Lead Generation Strategy Basics for Small Businesses

When it comes to expanding your business, sales professionals will tell you that it begins and ends with one thing: leads.

Leads drive your revenue. Who can I talk to? How can I find people who want to hear from me? Without leads, sales run dry.

The impact of technology on lead generation has been both transformative and complex. We now have plenty of data, tactics for visibility, and more. Yet all too often, lead generation is overlooked as a chore or output, instead of as a strategic initiative.

Want more sales? Get more leads. Need more leads? Start with these basic principles of running a good lead generation strategy.

What Is a Lead Generation Strategy?

In marketing, lead generation is the process of making a list of potential, qualified buyers (aka leads) who show interest in your product or service. It serves as the first step of the sales cycle: identifying prospects who may be interested in your offer.

There are two main approaches to building your customer base:

• Buy a list of leads.
• Build a list of leads yourself.

The problem with buying leads is that doing so can put the organization at risk. Unsolicited emails may be flagged as spam. It may also result in you getting ‘blacklisted.’ This means your organization has been designated as a likely distributor of spam, and your communications may not get delivered properly.

Once a domain email is blocked from a server, it’s a major headache to unravel. While it can still be removed from the blacklist, you’ll most likely have to pick up a phone and speak to your email’s hosting company to do so. It can be a monumental waste of time and money.

A better lead generation strategy is to build your list of prospective buyers organically. The marketer’s job is to begin with the end goal in mind and design a system for that specific goal. The most common approach for many organizations here is to build an audience or email list. Most successful digital marketers have used this lead generation strategy to build their own subscriber lists, to whom they then sell products or courses.

Basic Steps in Building a Lead Generation Strategy

Building a database of quality leads is similar to building a house: in both cases, you need a plan.

Just like drawing a blueprint, developing a lead generation strategy will aid you in developing and deploying resources that deliver results. Simply throwing spaghetti at the wall (so to speak, will not cut it. You need to have a measured, informed approach in order to drive sales.

Step 1: Define the Ideal Client

The first and most essential step to the lead generation strategy is defining the ideal client, also called a customer avatar. Creating a firm’s customer avatar begins with defining your demographic.

Generally speaking, we build customer avatars based on data inputs for specific categories, including factors like:

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Marital status
• Annual household income
• Home value
• Geographic location
• Number of children
• Occupation
• Education level
• Net worth

This information is often consolidated in a customer relationship management system. You should also include relevant lifestyle factors such as hobbies, interests, and personality types.

Hold up, you may think. I know my customers already! Why do I need to design this ‘fake’ customer to get the job done?

Yes, you know your customers, and that knowledge and understanding have served you well to date. However, when discussing marketing and lead generation, creating an avatar provides more value. At a minimum, it allows you to tailor your marketing and communications in a manner that will most likely yield more business.

Step 2: Build Something Valuable To Attract Your Target Audience

Even if you ran a retail business with a sign above your shop, the leads that look like your customer avatar are still unlikely to simply walk through the door.

You need to give them a reason that entices them into purchasing from you. That reason, digitally speaking, usually means a free or discounted value offering, placed behind a registration form. We typically refer to these as ‘lead magnets.’

You might run a technology company that’s offering research on tech stock trends. Perhaps you own a financial advisory firm that releases a report on market conditions. Or maybe your cosmetic goods company gives customers 10% off their purchase if they subscribe to your newsletter.

The value offer may vary, but its necessity does not. If you want people to give you the very valuable privilege of access to their contact information, you have to give them something in return.

You most likely already know how to do this. You wouldn’t be in business today if you didn’t. If your company’s general value propositions ring true, then extrapolating them into different free and low-cost forms should be a no-brainer.

Examples of Lead Magnets for Financial Advisors

A lead magnet’s main purpose is typically to build an opt-in email subscriber list, with the hope of nurturing the relationship over time so that it eventually converts to a sale. For a lead magnet to succeed, it must provide exceptional and relevant value to your ideal client.

