64 Lead Generation Strategies for Local Small Business

While it may seem obvious to start with Lead Generation and finding new clients first, it doesn't work. Increasing Inquiries, or Lead Generation, for many Business Owners, is the most common way of increasing sales. The reason for doing Lead Generation last is that advertising can be one of the most expensive ways to market your business.

You can read more about this in “The World's Fastest Way To Increase Sales” 

Firstly, work on increasing the amount of money customers spends every time they buy from you.

Secondly, try to increase the conversion ratio (If you are currently converting 3 out of 10 leads into customers and, through the increase that number to 4 of 10 – your revenues will increase by 33%)

Third, try to increase the frequency of every customer purchase from you (The amount of times customers buy from you over a given period of time)

Then, when you have taken these steps, you can begin to increase the leads and potential new customers because it is six times easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new customer.

The following lead generation strategies, techniques, tactics, methods, and ideas will help you to grow your business.

Never try to appeal to everyone. Focus specifically on people who will benefit the most from your product/services. Companies must target specific customers and customer groups if they want to achieve significant sales.  Many businesses fail because they are targeting the wrong customers with the wrong product in the wrong way.  The ideal lead generation strategy is to target the right market segment (group of customers) that contains those customers for whom the product’s competitive advantage is most important in satisfying their most pressing needs.  If you are selling food, sell to hungry people, and if you are selling time management training, sell to busy people.

Think of your market or group of customers, as a school of fish. Does your market contain enough fish? Is your school of fish growing or declining? Is it easy to find them, and what their feeding on? Are they really hungry? What bait will make them "bite like crazy?"

Finding the best leads - a hungry marketplace:

• A large and growing body of interested people
• Who can be easily identified?
• Who has an immediate need/want/problem?
• That they are highly motivated to solve
• Who has the money to spend?
• And are willing to spend it
• In an economic climate that encourages spending.

It is critical to understand the needs of your customer and to give them exactly what they want. Knowing your customers' needs and concerns will place you in a position of power because be able to offer solutions, products, and services that your customer needs. It's your job to take care of your customers to give them what they want. But what do they want? Ask them exactly what they want, and give them exactly that.
Your success will depend on finding those leads that are potential clients/customers, finding out how you can help them, and regularly and relentlessly trying to convince them into buying from you.

If you are driving leads and prospects to your place of business, which is not-targeted, then you are going to have a hard time converting leads into customers. You need to focus on bringing in leads and prospects who are interested in your product and who are looking to buy. By testing and measuring and setting up "conversion tracking" you will see which leads are converting into purchasing customers. Maybe they are coming from a marketing campaign or a newspaper ad. Whatever the case, by testing and measuring you will know where you need to focus your marketing efforts.

Knowing who your competitors are key to your business to success. You need to know almost as much about your competitors as you do about your own business. Unfortunately, many small business owners discover this too late when a competitor is already cutting into profits.

Examine your competitor's marketing, advertising, and lead generation strategies. What, where, when, and how they do it, and how can you be different (better). What lead generation strategy are you going to use to communicate with your best potential customers?

How are you going to differentiate your product or service from that of your competitors, and why your competitors' customers should prefer your service? This will enable you to identify your best leads generation strategy and how you should promote your business to them.

This single little word has a big meaning when it comes to lead generation, marketing, and advertising to generate new customers. Ignore it, and you may as well throw lose all your money spend on lead generation. The most effective element in marketing and advertising to generate new leads are doing it consistently and on an ongoing schedule otherwise, you will be wasting time and money.

Your ROI on your lead generation investment will be much higher if you reach 1000 of the right people ten times, rather than 10 000 people only once. So instead of running a 1/2 page color ad in the local newspaper twice a month. A better strategy would be to run a series of smaller black and white ads weekly over a six-month period. Test the different smaller ads to find the best and then scale up.

