Many business owners are constantly looking to expand their customer base and grow their businesses. This growth can be a long and difficult process and one of the key elements of growing a business is having a stream of sales leads. A lead is basically a person or business that has the potential to purchase your products or services. Here are some tips for creating a system that will help your business get more leads.
Identify your Target Audience
The first step in generating leads is identifying your target audience. Focusing your marketing plan on your target audience will help aid in successfully reaching and selling to your ideal customer. So it is important to research who your audience is, who they are, where they live, what they do, their lifestyle, etc. will help you develop a more focused plan on how to engage with them.
Promotion
In order to generate more leads for your business, you need to develop a marketing plan that will get your products or services in front of your target audience. There are numerous ways of promoting your business and you will want to create a marketing plan that is most effective for your business. Marketing ideas such as making a blog, social media, per per click (PPC) advertising, electronic direct mail (eDMs), and video are some types of marketing promotions that you can use to get more leads.
Creating a Sales Funnel
Once you’ve identified your target audience and determined the best marketing channels to reach them, you need to have a plan of collecting and collating the contact information of potential clients. The process involves funnelling all prospective clients through a standard contact form or landing page that convinces them to share their information. Having some kind of customer management database will help you keep track of these leads through this process.
Email Newsletters
Now that you have some information on who your customers are, cultivating these relationships is important to convert leads to potential sales. One of the most convenient ways is having consistent communication with your leads through an email newsletter. This helps promote your business and refreshes your customers brand awareness of your business.
Using Social Media
Social media provides one less barrier when communicating with your customers. This is an opportunity to have conversations with prospective customers and generate new leads. Creating a Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter profile and LinkedIn page are ways to attract and easily engage with your audience. Social Media is also a way to converse with them on what the customers want and need, and how you can possibly improve as a business overall. The more positive their experience a customer has with your business over time, the more likely you are to convert them to a potential sale and hopefully – a repeat buyer.
Generating leads is a long, difficult, and continuous process but if you have an efficient system in place to generate and convert these leads, then it will increase your opportunities for your business to grow.
