales requests. Marketing strategies must adapt to this change taking place by building a continuous relationship with your potential customers.
The creation of a solid lead generation strategy is important to build a relationship built on trust with users and to capture their interest before getting in touch with them for the sale.
Why do I need professional help for lead generation?
Like any other business owner, you know that customers do not materialize out of the blue. There are a lot of things involved in gaining a customer: you can market your products or services through advertisements on the radio, television, email, and so on. But what comes next after your target market sees your ad? That’s right — they would want to know more. Now, of all those potential customers that can be reached by your messages, how many are interested in what you have to offer?
Having said this, wouldn’t it be better to focus your resources on the people who are looking for your product or service? We can help you with that. The capture of potential clients is what drives small businesses to grow, and lead generation services would perhaps be the solution for acquiring better clients and greater income.
At OkayRelax, we offer you different kinds of virtual assistant services that will help you with your marketing campaigns. A dedicated virtual assistant can solely focus on lead generation efforts, to help you find customers in your area. If your calendar is empty, and you are looking to sign a few contacts quickly and easily without having to review them, then the lead generation route is something you may want to take. We offer cost-effective, tailor-made, and long-term winning solutions for you to increase your ROI and get more business in your books. Furthermore, the results are measurable.
When it comes to acquiring targeted customers online, you can rest assured that we at OkayRelax can deliver excellent output as we are experienced in this field. Our lead generation service is designed to attract quality leads – targeted customers who want to do business with you today. Our highly skilled virtual assistants are trained to provide you a list of leads that will surely generate an increase in sales for your business. Lead generation is a key point in the journey that each user needs to take to become satisfied and a repeat customer. Get in touch with us now to discuss how our dedicated virtual assistants can help your business using lead generation.