The goal is visibility, and it's hard to achieve without the right consistent message to the right customers through the right medium— consistently. And watch your business grow.

Customer acquisition cost can be considered as the cost for buying a customer. Yes, buying a customer! It's the total cost for acquiring a customer that includes lead generation, marketing, advertising, and other costs associated with convincing a consumer to buy your product or service.

If you look at your efforts for finding and keeping customers as "buying a customer" your whole perception of customer service and lead generation changes. This means you can buy as many customers as you want, as long as you know how much they cost, and you can buy them for less than your profits on your first sale. Most business owners think that you only invest in equipment and stock, but it's also true about your customers.

Why does this matter?
The general idea is to create some sense of the value of a marketing expense, a "measure" so you can compare one marketing and lead generation strategy to another. That's why it is so important that to measure your results is. This way you can find the cheapest way to buy customers. It's also the most important thing when it comes to advertising on any online or social media platform.

For example:
You put $1000 into an ad in the local newspaper to generate new leads to try and sell your product, and it generates on average 50 leads that make inquiries, which means every inquiring lead costs $20. Of the 50 leads that come in, 30 of them bought a widget. Your conversion rate is 60%. The result of this marketing campaign is that each new customer costs you $33.33.

Now let's say you're selling a product with a price of $100. 50% of this $100 is margin, what's left over after the cost of the product, to take the order, package, and processing the sale through the system. So the profit on a sale is $50;

You already know that each new customer costs you $33.33. You also know from your sales records that each customer spends on average $100. Your records show that your average profit margin is $50. All this tells you that for every $33.33 you invest you make $50! Once you know how much it costs to buy a customer, and how much you make on every sale, you can determine exactly what to do to earn the profit you want.

Note: While customer acquisition cost is important, it is secondary to your other efforts, which should be sales and profit-focused. When businesses focus on the customer acquisition cost as a driving metric, they may, in fact, harm their sales volume and profitability.

To know if any marketing and lead generation campaign was successful you need to know what your break-even cost was. This can be done by working out what your total fixed costs for the campaign were, then work out how much profit you made from the campaign and this will give you enough information to work out how many leads or responses you need in order to break even. Work out your costs upfront, this will give you an idea of what you need to achieve in order for the campaign to be successful. If your campaign was successful you can do it again, but if it wasn't successful you may need to be more creative and come up with something that might work.

It is important to know how much it cost to generate a lead, but also your costs for staff, phone calls, offers, letters, and advertising. Now the net profit you will make from customers who will buy from you because by knowing your margins, you will be able to work out the response rate required. Also, remember to view each new customer as a lifetime customer who will buy from you more than once, and remember that you will make a profit from them only after selling more than 2.5 times to this customer. It is much cheaper to sell to existing customers than to sell to new ones.

If you look at your lead generation cost and customer service cost as a cost for buying customers, your whole perception changes. Every customer costs you money and out of the experience, we know that you normally, will not recover your marketing and lead generation cost from the first sale. It normally takes 2 - 3 sales to cover your cost and only then you start making a profit. Now you can understand the importance of making sure your customer comes back, you need to recover the investment you made for buying the customer.

Your goal is to keep on reducing the cost you pay for buying a customer and to ensure your customer stays with you for as long as possible, so you can recover your investment and make a profit. Here is a great tip to making your business very successful; "Make sure that every one of your customers is profitable".

The only way to do this is to measure and analyze. You must record, and analyze your lead generation and conversion results because every little improvement will bring you closer to the right formula and further away from failure. Successful business people and marketers aren't necessarily the smartest, they just understand the concept of recording and analyzing results. It may be extra work and much more effort, but at the end of the day, you will know what works and what doesn't work.

You can predict your business's future profits and growth by recording and measuring the results from your marketing efforts. If you find that the results are not profitable, all you have to do is to look at your actions, that's it. Action creates results.
Did your marketing strategy work? Why or why not? The only way you are going to know if your actions are working is by measuring your results. Measuring results allows you to make informed, decisions based on facts and not on a gut feeling. Use what you learn from your results to refine your strategy for further growth.

