Getting ready to generate business leads with an online marketing campaign? Pondering how to find leads for your business? There is no one-fit-all strategy or a shortcut for each industry, that’s for sure, but we hope insights provided in this article will be helpful while running a smooth lead generating campaign, no matter how advanced you are.
So… are your ready to learn how to get leads? Let’s start!
Your company’s online transparency is important for leads!
Imagine yourself knocking on a stranger’s door. The door opens and you hear: “Hello? WHO ARE YOU?”. Are your ready to introduce yourself properly?
Marketing to businesses that might not know you yet is similar. When you do it online, people can (and will) google every single fact about you. But you can always manage these data, decide, what is available for strangers, what they will read and what impact will you have on them.
Before you run a business lead generation campaign, make sure that you’ve checked everything – that only relevant information about your company is online, updated and easy to reach.
The minimal online credibility kit includes:
- your company’s website (up and running, responsive, mobile-optimised, simple yet informative)
- well-designed, client-focused online marketing channels (social/professional media profiles, at least a proper Linkedin company page, as they all serve as modern sources of sales leads)
- decent-looking personal social media profiles (if you like to post weird content, at least make sure that your privacy settings show it only to your friends and to everyone that can visit your profile)
What might look as an unimportant detail, can be decisive.
Choose your business target group
For online marketing to work, before you find sales leads, you need to figure out the most profitable business type to approach. Who are the best clients for your business? Who are the most likely to be turned into loyal customers?
You probably heard the marketing saying “sell the sizzle, NOT the steak”. But even the best sizzle and juicy bites from a juicy steak won’t convince a die-hard vegan to eat it. Do you see my point?
Online research – it will surely give you at least few ideas for business types to approach. You should also brainstorm your target business type with all people who can help you (co-founders, team, mentors, mom). The more people you involve in the process, the more diversified and useful ideas for finding leads for your sales you’ll get.
Try to answer these questions:
- what is the industry your target business type operates in?
- what challenges does your target business type experience?
- what is important to your target business type decision makers?
- what does your target business type spend budget on?
- is your target business type aware of your competition?
Start with defining your target business type, then pick the best marketing channels, make your approach more and more precise… and nurture this relationship until the sale closing.
How to find business contacts and get potential leads?
Check out these one of the best ways to generate business leads:
1. Check the near-by
Best way to generate more leads can be very, very close. Make sure you get the most of what you already got. Utilize your closest network to ask for introductions and find the first people you can approach.
2. Networking
Every person met has hundreds of contacts. Learn how to get out, become a master of small talks and build business relationships based on trust. Visit fairs, conferences, industry meetings, business breakfasts – they are all about meeting new people and ultimately finding sales leads.
3. Public Relations and publicity
Public Relations, approached correctly, is a great way to get free coverage in old and new media. Let people hear and see you just like you want it. Make sure you provide them with contact info!
4. Search Engine Optimisation
People ask Google about everything, including your business, and looking for solutions to ease their pains. Are you sure you do everything you can to reach them with your offer? If not, time to change it.
5. Becoming an authority
How to find leads for your business? If you are an expert in this particular branch, show it to the world.. or at least to your local society. Help people, share your knowledge, be easygoing – they will love your business just because of you.
To scale your lead generation campaign, you will need to make this process more regular in the future:
- collect contacts manually (advanced Google+social media skills required)
- boost manual collection with plugins for finding client information
- buy access to a SaaS database (like what RightHello offers, email piotrek@righthello.com to learn more how to write a sales email)
When you plan to generate more sales leads and cold email is your leading channel of choice, try not to buy nor use ready-made lists of people. Surprised? Learn more on why not to buy email list.
Can you do {x} for me? I promise {y} in return – hard to master art of CTAs
A Call To Action (CTA) is one of the most important parts of getting sales leads – this is why it must be well designed.
CTA is the final cherry on top of a well-crafted campaign – everything else leads to your CTA. What should be your goal?
To make your campaign so irresistible that you don’t even have to worry about your CTA. You just tell potential clients exactly what you want them to do…and they will do it.
What makes business lead gen campaigns irresistible?
- clearly communicating real business benefits that your clients can expect
- predicting/researching what proof your target business type needs to approve your company (and providing it upfront)
- good old honesty, transparency and being direct – communicate “I think my app could help you organise your dev team’s time better” instead of saying “At my company, we focus on delivering the best solutions for time-management. That’s why we created {product} to solve the ever burning need…BLA BLA BLA”
- great content (copywriting, visuals, recordings)
- efficient system (work with a qualified lead gen company or build an in-house process, but keep it organised to make sure you’re always communicating relevant info to the right target business type)
Take it slow and follow-up
Don’t try to communicate everything at once. Business decision makers these days don’t like to be forced to take in a lot of information at once.
Brain capacity is limited, and while it sounds crazy – I know you know what I mean. Those moments where your brain feels like an overflowing bucket and you just can’t take in any more information AND understand it?
Your potential clients experience that too. So communicate with them in a step-by-step, controlled manner. Pressure won’t work.
The most successful online lead generation campaigns either:
- lead potential business clients to a sales offer with a slow, but strategically planned step-by-step plan
- throw the offer straight into your face (think AppSumo’s product newsletter, where the offers are so good that you either buy instantly, or cry that you can’t afford them)
But even the most solid offer deserves a follow-up if someone didn’t notice your first message or ad. Information overload makes it sensible to repeat information to potential business sales leads at least a few times.
Online business leads generation TL;DR
Before you hit the switch on your lead gen campaign, make sure to:
- have transparent company info online, especially in the most popular sources of leads used for sales
- know the target business type that your leads should fit
- have a way of regularly generating contacts for lead business gen
- know your CTAs
- remember to follow-up
Good luck!
Thanks for reading! Check how you can find customers abroad. Don’t hesitate to leave a message or call us!
