Roughly 80% of businesses fail in their first year of operation. The juggle of operating a new business while growing a client base becomes too challenging for the majority of business owners.
While established businesses have time to weather the ups and downs of trends, new business owners need to see results fast if they expect to survive.
The key is as simple as lead generation for small businesses. Lead generation is the engine that brings customers to your door.
But without a solid strategy and a seamless implementation, your business could be sunk before it even gets a chance.
Here’s the way to build those solid leads starting today:
1. Marketing Drives Operations
In traditional business structures operations always came first. A company would develop a product or service and a marketing team would step in.
Those days are gone in the digital economy. In today’s marketplace marketing takes the lead.
Because of the easy availability of data in real-time, marketing professionals can inform changes to goods and service.
They drive operations to create a more customer-focused experience. For small business owners, it means shifting gears in your strategy.
Rather than think like a business owner with a product to sell it’s time to think like a customer. What problem do they have that you are about to solve?
2. Start With Your Brand
This point cannot be emphasized enough: Protect your brand at all costs.
There are numerous ways to build a brand and brand recognition. But your brand can tank in a moment if you don’t have a great online presence and work to make your market strategy simple.
Your lead generation strategy will represent your brand out in the world. If you provide a value proposition that isn’t true to your brand you’ll fail before you begin.
Remember, marketing takes the lead now. Make sure you protect the brand and present your value, not confusion.
3. Retention As A Goal
You don’t just want clients. You want long-term repeat clients who provide the foundation for your business growth.
Embedded in your lead generation campaign should be an eye toward client retention. As part of your brand strategy, your company should be working to build a long-term relationship, not a one-time sale.
It is 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. How does that factor into small businesses who barely have a pipeline at all?
It is too late to think about retention after you’ve acquired a customer. It should be your priority as you start the process.
4. Qualified Leads
Back in the old days of digital marketing, many professionals used to judge the quality of a website by the number of visitors it had.
But business owners quickly found this could be a lot like opening a store that people visited a lot. But they never bought anything.
The same is true with lead generation. You don’t want visitors or leads that are no good to you.
You need to focus on qualified leads. This means crafting your lead strategy toward ROI (return on investment).
5. Proactive Lead Generation
A sales pipeline is like a lake. It needs an inlet and an outlet.
Or it dies.
For many business owners they get so focused on the closing (good) they forget about the pipeline (bad). Unless you have an active an thriving pipeline of qualified leads your business is in danger of dying.
As a result, proactive lead generation needs to be a standard part of your business operations. You and your employees have to focus on client satisfaction, closing deals, lead generation, and brand management.
If there are too many balls to juggle there it is important to get support.
6. Doubling Down
We already mentioned ROI above. The great news about marketing with today’s technology tools is that is directly trackable.
You should be able to calculate every dollar spent and how it led to a sale. This level of data will help you grow your business in ways traditional marketing could not.
The bad news is that many business owners misuse this information. They think, “campaign A is running great, why not try something else?”
Why?
You have proof that your lead generation strategy is delivering results. A wise business owner should invest more heavily in processes that are delivering results.
7. A Clear Process
Lead generation is not an art. It is a science.
Your internal lead generation strategy should be as clear as your billing or account receivable process. Unless you have milestones and clear actions your lead generation is doomed to fail.
Milestones also provide you with internal measuring sticks to judge your progress.
8. Active Buyers
What is the difference between an active and a passive lead? A passive lead might tune out while they stumble upon your ad someplace.
An active lead comes to you. They have been prepared through a lead generation process and are already in the sales funnel.
Active buyers are the leads business owners dream of. They are the investors who really want to buy a house or the moviegoers who can’t wait to stand in line for a film.
Active buyers are already participating in the process. An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
The same is true for a potential client. Keep them moving! Your next step is to nudge them along the sales cycle to buy.
Trust the Best Lead Generation for Small Business
Small business owners often have to wear many hats. In operating their business there is a challenge between keeping existing customers happy and finding new ones.
And marketing investments can be tricky. As soon as one strategy works the entire rulebook seems to change.
That’s where Hypertarget Marketing comes in. We are a performance marketing agency focusing on much more than call tracking.
For business owners who struggle to find qualified leads, our platform delivers results. We help increase ROI in desired channels, provide qualified leads, and maximize conversions and sales.
Don’t waste another penny on marketing guesswork. Come and find out more about Hypertarget Marketing’s success stories.