The process of measuring, analyzing, and measuring again will go on until you're happy with the profitability of your business. It's about finding out what produces the best results and what doesn't, then making decisions based on that. Depending on these results you then take corrective action. Implement another lead generation strategy or try something new to improve results. Not every strategy you try will work and if you don't know what is working and what's not, you can't make decisions. You are aiming for continual improvement.

Unless you monitor the results of your lead generation method, like ads, letters, and telephone sales and so on, you've got almost no chance of making serious money in your business. You wouldn't dream of keeping a salesperson who doesn't sell or a secretary who doesn't know how to type, would you? No, of course you wouldn't. So why would you keep doing ads, letters and marketing strategies that don't work and waste your money? I'll tell you why.  Because you probably don't know that they don't work. Why? — Because you can't manage or improve what you don't measure!

Once you start to monitor what you are doing, you'll be amazed at what a difference a simple change in a headline (without changing the rest of your ad) will bring in generating leads. Or the way you greet a customer in a one-on-one situation, or whom you send your letters to. All these can impact on your results. Often opinions differ whether something will work, and the only sure way of knowing what your customers want is to put it to the test. Try all versions and analyze the results. The very sophisticated companies will even pay to have 2 different ads inserted into the same magazine or newspaper on the same day.

When advertising your business products or services your advertising and lead generation strategy must work in conjunction with other forms of promotion to really work effectively. These may include sales promotions, direct marketing, public relations, and personal selling.

Another important point about advertising, it's very important that your advertising is product/service and benefit related. How many times have you seen a great ad, but you can't remember the product/service it advertised? The last key to successfully generate leads with advertising is a good and effective Sales Conversion System.

Your advertising should perform a 4-part function known as AIDA:
Awareness: It must get their attention. Your advertising must make customers aware of your product.
Interest: Your advertising must make them interested in finding out more.
Desire: Your advertising must make them want to buy from you.
Action: Your advertising must make them take action…now.

The most important part of an advert and the key to successful lead generation depends 50 to 75 percent on the headline. So, experiment like crazy and test and measure your results because this is such an important part of creating adverts we have created a separate section to help you.

It is much easier to get a customer who has already bought from you to buy again from you than it is to convert a new customer. Take advantage of this by sending out e-mail, sms, and social media campaigns to tempt clients to come back and make a purchase.

Your local newspaper can be a great lead generation strategy in today's social and internet world. Newspapers are a very cost-effective medium for lead generation, and you will still get results weeks after the initial advertisement was placed.
The newspaper is a prime source of potential leads. Local newspapers provide a very cost-effective medium to generate new leads and communicate to a target market.

n today's "online world" this can be a great way to generate new leads and customers differently. Many of the flourishing enterprise existing today was built primarily on the pulling power of classified ads. This is also a great way to test different ads and lead generation strategies on a low budget, to find out what works best.

Advantages of classified advertising:

• You can run a series of small ads for the price of one display ad.
• Small ads allow you to advertise frequently at a low cost.
• You can feature a different product in each ad in a series of ads.
• It is a low-cost way of testing your ads and headlines to see what works best.
• Enable small businesses to advertise who otherwise couldn't. 
• Target specific markets and needs

Use flyers, hand-outs, and brochures only if you want to target a relatively small and selected market and if you have a special offer, otherwise consumers could respond to it as junk mail, and not even bother to read it.

Flyers and hand-outs are short and single-minded; a brochure is lingered and more detailed than either. Of the many ways to distribute them, some low-cost methods are – place them in mailboxes, slipped under doors or windshield wipers, handed out at street corners and at trade shows, and wherever lots of potential leads and prospects congregate, given to prospects and/or customers, placed in racks that say 'take one' or on counters for general distribution. You can also post on community and other bulletin boards. The simplest form of circulars is a single sheet of paper, printed on one side. It gets instant action if used properly and inexpensive.

