Many successful owners of small businesses are actively looking to expand their client base and develop their companies. Business growth can, however, be a challenging and long-term operation. Having access to a constant stream of sales leads is one of the fundamental components of growing a company. If you own a company that sells to other companies (B2B), a lead is an individual or business interested in the goods or services you are selling.
Here are some tips for building a framework to help you recognize sales leads in your small company, and turn them into customers with the right attention and effort.
Identify Your Target Audience
Identifying the target audience is the first step of lead generation. Suppose you don’t know who that is exactly. In that case, you can’t reach and sell to your ideal client effectively, so it’s essential to investigate your customer and come up with a good picture of who they are, where they live, how much money they make, what they like to do, what their lifestyle and personality are, etc.
If you don’t already have one, you should also develop a detailed marketing plan as part of this phase.
Pick Your Promotional Methods Wisely
You need a promotional campaign that will bring your goods and services in front of members of your target audience to generate leads. There are various ways you can promote your business, and again, to find the most successful strategies for your business, you may want to use your marketing strategy.
Some marketing ideas include a website for details, a forum, social media marketing, business events, current customer referrals, ads with pay per click (PPC), and traditional advertising.
Create a Sales Funnel
It would help if you had a strategy for gathering contact information once you know who you are approaching and how best to approach them. The first phase of the process involves funnelling all prospects to a standard form or landing page that allows them to share their contact information, ideally in exchange for a gift, a coupon, a demo or some other reward value-added.
At this point, it is essential to have a database of customer relationship
management (CRM) that will help you keep track of prospective customers through the process.
Use an Email Newsletter to Build Relationships
Now that you’re in touch with clients, it’s time to build individual relationships so that you can take them from the lead level through a sale (and hopefully a repeat sale!). An email newsletter is one of the best ways to establish regular contact with your prospects.
Make sure you are aware of and observe the CAN-SPAM Act laws when you are preparing your email marketing strategy.
Leverage Social Media to Connect and Engage
Social media offers a range of ways to build conversations with potential clients and generate new leads for small businesses. To attract and engage your audience, you can create a Facebook page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn company page, Pinterest account or a YouTube page, then funnel them into your process to become leaders.
Plus, you can use social media to speak to them once you have leads in the system and learn more about what they need and want.
The more positive contact points a customer has over time with your company, the more likely they will trust your brand and ultimately buy from you.
As a long-term and continuous process, lead generation should be thought of. If you get an effective system in place using the above sales lead tips, you can streamline the process of lead generation and maximize your business growth opportunities.