Lead Generation: Best Strategies, Techniques, and Campaigns

When business is booming, things are great. But there comes a point in every business life cycle where the flow of new customers slows down, and the challenge of generating leads becomes a top priority. In fact, 50% of marketers consider lead generation to be a top priority in their marketing campaigns.

But, the truth is that lead generation is complex and requires effort. It’s not just about getting someone’s contact information and hoping they’ll buy from you. It’s about building relationships, demonstrating your expertise, and providing value to your potential customers to ultimately convert them into loyal customers.

Feeling overwhelmed? We’ve got you covered. 

Whether you’re just starting out or looking for ways to improve your current strategy, this guide will provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to succeed.

We will explore:

• What lead generation is and why it matters
• Different types of leads and how to nurture them 
• Tips for improving the lead generation process
• Effective lead generation strategies

You’ll gain a deeper understanding of lead generation and learn how to create a steady stream of new customers for your small business. 

Ready? Let’s get started. 

What is a lead?

People often confuse leads with customers and prospects, which leads to confusion and wasted resources.

At its core, a lead is someone who has expressed some level of interest in your products or services, typically by providing their contact information. This can include email addresses, phone numbers, or any other form of communication that allows you to reach out to them. The goal of lead generation is to capture as many of these potential leads as possible, and ultimately convert them into paying customers.

What sets leads apart from prospects and customers is their level of engagement with your business. Prospects are individuals or businesses who have shown some level of interest in your business without yet sharing their contact information, while customers have already made a purchase. Leads, on the other hand, have taken that first step of sharing their contact information, indicating a deeper level of interest.

To successfully generate leads, you must identify and target your ideal audience and then provide them with valuable content and opportunities to engage. By building strong relationships with leads, you can develop trust and loyalty that will ultimately lead to long-term growth and success.

Remember: The goal isn’t just to generate leads, but to turn those leads into lifelong customers.

What are the different types of leads?

Okay, let’s dive deeper. Did you know that not all leads are the same? Understanding the different types of leads will help you tailor your lead generation and nurturing tactics effectively. 

In this section, we will explore the different types of leads that your business can attract and how to reach them.

1. Information Qualified Lead (IQL):

An IQL is someone who has shown interest in your business by visiting your website or social media profile, but they haven’t provided any contact information yet. In order to reach an IQL, you need to make sure that your website and social media profiles are up-to-date and engaging. Offer them valuable content and call-to-actions that encourage them to fill out a form and provide their contact information.

2. Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL):

An MQL is a lead who has provided their contact information to your business but may not be ready to purchase yet. In order to reach an MQL, you need to nurture them with personalized content and communication. Send them relevant emails or texts and offer them valuable information that helps them move along in the buyer’s journey.

3. Sales Qualified Lead (SQL):

An SQL is a potential customer who has shown a strong interest in your product or service and is ready for a sales conversation. To reach an SQL, you need to have a well-structured sales process that includes targeted outreach and effective communication. Be sure to personalize your approach and show them how your product or service can benefit them.

4. Sales Ready Lead (SRL):

An SRL is a lead who is ready to make a purchase from your business. To reach an SRL, you need to have a clear and concise sales process that effectively converts them into customers. Deliver a seamless buying experience and follow up with them after the purchase to ensure their satisfaction. Hint: The post-sale follow-up is also the perfect time to ask a customer to leave a review of your business. 😉

It’s important to note that these lead categories are not mutually exclusive and may overlap. Remember to offer personalized content, communicate effectively, and provide value at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

What is lead generation?

Now that you have a clear understanding of what a lead is and the different types of leads, it’s time to talk about generating leads. So, what exactly is lead generation? Simply put, it is the process of attracting potential customers or prospects to your business by providing them with valuable content or resources and nurturing their interest in your brand, products or services. 

There are various strategies and techniques that can be used for lead generation, but the goal is always the same: to establish and maintain a strong flow of potential customers that can be converted into loyal patrons. This involves identifying target audiences, creating engaging content, and utilizing various marketing channels to promote your brand and its offerings.

One of the key aspects of lead generation is lead nurturing, which involves building relationships with potential customers and taking them through an intentional journey that educates and informs them about your business. This can be accomplished through various tactics like text marketing, social media engagement, and personalized content creation.

Benefits & Importance of Lead Generation

Now let’s talk about the specific ways that lead generation helps your business win. First and foremost, lead generation allows you to generate organic contacts and build relationships with potential customers. This means that when it comes time for these prospects to make a purchasing decision, they are more likely to choose your business, simply because they have a pre-existing relationship with your brand. 

Additionally, lead generation helps you reach new audiences that you may not have had access to before. By casting a wider net, you could potentially generate more leads and increase your overall customer base.

But the benefits of lead generation don’t stop there. Here are a few additional reasons why it’s so important for small businesses:

1. Lead generation provides insights into what your customers want.

By collecting data on your leads and analyzing their behavior, you can gain valuable insights into what your customers are looking for. This information can be used to improve your products or services or to tailor your marketing messages to better resonate with potential customers.

