Lead Generation Techniques for Small Businesses

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There’s still confusion about businesses of what size are regarded as “small”. That definition varies from country to country and even from industry to industry. US-based businesses can use a Size Standards Tool and check whether their business is small. 

In a broad sense, businesses with less than 500 employees or less than $35,000,000 annual revenue, are regarded as small businesses.

If you have already qualified yourself as a small business owner, we have 7 lead generation ideas for you below. 

CTA Banners 

This technique works best when used in the right place and at the right time. For example, you can place CTAs throughout your blog posts and encourage readers to get access to additional materials.

While reading a post on workflow management, we saw this banner that was offering a workflow management process template. Makes sense, right?

CTA Banner

CTA banners may also appear on pop up windows. When your readers skim through X percent of your post, introduce a related offer (webinar, original research, etc) and encourage them to get involved.

Link building is good not only for driving traffic and improving your rankings but for generating leads as well. The best way to generate leads from this process is to build links directly to your landing pages, not just the homepage.

For example, when you write a guest post, submit a pitch, or do a link exchange, ask your colleague to link to your landing page. You might say they won’t agree to promote your lead magnet. Try to negotiate it and offer something in return.

You can give them 3 backlinks in return for linking back to your lead magnet. Or you may offer to share their post with your network, link to their lead magnet, etc.

Invitations by Existing Customers

85% of fans of brands on Facebook recommend brands to others. Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions. People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

The best “marketers” who can generate targeted leads for your business are your customers. When they enjoy your product/service, they will recommend it to their friends, colleagues, and family members who need similar results.

To ensure referrals, you should make doing it easy and beneficial. For example, you might provide links to send via Messenger, Telegram, or email. Or you can encourage people to share your lead magnets to their social network accounts or stories.

The incentives may vary from bonuses to gift cards depending on how high your profit margins are and what business you are running.

Hashtags

Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are popular platforms for using hashtags and even Facebook encourages you to use them. Hashtags help interested users find your posts, become interested, and write you a message, comment, or visit your website (for free).

LinkedIn shows how many users follow the hashtag. Instagram and Twitter show how many posts have been published with that hashtag. And Facebook shows how many people are posting about it.

Hashtags don’t work the same way across all platforms. One great feature about Instagram is that it shows what percent of users found your posts through hashtags.

Hashtag Analytics

For some posts, hashtags will drive 19% of reach, while for others, that number might be extremely low. As a small business, you’d better use hashtags that have less than 1,000-5,000 posts or your post will not even be noticeable among thousands of others.

Youtube Videos

To record really professional, high-quality videos, you need to invest in some equipment that will cost you at least around $1,000. You will need things like a camera, tripod, backdrop, lighting, microphone, editing software, etc․

Not all small businesses can afford that investment but you might borrow the equipment from a friend, maybe buy used tools, etc. Because the benefits of Youtube video marketing are really huge!

Professional Youtubers always encourage you to check out the link in the video description and download a spreadsheet, sign up for training, etc. That’s how Youtube helps generate leads. See an example below.

The author has multiple offers in the description and viewers can choose whichever resource interests them more.

Quora Questions and Answers

Users ask on Quora about anything and everything under the Sun. Find questions that are related to your industry in general and your business in particular and start answering.

However, there’s no need to answer questions that have 1-2 followers or the answers of which have only a few views. Questions with thousands of answers aren’t a good choice either as your answer will hardly get noticed.

Pick the questions that allow you to compete with other respondents and provide an opportunity to get in front of users.

Quora is also very careful about what answers people post. Respondents can link back to their landing pages if the context is very natural. But an excessive number of backlinks or spammy, unhelpful texts will make Quora delete your answer.

Use lead generation services

All the tips and tactics that are available on the Internet work and somehow help in lead generation but results usually vary greatly from business to business. If generating leads was so simple and all strategies were 100% guaranteed, marketing agencies wouldn’t exist.

What do B2B appointment setting services and lead generation businesses do differently?

As they aren’t insiders and don’t look at things at an emotional level, they take an unbiased approach and notice mistakes you never thought of.

Absence or low-level self-criticism holds you back from evaluating reality and you think you do everything correctly.

Besides, those agencies have hands-on experience and make recommendations based on analytics and the specifications of your business, not based on generic content.

For example, everyone knows that a referral program is important. But creating one for the unique needs of your business requires more knowledge than knowing basic tips about referral marketing.

Similar services will cost you a few thousand dollars monthly, but failing to grow on your own will kick your business out of the competition.

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Written by:
Michael is a member of the editorial team at Leads At Scale. His main areas of expertise include business growth, inbound, and outbound marketing & sales. He is a walking wanderer and a travel enthusiast.
One comment on “Lead Generation Techniques for Small Businesses”
  1. Nice to see your post. The wonderful and deep post you’ve written here. That’s truly has added a lot to our knowledge about this topic.

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