Regardless of your business size, lead generation holds immense value. It is the foundation of your sales funnel and will directly affect final revenue. However, when it comes to engaging your audience, the size of your business matters. From your scope of operations to your budget and customer experience strategies, there are unique elements to consider. So, let us explore ten lead generation strategies for small businesses specifically.
But before we do, let’s briefly define lead generation – starting with defining a lead.
Hubspot® defines a lead as "any person who indicates interest in a company's product or service in some way, shape, or form". In turn, they define lead generation as the process of converting visitors into leads.
However, it is notable that lead generation is only the first step toward optimizing one’s sales funnel.
The second phase is lead acquisition, which, although often used interchangeably, is not synonymous with lead generation. Hubspot's article above explains this as well, as does ActiveProspect®, which splits the customer acquisition process into:
All that said, generation, acquisition, and conversion strategies will synergize and overlap somewhat. With this in mind, the following strategies will primarily focus on generation but also lay the foundations for better acquisition.
The very first step should be to set up some basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). That’s because it will be the foundation of many lead generation strategies, for small businesses or otherwise.
In brief, SEO is a very expansive series of practices that optimizes websites and pages for search engines. It includes over 200 ranking factors and spans across on-page, off-page, and technical elements.
Now, for small businesses, you will likely not need to address every single factor at once. Especially if you’re taking a DIY approach, you may only need the basics to begin generating leads effectively. Among others, consider the following:
Should you need help with technical SEO in particular, Backlinko ® offers an excellent guide to it.
Another SEO subset that requires attention for lead generation strategies is local SEO. Where general SEO addresses general search engine visibility, local SEO specifically addresses local searches.
Local SEO primarily relies on Google® My Business (GMB) and can hold immense value for small businesses. For instance, 99Firms® finds that almost half of all searches include location and that most searchers look for local businesses. What's more, it's notably effective, as 78% of mobile local searches result in purchases.
To optimize for local SEO, you may start with the following:
With the above foundation in place, you may then consider using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software toward lead generation strategies. While smaller businesses may not typically use CRM as often, there are many reasons to do so.
Primarily, in our context, consider industry-specific lead acquisition and conversion challenges. The moving industry presents an excellent example of this, where the acquisition process requires impeccable content strategies. CRM offers a solution to this through lead management options and improved informational organization.
That said, each CRM solution differs significantly from the next, as regards industry focus and more. As you choose yours, consider the following:
Past the foundations then, let us now delve into direct lead generation strategies. The first, and likely most accessible to smaller businesses, is starting a blog.
Doing so has immense benefits, such as:
Next, you may consider email marketing. This practice can certainly be daunting, but both CRM and email marketing platforms offer automation options to make it easier.
The caveat with this practice is that warm emails typically work best for generated leads, in such ways as:
However, you may also employ cold emails to generate leads. This digitized version of cold calls does hold value, as LiveAgent ® finds . You will simply need to avoid spammy behavior, humanize your copy, and make a clear, brief, enticing offer.
Lead generation strategies can undoubtedly not exclude social media activity. With such massive, engaged user bases, social media offer an excellent way to gain exposure and generate leads.
Indeed, Statista ® finds that social media marketing’s primary benefits are, in order:
Examples of ways to reap these benefits include, among others:
On the subject of events, virtual or otherwise, few activities will get as much attention as events. Here, you may consider both types, depending on your scope of operations, budget, and content strategies.
Returning to digital pursuits, paid marketing should also remain among your lead generation strategies. How heavily you lean into it will depend on your budget, but careful audience analysis and keyword research should still make it lucrative.
The two primary forms of paid advertising to note are:
Having touched on both inbound and outbound marketing, let us conclude by revisiting both. First, let’s start with inbound marketing, which concerns the majority of the above suggestions.
Inbound marketing refers to marketing that attracts leads through quality content instead of approaching them directly. A great example of it is SEO and content marketing, while cold calls and emails are ones of outbound marketing.
To boost your inbound marketing, then, you may consider the following:
Finally, while outbound marketing is indeed infamous for being intrusive, it too generates leads effectively. So, while you may prioritize inbound marketing, you should still not fully discard it.
Examples of outbound marketing include:
These practices may seem ineffective, but they’re anything but. Neil Patel reports that cold emails still see great open rates and click-through rates. What’s more, citing LinkedIn ® , he notes that cold messages on LinkedIn are 3x as effective as cold emails are.
To conclude, lead generation strategies for small businesses come in digital and physical forms, inbound and outbound, local and broad. They all begin with solid SEO foundations and effective, functional websites but may then expand to events, social media marketing, and more, depending on your resources and budget. With the above strategies in mind, your small business is bound to generate valuable leads in no time.
SEO Content Manager and Copywriter, Movers Development® – Jacob Daniels is an aspiring SEO content writer that is building his presence in the digital marketing world through testing his limits in writing articles related to SEO, PPC, marketing, software, moving industry news and trends, everyday life topics...basically, whatever he can find and twist to his mindset.