A powerful lead generation and selling device are Television because you are able to communicate an image rather than information. This is the most comprehensive medium; it enables you to convince your prospects by means of demonstrations, which is a powerful selling device.

The product or service needs to be widely available because many people will see it. Television can communicate its message in, seconds and appeals to most of the watcher's senses, but it is obviously very expensive to produce and to broadcast. It is most effective in communicating an image rather than information.

It is possible to have stories or interviews about your product or service on the radio, and it may be that those will cost you a cent. Free and valuable publicity is not that difficult to come by on the radio, you'll have to pay or trade for your radio marketing. A company with a limited budget can use radio advertising effectively.

And radio can help improve your aim when you're trying to reach your target consumers to generate new leads. Radio helps you establish a close relationship with your prospects because of its intimate nature. Radio brings you even closer than newspapers do because of the sound effects you use to punctuate and enhance your message; all can help win customers and sales for you. Whether you are trying to target a farmer in the fields, or a busy executive traveling by car, radio can target your market more efficiently than most. This is a great reminder of products and services already known to people.

Magazines are a medium with which readers become involved; this medium gives to you the greatest credibility. In your magazine ad, you can attempt to capture the editorial 'mood' of the magazine. You can put forth more information because readers will be willing to take more time reading a magazine ad than a newspaper ad. Just remember that your competition may also advertise in the same magazine as you. Today's magazine market is highly specialized, with a wide range of publications available online, and offline.

It can be an expensive medium in which to advertise, although much cheaper than television, and often more appropriate for image building than lead generation. However, it is able to target the desired market far better than television. Magazines have a longer life span than most other forms of media advertising; they are usually read more than once, and by more than one member of a household.

Trade magazine will help you build your name and make you renowned. This is a nice way to target a group of business professionals. People who will page through this magazine are serious and will read your advertisement thoroughly. This kind of lead generation strategy will help you build your name and make you renowned.

Reach a defined market at a low price with school and church bulletins. Clever local businesses have advertised in these bulletins for years to reach targeted leads and customers at a low price. This is especially true of stores, services, and tradespeople who depend on neighborhood support.

School yearbooks, newsletters, and programs are useful for targeting students and their parents while gaining credibility at the same time. Ads are generally inexpensive. Include a coupon or voucher in your ad to track results.

To advertise in shopping arcades, it's a way of generating leads and selling your product or service at the same time. This is a convenient way of generating leads and selling your product or service at the same time. You've got the place, you've got all the people together, all that you have to do is gather names and contact details!
Be creative and give out pamphlets, brochures, and business cards out. You can even give demonstrations or free products away. Try to get the people's names and contact details when talking to you or inquire about your product or service. You can arrange with the arcade manager to sponsor the prize in a competition.

Attract serious browsers through signs on bulletin boards. They are also extremely inexpensive, and if your product or service meets unfulfilled needs, these signs often prove to be the most fruitful of marketing methods. Signs on bulletin boards tend to attract serious leads.

Think of signs in two ways: Those that appeal to people outside your place or business and those that appeal to people within your place of business. Use outdoor signs and billboards to remind people of your existence and your reason for being, as well as where to reach you.

Outdoor advertising consists of billboards, bus ads, and taxi signs, painted walls, outdoor signs, and building signage. Pick the most visible and busy locations for your billboards. Outdoor signs and billboards are superb at reminding people of your existence and your reason for being, as well as where to reach you. However, they work better with other integrated marketing methods.

Each and every vehicle should be a mobile billboard and lead generating machine! Your fleet may cover thousands of miles – daily – and many potential customers may see your vehicles.

A simple sidewalk A-frame sign outside your business can boost leads and sales fast by grabbing the attention of pedestrians. A properly positioned sidewalk sign will make you stick out.

