Lead Generation Ideas for Small Business

Lead generation plans or strategies are designed to provide your business with a steady stream of new leads, a percentage of which will hopefully be converted to long term paying customers.

The most obvious way of generating additional revenue for your business is by increasing the number of customers you do business with however you first need to generate those leads.

Lead Generation strategies are a great solution for growing a small businesses client base however the two biggest concerns in generating them are cost and return on investment.

Here are 5 lead generation ideas for small business owners that wont break the bank!

1. Webinars and Demos

People love getting stuff for free and most like learning new things that can help them! Identify what problem you are solving for your customers with your products and services and create a webinar or demo! Make sure the topic is important to your target audience and that you promote signups to the event well in advance. Use social media to promote the event and encourage your audience to share invitations in order to get as many live attendees as possible. In addition to the live audience you generate you can also record your event and provide free downloads on your website. By collecting email addresses and names of the people attend or download your webinar, you’ll create a great list of potential leads, and all it will cost you is an hour or two of your time for every webinar you produce.

2. Whitepapers

Whitepapers provide important information for free in an effort to showcase your knowledge and to generate a list of  up potential customers. The best way to offer a white paper is to create a dedicated landing page that talks about the info and benefits associated with downloading the paper. Provide a link to the downloadable PDF after collecting the visitors name & email address. Again, the only investment here is the time it takes to create the actual material.

3. Search Advertising (PPC)

Google is by far the most well-known search engine, however it’s not the only one that offers advertising. Bing and Yahoo also offer advertising programs, and can actually be less expensive for the average business owner. Because you’re paying per click, you can set your budget and not have to worry about going over. You only pay for the leads you get!

4. Online Networking

Traditional networking groups and events like BNI or your local business club are still a great way to find new leads. Online networking just makes that process faster and more efficient. If you’re new to online networking, Linkedin is a great place to start. LinkedIn has a great feature called “groups,” which allows you to connect and engage with other Linkedin members who have similar interests, are from the same industry or are from the same geographic region.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing can be used in combination with the above strategies or as an independent campaign. For example, you could collect all the email addresses you gathered from your webinars and whitepapers, and then enter them into an email campaign that periodically sends them new offers and updates.

Contact TMD if you need some help setting up your next campaign!