2. Lead generation helps you understand your market. 

By identifying key trends and patterns in your lead generation efforts, you can gain a better understanding of your target market. This can help you refine your marketing strategy and better position your business in the marketplace.

3. Lead generation provides a constant stream of prospects.

Lead generation ensures that you always have a pipeline of potential customers to work with. This means that even if some leads don’t convert right away, you can continue to nurture the relationship and keep them engaged until they are ready to make a purchase.

Lead Generation Process

The lead generation process consists of several steps, and understanding each step is the key to getting the most out of your efforts.

1. A visitor discovers your business.

It all begins when a potential customer discovers your business. There’s a good likelihood that many people are going to find your business online—statistics show that 97% of consumers look online to find local businesses. This means that having an online presence and a strong online reputation is crucial. Make sure to keep your Google profile up-to-date, request and respond to reviews often, and engage with customers on social media. Doing all of these things will help you establish a 5-star presence that entices current and potential customers alike. 

2. A visitor interacts with your business through CTAs.

Once a visitor discovers your business, the next step is to encourage them to take action by providing a strong Call-to-Action (CTA). A CTA is a prompt or button that encourages the user to take a particular action. A strong CTA is clear, concise, and visually appealing. It should clearly communicate the value proposition of your business and motivate the visitor to take action. Examples of strong CTAs include “Download our free e-book”, “Watch our demo video”, or “Sign up for our newsletter”.

3. Visitors land on your site and provide their contact information.

Once your visitors have clicked on your CTA, the next step is to collect their contact information. There are different methods to do this, such as through a web chat tool, a form, or a pop-up. Whichever method you choose, make sure it’s easy to use and doesn’t require too much effort from your visitors. A simple form asking for their name and email address or phone number will suffice.

4. Your business contacts the visitor and nurtures the lead.

Once you have collected their contact information, the next step is to contact them and start nurturing the lead. The goal here is to build a relationship with the potential customer, earn their trust, and eventually convert them into a paying customer. The nurture process involves regularly communicating with them through email, phone, social media, or any other channel that aligns with their preferences. Provide them with valuable information, answer their questions, and understand their pain points to offer solutions that fit their needs.

How to Improve the Lead Generation Process

As with any process, there are things you can do to make lead generation more effective. Let’s go over a few tips and best practices. 

1. Define your ideal leads and customers.

Knowing who your ideal customer is enables you to tailor your marketing efforts, products, and services to meet their specific needs and preferences.

Defining your ideal customer involves creating a profile that describes your target audience in detail. This includes factors such as demographics, behavior, and psychographics. By doing so, you can identify the customers who are most likely to be interested in what you offer and who will be a good fit for your business.

So, how do you do it? Start by gathering data about your current customer base. Analyze their behavior and use this information to identify commonalities among them. You can also use data from market research, surveys, and online analytics tools to gain insights into your target audience.

Another helpful tip is to create buyer personas—fictional representations of your ideal customers. These personas should include their job titles, age, income, hobbies, and other relevant factors that will enable you to understand their needs and preferences. This will help you to tailor your marketing messages and product offerings to meet their specific needs.

Finally, remember that your ideal customers are not static. As your business evolves, your ideal customers probably will, too. As such, it’s important to regularly review and update your customer profiles to ensure that they accurately reflect your target audience.

2. Tailor your content.

Once you have a clear understanding of who you’re targeting, it’s time to start tailoring your content. Here are some tips to do it effectively: 

1. Use relevant language. Speak the language of your ideal customer. Use terminology and phrases they would use to describe their problems and solutions. This will show that you understand their pain points and are capable of offering solutions.
2. Provide valuable content. Offer content that is relevant and valuable to your target audience. This could be in the form of blog posts, eBooks, webinars, or social media content. By providing valuable content, you are establishing yourself as a credible source of information in your industry.
3. Personalize your messaging. Make your potential customers feel seen and heard by personalizing your messaging. Use their name, mention their company, and reference specific pain points they may have shared with you.
4. Highlight testimonials and case studies. Incorporate social proof by sharing testimonials and case studies from satisfied customers. This can help build trust and credibility with potential leads.

3. Align your marketing channels.

Creating great content is a waste of time if your target audience never sees it. That’s why, when it comes to lead generation and content production, you need to show up where your potential customers are. 

For example, if your target audience spends most of their time on social media, your marketing efforts should be focused on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These platforms offer a multitude of ways to promote and interact with your audience effectively, including paid advertising, organic reach through posts and shares, and direct messaging. On the other hand, if your audience prefers to communicate through text, building a subscriber list and sending out regular promotions may be more effective.

Identifying the right marketing channels is only part of the equation. It’s just as critical to know how to engage with your audience on these platforms effectively. Understanding what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t is essential for optimizing your content. It takes effort, experimentation, and consistent monitoring to build an effective online presence that leads to long-term relationships with your potential customers.