By using the yellow pages and classified advertisements you will hit the very hottest of leads. Create your headline with a great lot of careful thought so that you would stand out. Make sure to stand out and highlight your differentiation factors. This will also put you in direct confrontation with your competition!

Claim your company profile on Google+ and brand it. Too many businesses miss this opportunity to rank on Google for local searches. Complete your profile with videos, photos, company logo, services and customer testimonials. After you get a few customer reviews your star rating will trigger and be visible in search results, helping you stand out from the competition. 

Your Google My Business profile is critical for local search and map search rankings. This is a top priority for ALL local businesses.

Local business owners can easily add their business to places like Yahoo and Bing to get more local search traffic. It’s worth putting these profiles on, but Google should be your top priority. Just like with Google, you can make a complete profile with photos, videos, logos, contact details, and a full description of services.

There are many niche local directories that can further boost your business online presence at no cost. Make a Google search with keywords that is related to your business and look at the results on the first page.  See if any sites come up that you should be listed on or any sites that you’d like to rank on. Focus on quality sites that are Google-friendly, and stay away from spammy and low quality directories. Every city will be different.

Run competitions and get to keep all the contact details of the people who entered. This new contact details can be used as leads in the future. You can also team up with another organization and run a competition in their store or on their premises for their clients and sponsor the prize while getting all the leads.

The key advantage of coupons is your ability to target specific lead groups, and inspire them to take action. Studies show that 48% of customers buy sooner and 37% of customers buy more than they normally would when they have a coupon. This strategy can be used online and offline.

No serious company should be without a website with a home page that is built for generating leads. It does not cost much to get an experienced Internet design artist to set up a home page for you. Marketing on the Internet is almost free and can be very effective.

Today, most businesses have websites. The problem is most websites are nothing more than an online brochure with no dedicated strategy to generate leads for your business.

Most Internet searchers visit and do business only with the Websites that are listed in the top ten of the sites in the major search engines. If your Web site is not optimized to rank well within the top twelve search engines, some of your best customers may not be able to find you.
Your website should be optimized for search engines like Google. Most of your visitors will come from either search engines or links — your pages need to be keyword optimized to find them.

Use autoresponders: The moment your visitors choose to share their names and e-mail addresses, their data is entered and automatically placed in your lead generation database and can be programmed to trigger autoresponders – e-mails that are sent to the subscriber automatically – which contain once or multiple messages.

Hosting a special event where you can get your message out to a targeted group specifically invited to the event is a great opportunity to generate leads. This way you can get your message out to a targeted group specifically invited to the event.
Help prospective customers satisfy their curiosity by inviting them to Grand openings, re-openings, and open houses. These are other ways to increase traffic to your establishment or online store. They help prospective customers satisfy their curiosity about your merchandise, and provide you with a forum to tell them why your product or service is superior to that of the competition.

Free consultations carry no pressure and require little time and a great opportunity for serious targeted leads. As a bonus, you also get to develop a personal, one-on-one relationship. A free consultation is a lot like a free sample. It's a chance to show how good you are. It's a great way to develop a personal, one-on-one relationship. It allows you to demonstrate how you can help your prospects by actually helping them for free.

Free demonstrations can be given in homes, shopping malls, at parties, in stores, at fairs and shows, in parks, at beaches, and almost anywhere. Be prepared to take orders immediately. You don't need to market your free demonstration like a seminar, simply showing up at a high-traffic location may do the trick.

Another way to do this is by making appointments with potential customers by using the phone for lead generation, and then go and do your demonstration at their homes or offices. This is a golden opportunity if you can demonstrate your product or service effectively.

Social media like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, to name only a few of the big ones have more than 8 billion active users a month. It's one of the most commonly used lead generation methods used today. Most social media lead generation tactics can be organically and free.

