There are tons of challenges that entrepreneurs face when starting and running an online business.
Among the greatest challenges that business owners experience is lead generation. In fact, very few business owners are confident that their lead generation strategy is working.
If you’re part of this group and are unsure of how to find leads online for your business, keep reading.
Listed below are some strategies that will make it much easier for you.
Focus on Direct Engagement
Lots of business owners make the mistake of focusing only on indirect engagement with their customers. For example, they might include a FAQ page on their website.
Indirect engagement can be helpful, but direct engagement is much more effective. Look for ways to connect with your website visitors and people online in order to generate more leads.
You might want to install a live chat feature or use online forums to answer people’s questions right away and with more personalized responses.
Utilize New Technology
There are tons of tools available these days — many of them free — that can help you to generate leads for your online business.
For example, there are lots of programs that will help you to make your marketing material compatible with mobile devices.
Most people spend more time on their mobile devices than on their desktop computers, and having your marketing material available on these devices will help you reach a wider audience.
Make sure you’re paying attention to trends and investing in products that help you capitalize on those trends.
Turn to Twitter
Twitter isn’t just Donald Trump’s social media platform of choice. It’s also a great tool for generating leads.
With the help of lead generation tools like Followerwonk, you can use Twitter to analyze your followers and learn more about them.
This, in turn, can help you create more targeted content that is more likely to appeal to those who come across your tweets.
Produce High-Quality Blog Content
Blogging is an effective way to bring new, organic visitors to your site. It also allows you to provide value to your website visitors and convert them into paying customers.
Make sure you’re publishing high-quality, original blog content on a regular basis. The more consistent you are with your blog posts, the greater your returns will be.
In addition to posting blog posts on a regular basis, it’s important to engage with the people who read your blog as well.
Respond to their comments and encourage them to contact you if they have questions or are interested in your business’s products or services.
Guest Blog
Having your own blog for your business is great. Guest blogging is even better.
Guest blogging involves writing a blog post for someone else’s blog. In exchange for you posting on their site, you can often link back to your products or another post on your blog.
Guest blogging allows you to expand your network and reach a wider audience.
Automate Your Marketing
Be sure to take advantage of tools that allow you to automate your marketing strategy. If you try to handle everything on your own, it’s going to be much harder for you to work in an efficient way and focus on other important aspects of your business.
There are lots of applications out there that simplify email marketing and lead generation processes. They can help you gain more information on prospective customers or clients and measure the performance of your campaigns.
Answer People’s Questions
A unique but effective way to connect with potential customers is to answer their questions.
Visit sites like Quora and Yahoo Answers and do some digging to find questions that you can answer that are relevant to your business.
The more you respond to people’s questions, the more likely they are to visit your website and become customers.
Use Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to connect with current and potential customers and provide them with valuable content they might not get elsewhere. You can also use email marketing to provide people with discount codes and special information about upcoming deals.
It’s also a good idea to include links to your blog and social media profiles in your emails. That way, people can be redirected to these locations and will be more likely to follow you.
Start Creating Marketing Videos
Video marketing is huge right now, and it’s only going to get more popular in the future. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet, after all.
If you want to meet people where they’re at, marketing videos are the way to go.
Videos allow you to bring in new customers and connect with people in a different, more effective way. You can use videos to provide all kinds of value — tutorials, product demonstrations, introductions to members of your team, etc.
Give Something Away for Free
According to this lead gen company, giving something away for free is a great way to generate leads and get people excited about what your business has to offer.
You might want to offer a free, basic tool on your website or give them a free copy of an ebook or another resource that gives them an introduction to what your business has to offer.
Giving something away helps people to see the kind of value your business can provide them. It also gives you a chance to collect data and find new potential customers to target in the future.
You Know How to Find Leads: Now What?
The process of finding leads can definitely be a daunting one, especially with so much information out there online these days.
If you keep these tips in mind, though, you’ll have a much easier time figuring out how to find leads online for business.
Do you want to learn more about lead generation? Do you have other questions about keeping your startup afloat and making sure it’s profitable?
We’ve got tons of great resources available on our site. Check out some of our marketing and advertising articles today for more advice.