What You Need To Generate Small Business Leads

Generating small business leads is the lifeblood of running a successful organization that is ready to grow and thrive. There are many approaches to lead generation for small businesses that each come with their own benefits and opportunities.

In a #BizHackLive webinar, Alex Oliveira, lead generation expert and founder and CEO of Prediq Media, explored and explained different strategies for generating small business leads. Here are some of his key takeaways and tips.

Using Affiliate Marketing For Lead Generation For Small Business

Lead generation for small businesses begins with understanding the possibilities. For most businesses, those include buyers searching online, marketing channels, online marketplaces, and other advertising channels. As the advertiser, you decide which marketing channels you want to present your offer on, such as email marketing, PPC ads, SEO, video ads, or social media ads. The marketplace, such as Facebook, Google, or Amazon, would capture leads or take those clicks to your website to buy your service or product. This process is called affiliate marketing.

TIP: You need to have a valuable offer that is relevant to your target audience. This is what is going to drive the clicks. 

Small Business Leads Traffic Sources 

“I don’t depend on an algorithm for owned sources,” Oliveira said. “If I can drive traffic to my website, I control the media.” 

Social Media Apps To Consider 

Before deciding which platforms your business should be on, the most important thing is figuring out where your target audience lives and if you can engage with them there. A straightforward way of determining your audience’s preferred platforms is by seeing where your competitors are. 

“I would never recommend to anyone, to any business, that you have to be on every platform because you don’t,” Oliveira said.

Online Marketing with a Sales Team

Many business owners blame their salespeople when they do not have the same momentum as when they began. 

“You need to be aware of how you are nurturing your team and giving them love,” Oliveira said. “Because if they are not reciprocating, that is one thing, but if you’re not giving them the same love that they deserve, you can’t expect for them to go out there and be a super salesperson every day because it is not going to happen.”

TIP: You are 20x more likely to talk to your online lead (prospect) if you contact them in less than 5 minutes from their initial interaction with your offer vs. 30 minutes. Follow up quickly. 

Getting aligned with BANT

You need to make sure your team is aligned with the goals set for your lead gen campaign. 

There are three steps to a small business lead generation campaign: 

1. Engage
2. Acquire
3. Retain 

It is rare to see in organizations of all sizes that marketing, sales, and customer success are all done by the same team members. It is essential for all team members involved in a campaign to be talking to each other and headed in the same direction as far as strategy and goals to have the most success with small business leads generation.

“You can’t have a marketing conversation if you are not talking about sales,” Oliveira said.

It is all about BANT when your team is qualifying leads:

• Budget: Can they afford your product/service?
• Authority: Is this the decision-maker?

• Need: What is their pain point? Why is your product/service necessary?

• Timing: In what timeframe will the solution be implemented?

You Need to Run Ads to Grow

“Every company that succeeds online today has a paid ad strategy. It does not need to be thousands of dollars a month, but you have to run some ads,” Oliveira said.

Amazon, Facebook, and Google provide many tools for small businesses, but let’s face it, they are also in it to grow and make their shareholders’ money. They will always sit in the middle, between the consumer and us, the sellers. When you are running search-paid ads, you will need to use Google and Facebook. If you are an e-commerce company running shopping ads, it is almost impossible not to advertise on Amazon.

You can start with a small budget. Start with $100, make a time balance for the next 30 days, decide who from your team will oversee measuring, launching, and then executing.

Here are a few musts before running any kind of lead generation campaign:

• Website Audit
• Target Audience
• Product Offers
• KPI’s and Analytics
• Customer Journey 

Website Audit

If your ad sends leads to a landing page, make sure you do not have any other links other than your call-to-action. All of your menu buttons, social media links need to be removed. You want to test everything on your landing page before launching your lead generation campaign. 

TIP: Customize your call-to-action button on your leads forms. Instead of leaving a “submit” button, have something warmer such as “Get Quote” or “Talk to Us.”

A/B testing your landing page:

• CTA Buttons
• Subject Lines
• Ad Copy
• Color 
• Video vs. Image

TIP: Every UX stat out there shows that the colors below are the best for your CTA buttons. 

Want to read more about generating small business leads? For more information, click here.

Digital marketing doesn’t need to be difficult. The BizHack Lead Building System™ is a proven methodology for small business marketing. BizHack founder Dan Grech developed the LBS over 7 years working with more than 700 small businesses around the world and across every industry. Take control of your small business marketing today, click here.