It's all about implementing strategic marketing tactics specially designed for capturing qualified leads and building relationships with potential customers, even if they are not currently looking to buy now.
There are many, many tactics and strategies you can use to generate leads through social media, but we will not go into details in this list.

Facebook Ads can be very effective with the capabilities of targeting your ideal customer. Facebook Local Ads: Facebook Local Ads are perfect for businesses with a specific location(s) to market. You can set a radius around your business for Facebook users. If they enter the set radius with their mobile phone, they will be added to the list of people who will see your ad.

Facebook Retargeting: With Facebook Retargeting you can develop your own custom audience of users who have already visited your website. You can place a specific ad for only these people on Facebook and gently remind them of your special offer.

Friendly warning: Be careful with this strategy because cost can run up quickly if you do not know what you're doing. It is not rocket science, but you still need to educate yourself on the subject before implementing it.

A business card with all your information like e-mail address, Website, and phone numbers on the front, is one of the oldest lead generation strategies. Business cards are an incredible sales weapon because they're dirt cheap to print, you can afford to give them out like crazy, you can say anything you want, your imagination can run wild to any message, shape, color, or size, and you can prepare several versions for different audiences.

Develop a brochure about your product or service. With the right software, it's easier and less expensive to design and produce a compelling digital brochure. If you have a digital brochure, you should display your brochure on your Website. This gives you a great opportunity to capture leads.

A brochure acts as a support and reinforces any sales process. It needs to describe the benefits in glowing terms, creating desire. It should impact some of the same feelings as the real thing in an appetizing way. It should be a reference point when your prospect wants action, the brochure should prompt a successful conclusion. Brochures offer a great opportunity to go into detail about your product or service. People expect a lot of information from a brochure, and you should feel encouraged to provide it – you can be very informative.

Take a printed version when you make sales calls or attend events. Send it out by an email with cover letters to prospective clients. Whatever you do, make sure that everything with your company name on it is well-designed and well written.

Get credibility through public relations, which encompass community relations, publicity, and memberships in clubs and organizations.
Public relations is a marketing method that should be seriously considered for the credibility it gives you. Public relations work well with all other marketing methods and can be the key to success in new lead generation. News about you and/or your business in newspapers, YouTube, magazines, radio, TV, and any other type of media is always good publicity.

Be someone in the community and offer your services to community activities. There must be plenty of community activities where you can deliver value with your services. You can attend community meetings each week while expanding your personal network at the same time. By becoming involved in community relations you make powerful leads and contacts, especially if you work tail off for the community and not merely to serve your business needs. When potential customers discover what you are doing for the community, it will naturally, attract them to you and your business.

Do a press release about a new product or service. If you have something new to report and your trade press will cover it, a press release is an answer. No more than two or three pages of double-spaced typing, with a compelling headline and introduction, accompanied perhaps by a photo. Your objective is to get some links that can become the basis for further contact. Your headline and opening paragraph are the most important words on the paper, to get your prospects' attention.

Gather a variety of implements describing your act in an attractive folder and create a press kit. A copy of your brochure, the latest press releases, reprints of other articles, photos, diagrams, drawings, and charts – anything that brings your story to life and that can be a reference for an inquisitive journalist. The strategy is to use the press as influencers of your real audience, your clients, and prospects. Hand it out to appropriate members of the press.

Pick the publication in which you'd most like to advertise, then don't advertise but offer your article instead. Don't try to sell a thing. Your article must do absolutely no advertising of your skills or your quality. The sole purpose is to generate leads. Another way is to offer to write a column for free for a local publication – even a trade publication. Always provide valuable information to the readers, and don't try to sell anything. Post a copy on your Website and share it on social media. Next, you can reach out to similar websites and offer to write for them that will give you instant exposure to their audience. You can also write on the many open platforms on the internet and referring back to your website. The list of places you can write articles with the purpose to generate leads is endless. But the best place to write articles for endless organic leads is on your own website.

