Guide to Lead Generation for Small Business and Startups

Introduction

Are you serious about growing your business? If your answer is a yes, which I know it is, then you need to start engaging in the activities of Lead Generation. Lead generation is a very essential part of any business development and does not require too much thinking to understand. However, it does require some level of hard work to pull it through.

In this article, I will be exposing information for free that you otherwise would have gotten through a paid course. You will understand what is a lead? What is lead generation? Main channels of lead generation, so that you can be better informed on how to grow your business with this powerful marketing strategy.

What are Leads?

A Lead also known as a prospect is a potential customer who shows interest in what your business is offering, they are not yet buying customers but they have contacted your business or submitted personal details in exchange for something valuable (Lead Magnet). They can contact your business through any channels you have opened. We will discuss some of these channels later.

I used to think a sale is lost because a person did not buy at first. As a business, it is one of your major activities to generate and nurture new leads if you want to have a sustainable and scalable business that continually makes a profit.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead Generation is a process that allows brands to attract prospects to a business who are interested in buying or qualified to buy your business offerings. The goal is to make them customers through nurturing their interests, and engagement, and eventually converting them to buy your product or service.

Why is Lead Generation Important?

Lead generation brings together the power of your marketing strategy into a structural approach that will help you convert your marketing effort into business profits.

1. Generate Business opportunities

As you nurture and interact with your leads, other business opportunities you never thought may become visible to you. For example, you may be marketing a cup to your leads and in time discover there are more demands for spoons within your niche.

2. Build Visibility and Brand Awareness

The more you engage in lead generation activity, which is a marketing strategy in itself, the more potential customers know about your business. By increasing your online presence through lead generation, you are indirectly increasing your brand’s visibility and awareness.

3. Boost your Sales and Revenue

More lead means more profits for your business because you have at your disposal interested customers that you can nurture and influence to become paying customers thereby increasing your sales and revenue.

4. Help to Target Specific Customers

Your products or service cannot be suited for everyone. With a lead generation strategy, you can target a specific audience by breaking down a large market into smaller segments, so you can focus on a particular group of customers.

5. Help you Collect Valuable Information

Lead generation can help your business generate valuable insight into customers’ buying habits, pain points, and behavior. This can be useful for product development and other business development activities. With such information, you can be well informed to craft personalized messages, advertisements e.t.c. It is all about the customer than the business.

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4 types of lead qualification:

1. Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

These are types of contacts/leads who have had some form of engagement with your marketing efforts but are not ready to make a purchase. For example, a Marketing Qualified Lead fills out a form to get access to your lead magnet (ebook, free course, tools e.t.c) or subscribed to your newsletter, by so doing they drop their personal details.

2. Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

A Sales Qualified Lead is also considered a hot lead. They are contacts who have taken actions that express their interest in your products or service and are one step closer to becoming a buying customer. For example, they may have done some sort of inquiry about prices, and features and want to know about what your product or service offers.

4. Product Qualified Lead (PQL)

As the name implies, a Product Qualified Lead is usually for a business that offers product trials. These leads are already using the free limited version of a product and want to know more about the paid versions.

4. Service Qualified Lead (SQL)

Similar to Products Qualified Lead, Service Qualified Lead is usually for professional services providers, consultants, or freelancers. Service Qualified Leads are potential customers who have indicated an interest in becoming paying customers of a professional service agency or firm.

9 Effective Channels for Lead Generation

1. Web Site/Landing Pages

A website is a very powerful marketing tool for any business and presents an incredible opportunity to build leads. A landing page is another powerful tool of any marketing strategy. When done right both a website and a landing page can help small businesses generate quality leads.

Through your website, you can add widgets such as live chat, Whatsapp, inquiry forms e.t.c to capture leads.

2. Targeted Advertisement

Advertisement will always give any business edge in the marketplace. No matter how good your products or services are, if there is no awareness, the likelihood of no sale is inevitable. Through targeted ads, you can generate both leads and sales for your business.

3. Social Media

As of January 2022, there are 3.96 billion total social media users across all platforms. Back in Nigeria, there are over 32.90 million social media users in Nigeria in January 2022. The number of social media users in Nigeria at the start of 2022 was equivalent to 15.4 percent of the total population.

The above statistics should immediately impress upon your mind the opportunities that are readily available to any small business for generating leads. Social Selling is a great example of lead generation.

4. Contents Development

Content development offers vast opportunities for lead generation. It requires that you have a strong Call to Action in place to drive your content readers to take a specific action that will encourage them to give their personal information for further follow-ups.

Content Development is a key strategy for other forms of lead generation. For example, blogs post, videos, and infographics can become very useful to be shared across your social media networks, WhatsApp group, courses, webinars e.t.c.

Focus on building content along the lines of product tutorials, reviews, expert interviews, testimonials, and case studies to share across social media and your email list.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Customers are always using a search engine to get information about certain products, services, and brands. Getting found online through a properly optimized website, landing page, social media page, and Google Business Profile can be leveraged to build a powerful lead generation strategy for your business.

6. Email Marketing

7. Word of Mouth

Email marketing gets you directly into your subscriber inbox. Through a powerful Call to Action on your content. For example, customers can subscribe to your newsletter, and at a later time, you can encourage them to take a specific action on what you offer. Another effective way to go about this is by offering something of great value, let’s say an eBook or email course that will encourage your visitor to give their email.

7 Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth can be a very powerful medium of generating leads for your business. People learn about what you do from friends and family and previous clients. Essentially, this is a free form of marketing that occurs when a satisfied customer talks about your products or service to others thereby recommending your business to potential customers/leads.

8. Live chats

Undoubtedly, live chat presents numerous opportunities to generate leads for your business as well as provide improved customer service. This can significantly increase your sales and revenues. With a LiveChat, current and new customers can contact your business for any information and in doing so provide their personal details that can be used for further follow-ups

9. WhatsApp

Like live chat, WhatsApp is another very powerful tool that small and medium-sized businesses can use to generate leads. You can integrate it into your website, and social media account as a means through which customers can contact your business and this gives you direct access to their phone numbers for nurturing.

Key Take Away

While focusing on making direct sales of your products or services. It is also important that you implement an indirect sale strategy through building and nurturing leads. This will ensure your business’s success in the long term. The insight that can also be gained from lead generation can help you reposition your business for success and support your other business development activities such as targeted marketing, product development .e.t.c.