Lead generation is an integral part of any business. It’s the life line that must keep flowing to keep the rest of the company healthy. Without leads being generated, you’ll eventually lose your financial momentum. Soon enough, it’ll grind to a complete halt.

Generating leads can feel overwhelming, especially when your head’s in the overall logistics of your business. How do you attract new business? Where do you even start? Let’s take a look!

It’s Quality, not Quantity

This rule is truly universal. Why have a lot of something that you’re not entirely happy with? Isn’t it better to invest in less of something that pays off substantially more? Yes!

Lead generation is no different. Focus on high-quality leads that’ll make a good return on your investment. These are long-term customers that are typically found in the demographic discovery process. You need to identify and build customer profiles to do this successfully.

Get Customers Ready with Social

Social media isn’t just a sounding board or glorified customer support outpost. Instead, think of it as a “waiting room” for potential leads. This is where you build intrigue, offer information, and “warm-up” your leads so they make buying decisions in your favor. An easy way of doing this is by posting a promo code on your social; you’d be surprised how much that simple code can pay off in new revenue!

Invest in Metrics & Tracking

Flying blind means you’ll inevitably crash; do you have the confidence to stick the crash landing? I wouldn’t risk it. Instead, invest in tools like Google Analytics to track the behavior of your audience and your return on investment. Without tracking metrics, you’ll never know how effective your message is.

Keep it Simple

When you ask a consumer to fill out a contact form, you’re already asking them for a favor. The best way to make that “ask” go smoothly is by keeping it simple. Don’t ask for too much information right out of the gate. Their name, email, and a dropdown or text box to include their needs are all you need at first.

Keep it Clean

Whether it’s your website or landing page, keeping it clean and straightforward is the best way to snag customers. No one wants to visit a chaotic webpage with confusing navigation, a million subheadings, and rambling copy. The more direct and concise your message is, the better understood it will be by consumers.

Call-to-Actions Are a Must but Make Them Consistent

Your call-to-action (CTA) is the thing that should inspire your leads to make the jump, whether that’s a simple “LEARN MORE” or an enticing “CLICK HERE FOR 20% OFF”. However, make sure you make good use of your CTA. Make it clear and direct, and use that CTA at the top of the landing page that it leads to. If a consumer clicks a 20% off banner ad, then they’ll expect to see that information right at the top of the page the ad takes them to.

Have an Eye on the Competition

Knowing what your competition is up to just makes good sense. Working in a vacuum means you’ll lack the context to make out-of-the-box decisions. Seeing what your competition is doing isn’t shady; it’s meant to inspire you to work outside of those parameters. What are they doing? Does it work? How can I change it up in a similarly effective way? These are the questions you can answer when you keep an eye on your competitors.

Know Your As and Bs

Mind your Ps and Qs and know your As and Bs. A/B testing is an important part of effective marketing. If you fail to account for it, you’re going to lack the ability to make informed decisions about how your messaging impacts your lead generation.

What is A/B testing? It’s simple; you have two campaigns, A and B, and you see which one is more effective, or what parts of each one are more effective, and refine your campaign based on that data. It might seem simple, but you’d be surprised by how many people forge ahead in their marketing without ever looking back.

Advertise with Pay-Per-Click

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is still a great way to get your name out there. Anytime you do a Google search and see a specific, relevant website right at the top with that “sponsored” label, you can be sure that that business paid for that spot on Google’s ranking. How many times have you clicked on that result and never looked back?

PPC advertising is the most straightforward way of getting your product and service seen by consumers executing specific searches that are relevant to your business. Are you a lawn care company? Wouldn’t it be nice to know your website is always the first in line when someone searches “lawn care near me”?

Lead Generation is About Opportunity

If you leave lead generation to chance, you’ll find that it’s a watering hole that constantly dries up. It simply can’t sustain itself without some direct intervention. Think of lead generation as a game of opportunity. It’s all about being in the right place at the right time when a consumer needs something. The more you can do to be the first thing they see when they have a problem, the better off you’ll be.