All over the country and in your local community there many organizations and clubs such as Rotary, golf Club, and Chambers of Commerce, that would be delighted to have a good speaker to speak about something that will improve their lives or businesses. But don't use your speaking platform as a selling platform, instead, use the opportunity to deliver value and generate leads.

Sponsorship of sport and cultural events, or donating prizes can be used very effectively for lead generation, and to promote products to specific target markets. It also generates goodwill. Promotional events can also be used to draw attention to your product.

By sponsoring local teams or clubs, you build awareness amongst people, and you build credibility. In return, you can ask them for their members' information in return and use it on your prospect list.

There is always some run or other event put on by a charity that's seeking participants who will get sponsorships. But make it relevant! Then invite your clients and prospects to sponsor you.

Write a book on your own experiences, the field you're specializing in, or about your business, and give it away for free, or sell it as a lead generating tool. This is a good way of letting them know about the business without being too pushy. In the event of reading, they will gradually discover its full potential for themselves. It can either be of your own experiences or in the field you're specializing in. As long as you've done your homework and the facts are correct.

By marketing this book, you will become a professional in the eyes of your new leads and potential customers. Arrange a time and place and advertise the date of the release of your new book. That day, get to know the people and take their details. You can sell your book, or you can give it away for free.

In fact, one of the main reasons why people are writing books is for their publicity value. You may not make a lot of money on books, but the amount of free publicity and new leads you will receive on a book is worth thousands and even millions of dollars.

An e-book has a number of advantages for generating new leads. The idea is to keep your e-book closely related to your line of business so that it is passed on to people who would be interested later in your business. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise and deliver value to potential customers. It generates leads while building your brand and acts as a lead conversion tool all at the same time.

It's a great way for new leads and potential customers to "take a peek" at your company.

The telephone is one of the best and most affordable lead generation tools, yet many business owners fail to use it to their advantage. This means picking up the phone and calling one of your hottest leads. Telephone marketing provides opportunities to be more intimate and also offers you great flexibility. In one minute on the phone, you can accomplish what it might take two pages of a letter to do. In the process, you not only save some time but also make a greater impression on a prospective customer than with a letter.

Use your phone for lead generation and qualifying leads and combine it with other marketing methods. Try the 'telephone-letter-telephone' method — first telephone and ask for the person's permission to send them some information on: "How to… (Your solution to a specific problem)". Then mail or email the letter. Followed up with a call to prompt them into action.

Direct mail or cold email is one of the most effective, free marketing tools in the small business marketing toolbox when used correctly. Direct email returns big profits at a low cost. Not only is a direct email lead generation strategy highly targeted, but it's fast and affordable.

The writing of a personal short letter sent by email is one of the most effective, easy, inexpensive, and overlooked methods of marketing. It allows you to target specific potential customers better than any other marketing medium at no cost.

Created skillfully, direct email enables you to go through the entire selling process – from securing your prospects' attention to obtaining sales. Dollar for dollar, nothing sells products as effectively as direct email.

Make your email personal. Use short paragraphs, short sentences, and short words. Get to the point. The point is that readers will gain if they take action. State the most important benefits the reader will derive from buying your product or service. This allows you to phone, to explain something about what you've sent them, or to tell you they're not interested.

If you have difficulties in getting leads, buy a list from a broker with all the clients and their information. You can purchase or rent millions of lists, but the best list of all is the one you compile yourself, a list of your own potential and satisfied customers. Be cautious when you buy or rent prospect lists. There are countless commercial list compilers who offer mailing lists. If the list is bad for you, you can lose a lot of money. Only use a reputable company and ensure that the lists are genuine.

When sending mail, never send out an un-personalized letter. The best option is to let your prospects decide whether they want to be on your list by offering a free newsletter subscription or e-book. Offer valuable information that is not available elsewhere in exchange for their contact details. As they say, the money is in the list

A good prospect list is like a gold mine that just won't quit. You can build your prospect list through advertising, or any of the many options in this lead generation strategy list. Your mail list is so valuable to you that you can think of them almost as a trade secret. This is one of your business's most important assets.

