10 Effective Strategies To Help You With Lead Generation

Today I want to share with you 10 strategies for Lead Generation I learned over the years. You can start implementing these right now in order to generate more leads for your business.

I know how difficult it can be to keep generating leads. I understand the pressure involved in constantly feeding good quality leads into your sales funnel! The good news is, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, there are plenty of strategies you can use to help you generate more leads. But before I explain these strategies, you have to answer the following questions about your business:

1. What is your target market?
2. Who is your Ideal customer?
3. What are the problems that your customers have which your business can help solve?
4. Describe your customers’ most common fears, frustrations and desires?

Once you’ve answered all the above questions, you’ll be able to understand your market better. You’re looking to identify the NEED which your business satisfies. It’s easier to approach potential customers if you know why they need YOU.

Whenever you feel like you´re overwhelmed or lost, go back to your answers to the above questions.

Your next step is to create and maintain a customer Database and set a goal for the number of leads you want to have in your Database.

In order to create your Database, I recommend using CRM software such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Highrise or a simple Excel spread sheet.
Having a Database will help you:

• Maintain all your contacts in one place.
• Keep important details about each contact.
• Keep track of your activities with each contact.

Now you are ready to start adopting some lead generation strategies.

1. Ask your past clients for testimonials and referrals

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Have your previous clients written testimonials after you´ve completed jobs for them? This can help your business establish credibility and enhance your public image. You have to know that your clients may not know how to write a testimonial. Therefore it’s worth your time to guide them through it.

Using a good testimonial template to get your client started is a good idea. Have a look at the following:

-(open)
My name is ____(X), I am ___ (age), I live in ___ (location), I’m a ____ (profession)
I used to experience _____(problem/ I had _____ (pain)
I thought that ______(myth #1)
And I had to _______(myth # 2)
(Transition)
After working with {your company name)
I _______(quantifiable desired benefit)
and ______(secondary quantifiable desired benefit)
Now I feel _____(emotions related benefit)
I’m excited to ______(opportunities that are now opened up)
(Close with thanks)

2. Ask you current clients for referrals

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This lead generation strategy also works for existing businesses. If your current clients are happy with the product/ service you are providing, call them and ask if they can refer you to their friends. This strategy could generate good leads for your business and generate social proofing: since your client´s friend is using your product/ service, the rate of acceptance is likely to increase when applying for new jobs.

3. Turn your bills into buyers

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Have a look at your bills, who are the people and businesses you currently pay invoices to? Check if you can exchange your service for theirs instead of paying them hard cash.

4. Networking

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Networking is by far one of the best ways for lead generation, it allows you to build rapport and get warm leads. Your goal during any networking event is to get as many good quality business cards as you can get.

Word of advice: you can keep good leads cards in your left pocket and business cards that are not relevant in your right pocket.
As soon as you get back to office, make sure to transfer the details from those business card into your database. Don’t let those cards pile up, otherwise they just become a stack of meaningless business cards.

Follow up with an email or a call within 3 days of the event date, you have to make sure the lead still remembers you and build up on that.

A good place to find out about new networking opportunities is www.meetup.com.

5. Public speaking

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People love to do business with “experts” and public speakers are viewed as experts. Find out about events and ask if you can schedule a session to speak and share your expertise.
It’s important that your speech focuses on offering value to your audience, remember, you are not trying to sell your product or promote your business, your goal is to generate leads; seize the opportunity to educate your audience about your subject matter.

6. Offer a free report/ free consultation

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You can get more leads from your website if you offer your visitors value in exchange for contact information. Examples of good value to provide people are:

• A free e-book
• Exclusive content
• Reports
• Infographics
• Templates

7. The Facebook referral system

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Each one of your friends might know at least 3 people who can benefit from your product/ service. If you have 250 FB friends and you asked each one of them to refer you to 3 of their friends, this has the potential to generate 750 leads. Assuming your conversion rate is 1 %, you have a good chance to make 7-8 new customers using this strategy.
A good message template for a Facebook referral can be something like this:

Hi, (Name)

I am looking to build my business with referrals. A good referral for me is {target market}
I want to offer them a {free consultation/ E-book/ audit report (add value})
If they say “Yes”— great. They say “No” — No problem.
If you can message me back with 3 referrals today, I will enter your name in a contest where I am giving away {25$ Amazon gift card/ Coupon}.

I really appreciate your help; it will make a big difference.

8. Recycle old Leads

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Check your database, I´m sure you will find some old leads who asked you to contact them again in the future, it may be worthy of your time to follow up with them every 90 days to see if they are ready to buy your product/ service again.

9. Referral Partnership

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Find complementary businesses, these are business that are selling to the same target market. However they are not a competitor to you. You can create lead generation partnerships with these businesses where you promote their services to your network in exchange for referrals for your business.

10. Internet Marketing

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Google, Facebook, Email Marketing and Video Marketing are great ways to convert traffic to your website and generate new leads. They are mostly free as well, except for the pay per click ads of course. You should utilize these tools to generate leads.
The topic of Internet Marketing is very complex and it´s impossible to cover all of it here. However I wrote down a few tips on how Internet marketing can help:

A. Google Business

97% of Internet users look online for local goods and services, therefore if you haven’t listed your business on the Google Business Directory, I suggest you start now.

B. Set up an Email Marketing system

The good side of having an Email marketing system is that you can automate the process, you do not need to send every email by yourself. You can set up automatic replies for your leads and let the system take care of the process. Another benefit is that you can measure your success and failure rates and then be able to revise your emails accordingly.
Some good Email Marketing platforms are:

• GetResponse
• Campaign Monitor
• MailChimp

Are you using other Email Marketing platforms? Share your experience in the comments section below.

C. Video Marketing

The main advantage of Video marketing is that it´s free, while it engages and educates your customers and drives traffic to your website.

D. Pay per Click Advertising

A great, low cost way to drive business to your websites or business page. You can use Google Adwords and Facebook Ads to drive your target audience to your website.
Don’t waste any time, start applying some of these strategies right away to get more leads. If you are already implementing some of these strategies, then please let us know which ones in the comments section below. What worked best for you? What didn’t work so well? Consider reading my other articles about Business Development here.

Original article:

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You can read original article on Linkedin.