4. Use tools and software.

Having the right tools in your toolkit can give you a significant competitive advantage. Investing in solutions such as a customer relationship management (CRM) system, email marketing platform, or landing page builder can help you streamline your operations and tasks, freeing up valuable time to focus on other aspects of your business.

One of the key benefits of using these tools is the ability to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending customer follow-up emails or updating sales records. This not only saves time, but it also reduces human error and ensures consistency in your processes. Additionally, many solutions offer advanced analytics and reporting features, allowing you to gain valuable insights into your business’s performance and make data-driven decisions.

Look for solutions that offer intuitive interfaces and straightforward onboarding processes to ensure a smooth transition to new software. You should also choose tools that seamlessly integrate with your current workflows as this will minimize the need for manual data entry or time-consuming workarounds.

5. Track your campaigns.

Finally, make sure to track your efforts—don’t let your hard work go to waste. To measure the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts, start by monitoring and analyzing your website traffic. High traffic doesn’t always translate into more leads, so it’s important to determine which channels are driving the most traffic and where these visitors are coming from. By understanding which sources of traffic are delivering the most leads, you can make strategic adjustments to your campaigns and attract more of your target audience.

You should also track key metrics such as lead conversion rates and open rates. These numbers will help you understand how well your campaigns are resonating with your audience, and provide insights into what you can do to improve your engagement and conversion rates. Armed with this information, you can make data-driven decisions about your lead generation strategies and optimize your efforts to achieve better results. 

6 Effective Lead Generation Strategies 

Now, let’s talk strategies. There are various ways you can generate leads, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. What works well for one business might not work for another. You’ll likely want to experiment with multiple strategies to see what works best for you. Here are some strategies we’d recommend testing. 

1. Text Marketing

Text marketing is one of the most popular and effective ways to generate leads. With a staggering 98% open rate, texts are a powerful way to connect with customers and drive sales. Text messages can (and should) be personalized to target specific groups of customers, as this will increase customer engagement and loyalty and bring in more revenue for your business.

2. Google and Social Media Ads

Paid ads will require some budget, but they can be extremely effective. Why? Because platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads allow you to target your ideal customers based on interests, demographics, and other relevant data. This significantly increases the likelihood that your campaign will be seen by the right eyes. By crafting eye-catching ads that resonate with potential customers, you can drive traffic to your website and generate leads. 

3. Reviews

Online reviews have a significant impact on consumer purchase decisions. In fact, 93% of consumers say online reviews have influenced their buying decisions. Podium’s review management software allows businesses to capture and manage reviews from various channels, including Google, Facebook, and more. With Podium, you can collect and respond to feedback, manage negative reviews, and improve your online reputation with ease—say goodbye to your days of switching back and forth between dozens of tabs.

→ Build a 5-star reputation. We’ll teach you how to get more reviews, improve your star rating, and more. Get the guide 

4. Content Marketing

According to research, 76% of marketers use content to generate leads. So…what is content marketing? Content marketing involves creating valuable and relevant content and distributing it so that it will reach your target audience. Ultimately, the goal is to generate leads by creating content that addresses your audience’s pain points and challenges. This strategy can be time-consuming, but it’s budget-friendly and, when done well, can be incredibly effective. 

5. Referral Programs

Your loyal customers aren’t just the lifeblood of your business—not just because they purchase from you, but also because they can bring new business your way. Referral programs are the perfect way to generate leads by leveraging your existing customer base. Why are referral programs such a game-changer? Because customers who are referred to your brand are 4x more likely to make a purchase, and their lifetime value is 16% higher when compared to non-referred customers. By providing incentives for current customers to refer their friends and family, you can increase brand awareness, drive sales, and generate new leads. 

6. Web Chat

The modern consumer expects a speedy response, so it’s important for businesses to offer quick and convenient communication methods. Web chat tools enable you to communicate with website visitors in real-time, creating a frictionless customer experience. Unlike other web chat solutions, Podium’s Webchat is text-based, and it allows you to generate up to 11x more leads from your website. And the cherry on top? By moving the conversation from your website to text, you can keep the conversation going long after a prospect has left your site. That’s relationship-building at its finest. 👌

Lead Generation Marketing Solutions

Allow us to introduce you to your new secret weapon: Podium. Podium helps local businesses like yours drive more traffic (online and in person), convert that traffic into revenue, get paid faster, keep customers engaged, and more.

It’s never been more crucial—or difficult—to keep up with modern customer expectations, but with Podium on your side, you can provide a best-in-class customer experience without overextending your time or wasting resources. 

Businesses that use Podium have seen an increase in their customer loyalty, simplified customer communication, boosted sales and foot traffic, and so much more.  

Podium helps thousands of businesses achieve their goals every day, and it’s time for you to try it too. Start a free 2-week trial today—it’s risk-free, no strings attached—and see how Podium can take your business to new heights.