5 Lead Generation Best Practices Your Small Business Can Use Today

As a small business owner, it makes sense to get as many leads as possible. When you do, the next challenge is to convert them into paying customers. So what should you do at this point to get more leads?

This guide will go over the five lead generation best practices your small businesses can use. It can be as early as today for you to get started. We can’t guarantee that you’ll get leads the same day you start.

However, we can say that if you utilize these practices on a consistent basis, you can get a steady stream of leads over time. Ready to get started? Here’s a list of the following things you can do to generate leads now:

1. Know Your Target Audience

The basis of lead generation is knowing who your target audience is. That’s because without that critical information about them, none of these lead generation best practices we’ll list besides this will ever be effective. That’s why you want to define your target audience and research them as much as possible.

During this research process, you need to identify their pain points and needs. You can create a buyer’s persona to get a good idea of who you want as your ideal customer for your business. The deeper you go with this target research, the better.

And your overall marketing message will be solid. You’ll have an easier time putting together offers that can turn leads into paying customers.

2. Building a Strong Online Presence

The Digital Age is already in full swing. For small businesses, having a strong online presence is nearly a requirement. That’s because there’s a lot of people online - be it through their desktop computers or their smartphones.

So how do you build a strong online presence? To begin, you want to leverage social media to your advantage. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even LinkedIn.

It depends on who your target audience actually is. If your audience or ideal customers are B2B focused, LinkedIn might make a lot more sense. Likewise, B2C businesses can benefit from Facebook or Instagram as the social media platforms of choice.

Aside from social media, you’ll want to consider a user-friendly website. This includes making sure it is responsive and compatible with mobile devices. Furthermore, you also want to implement SEO strategies to make yourself more visible online.

Speaking of SEO, this will segue into another one of our lead generation best practices. Keep reading to see what it is.

3. Leverage Content Marketing

Creating content that is valuable and relevant is something you’ll want to do to solidify your online presence. This includes blog posts, videos (full-length or shorts), infographics, and more. Where applicable, this is where SEO can come in handy.

You’ll want to find keywords that will help you rank better in search engines such as Google. Incorporate those keywords naturally in content pieces like blog posts. Or you can include them in the caption or hashtags of your video captions - whichever fits you best.

Since you are a local business, you could capitalize on keywords that are locally focused. For example, if you’re a home decor shop in Richmond, Virginia, you can consider the following keywords:

• “Home decorations Richmond, VA”
• “Home decorations near/in Richmond VA”
• “Home decorations near [zip code]

These are just examples of what to consider. Now, if you live in a larger city, you want to consider including zip codes, neighborhoods of a larger city (I.E. “Tribeca NYC” or similar keywords), and so on. If you live in a smaller town or city, all you need to do is include the town or the county you’re in.

4. Use Email Marketing

Email is still going strong after all these years. People say it’s “useless” or that “it’s dead”. But nothing can be farther from the truth.

It’s important that you build your email list. To do that, you’ll need to offer them something for free. In exchange, they give you their email address that they’ll use to subscribe to your list.

You can use your email list to craft email content that is compelling and personalized. Not to be outdone, you can take advantage of segmenting - which categorizes specific subscribers such as those who have already purchased from your business online, in-store, and so on.

With segmentation, you can send exclusive emails that no one else on your list might get. Even better, you can provide them with exclusive deals as well. Who knows - that just might be the carrot on the stick your leads may need to become subscribers and eventually paying customers.

It may also help to automate some of the email marketing campaigns. This will help get those tedious tasks out of your hands so your emails get sent automatically. Making it easier for you to focus on your other business priorities.

5. Use Social Proof and Testimonials

Did you know that social proof and testimonials can be a great lead generation tool? To take it a step further, they might become your most loyal brand advocates. Talk about free advertising.

You can utilize this to your advantage many times over. As long as you provide excellent quality service, you’ll get many of these positive testimonials. And that means more business because you’ll have more people that trust that you can help them solve a specific problem.

Make LeadArm Your Reliable Source for Small Business Lead Generation

At LeadArm, we know that lead generation can be challenging. That’s why we’ll be able to help you achieve the best results when it comes to utilizing these lead generation best practices we’ve mentioned above. We have worked with small business owners like yourself.

And we have so many success stories to tell. Want to be the next one? Then now is your chance to give us a try.

If you are looking to give LeadArm a chance to fulfill your lead generation needs, contact us today and we’ll set you up.