Here are some examples of magnets to get your own ideas flowing:

Step Three: Design Your Lead Generation Honeypot

A landing page is sometimes referred to as a lead capture page. This page usually contains a form filled out in exchange for the offer presented on the landing page, such as a free report or guide. The goal of the landing page is to capture as much information about the visitor as possible. This information will help to empower the sales and marketing teams in their conversion efforts.

Creating a landing page begins with deciding what action or behavior we want to drive. What is your end goal? What do you want your prospects to do? The answer can vary: you may want your prospects to register for a webinar, sign up for your email newsletter, download a PDF, watch a video, or schedule a demo.

Each landing page has a specific purpose. A squeeze page is a type of landing page designed to capture an opt-in email address from a potential customer. It is the most common type of landing page, since an email address is one of the most coveted pieces of lead data. With low commitment from the user and high potential upside for the business, these pages can do a lot for brand visibility, recognition, and authority – even when they don’t convert.

Best Lead Generation Practices

You could offer the most amazing report and still not generate any leads if your landing page is terrible.

The most incredible landing page in the world will fall short if it doesn’t offer anything useful to your leads. You can sink time into poorly conceived research and development if your customer avatar is off base.

Fortunately, there are tools, resources, and practices that increase your odds of success in the long term.

Commit To Data-Driven Campaign Analysis

Numbers drive business. The numbers surrounding your lead generation efforts will provide you with clear ROI calculations and strategy direction.

Before building a report or landing page, decide what defines success. Is it traffic to your landing page? Are you specifically worried about lead quality or scoring?

Defining the priorities and setting numeric goals in that category will empower you to make better strategic choices moving forward.

Don’t Skimp on Design

We’re often told not to judge a book by its cover, but let’s be real – we all do. The way we present information holds just as much significance as what we present.

Without effective design, the value offering loses its potential impact. A report that looks like it was compiled in 1994 won’t be taken seriously. A landing page with weird spacing, absurd fonts, and disjointed copy won’t even give your research a chance to be taken seriously.

Design deliberately. Start with a goal in mind, research what your audience likes, and make sure you’re taking the right steps. This often requires expenditures on design experts. Don’t balk at the price tags. The long-term cost of poor design far outweighs whatever you’ll generate on the fly.

Capitalize on Your CRM

A CRM, or customer relationship management tool, centralizes information about leads and customers and data on their activity. It allows you to better manage communications, identify opportunities, and track customer interactions.

When it comes to lead generation, the right CRM utilization can serve as ‘sales steroids.’ Your team can look at things like what links a lead clicks on, what pages on your website they visit, and the chain of communication between a lead and your team members. Some even offer ‘lead scoring,’ which gives a tier to a lead’s likelihood of conversion. All of this informs the sales process and leads to stronger relationship development.

Some of the most notable CRM companies out there are Salesforce, Hubspot, and Insightly. All have their pros and cons. Which option makes sense for your company will depend on your business model, operations, and size.

Plenty of companies offer free versions of their CRM. This, at least, provides an opportunity for you to test their features. It also lets you start your lead generation strategy on the right foot and scale accordingly.

Lead Generation Strategy Could Be Your Ticket to More Clients

Whether you’re selling artisanal confections or high-tech consumer goods, lead generation matters. Your leads represent the middle ground between potential customers and paying ones. Your company cannot afford to overlook its lead generation strategy.

Almost any lead generation tactic you use will involve a form of the above process to create brand awareness and growth via content marketing, blogs, and social media. By understanding your customers and offering them the value they desire, you will harness your lead generation strategy to unlock growth for your small business.

We think you’ll also like:

1. The Best Strategy to Utilize CRM Software and Retain Your Customers
2. Why and How Brands Go Viral
3. Marketing Tactics Begin with Sales Strategy

[Editors’ Note: To learn more about this and related topics, you may want to attend the following on-demand webinars (which you can view at your leisure, and each includes a comprehensive customer PowerPoint about the topic):

1. Which Marketing Channels Should You Use and Why?
2. Marketing Mastery: Crafting a Message that Resonates
3. The Sales, Marketing, Advertising & Publicity Bootcamp (SMAP) / Growing Your Business with ChatGPT and AI

This article was originally published on May 12, 2023. This article was most recently updated by the Financial Poise Editors.]

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