What is Lead Generation? Start Growing Your Business Today with These 3 Simple Steps.
by Andrew Millar
No business would exist without customers. Post offices, insurance companies, even hospitals would cease to be built if no one used their services. Growing a strong business requires a steady influx of customers walking through the doors or visiting online.
So, what is lead generation and how can it help grow your business? A lead is simply a person or business who has an interest in your company and lead generation is finding them through marketing, word-of-mouth, or simple brand awareness. With these three simple steps, you can start using lead generation to grow your business.
Increase Your Online Presence
According to Hubspot, companies with 30 landing pages generate seven times the leads than those with ten or less. And according to Holbi, social media has become the essential part of forming strategies for digital marketing. Every time your business can expand its landing page base, the more eyes see that content. If you’re wondering what is lead generation in relation to your online presence, it’s simple: the more ways to access your business, the more opportunities your business has to gather those visitor’s contact information and turn them into leads.
Increasing your online presence is easy so long as you’re able to manage your time and create a schedule. Collaborating with competitors and businesses with similar interests can help build a strong platform of information that generates leads and benefits everyone. Increasing landing platforms by regularly updating the company blog is another great avenue to generate eyes on your site and leads in your inbox. Cultivate a strong online presence to generate more leads.
Create a Funnel
The world of indie publishing is a great tutor on how funnels work. Many indie authors make their income by developing a complex funnel to turn casual readers into die-hard fans. Indie authors start with a first novel which introduces readers to the characters and the larger story and end it on a cliff hanger. Readers are enticed and immediately offered another piece of the story, at a price. Authors draw their audience along the funnel, giving them frequent updates to their favorite character and receiving consistent business from fans. Fans that have an interest in the author’s other titles can try the first book for free. Business owners that follow indie authors can grow their business.
Businesses attempting to answer the question “What is lead generation and how can I make it work for my business?” need to quickly follow that up with, “What is my funnel?” Hooking leads with a strong message and a meaningful offer can move a lead to a customer. Maintain that initial relationship with consistent contact and you’ll create customers in no time.
Measure Your Return on Investment
Often, businesses end up dropping money and time into the bottomless pit of “lead generation” tools that don’t result in customers or results. Instead of measuring the results themselves, those business owners trust published information and gossip to determine where they should spend their time. Measuring lead generation is simple and easy: Just ask. Whether it’s calling a lead for the first time and inquiring how they heard of your business or installing tracking software, use that information to determine which leads are producing results and which should be dropped.
Lead generation is a great way to grow your business by keeping a steady stream of customers investing in the business. By increasing your online presence, creating a lead generation funnel that promotes and nurtures lead relationships, and measuring the ROI to ensure you’re allocating your resources productively, you can turn “What is lead generation?” into “Why didn’t I learn about lead generation earlier?”