List building is a process of defining qualified leads and then figuring how to establish warm and trusting relationships with the people on your list. Directories and lists in your target market area are essential in identifying qualified leads. Many directory services and social media platforms provide information on potential clients. Just make sure it's accurate and up to date so that you can target them better.

It is important to regularly update your records and delete the people who are deceased or who have moved away or who have unsubscribed. Please, never ever spam your list of leads with email or messages.

Monthly newsletters can be a key tool for lead generation and communication between you and your target audience. People enjoy receiving newsletters, which offer something of value to them. Done properly, the newsletter presents you as an expert in your field.

This will ensure a relationship between you and your prospect and will ensure regular visits to your business or website by your prospects. These days it is so simple, free and fast to create a nice monthly newsletter.

Developing a clear, concise, and compelling answer to the question, "So, what do you do?" is quite easy if you have already identified your target market and the problems you solve for customers. Get it right, and you have a unique way to generate leads.

Tap into your passion and the reasons why you do what you do. What gets you excited about your work? What value do you give? Whom do you really help? If people want to ask you more questions, and it ends in new leads, you'll know you have a winner
Mastering the elevator pitch is a great challenge, and it's a great asset to have. You never know when your own 30-second opportunity might appear, and you'll be happy you practiced.

Example
You might respond to, "So what do you do?" by saying:
"I'm a business coach and I work with smaller business owners who want to increase their sales and profit"

Politicians do it—going door-to-door, shaking hands. Does it work? Well a Chinese restaurant owner dressed up in a suit and went to all the real estate agencies within 3 km of his restaurant with a sample of his food and a menu. He dressed in a suit and personally introduced himself as the owner of a new restaurant. He said, "I'd love to have you come in and here's a sample of our food." He also gave them a menu to go with it. Within 30 days he had a booming lunch and dinner trade. Once you've gone around you could always follow up with a letter saying...

"Dear Friend,
As you may recall I came to your house a little while ago to introduce myself to you. Well my (your type of industry) business is now open, and I'd like to offer you a (free offer) to see you come in and try my service. Please bring this letter with you to get this offer. Regards, John"

Have fun while generating leads and making sales for your business. Create a party-plan where you offer examples, conduct a brief seminar, distribute samples, or give a demonstration while serving coffee and pastries.
At the party, serve coffee and pastries or maybe little sandwiches. You also give a well-planned sales spiel about whatever you are selling. You offer examples, conduct a brief seminar, distribute samples, or give a demonstration to the assembled throng.

Word of mouth referral is the best means of creating new leads and clients. By getting just 1 client as a referral from an existing client can double or triple your sales in one month. Powerful!!!

• Delighted customers tell many other potential customers.
• Satisfied customers tell nobody!
• Unhappy customers tell everyone

If you want to grow your business rapidly and cost-effectively, a word-of-mouth lead generation strategy will be your cheapest and most effective tool. People will trust their family and friends more than they trust any advertising. They look to their friends to recommend companies they should support. They even trust people they don't know more than they trust advertising. How many times have you asked someone to recommend something you were looking for? You ask that person because you believe he or she will give you an honest recommendation based on personal experience. That is a powerful marketing and lead generation strategy

Never leave the customer without asking for referrals: This is a fast, free and effective lead generation that will lead to good business, which will never happen if you don't ask for referrals.

A formalized referral lead generation program is a simple system that is set up for you in such a way that it makes it easy to ask for referrals on a regular basis. This is not about passive word-of-mouth leads, but rather a controlled formal strategy that prompts your customers to help you grow a business.

Here are the three important factors for creating a great referral program:

•  Earn the right to ask for referrals by providing solid value;
•  Ask clearly and unequivocally for referrals;
•  And recognize and reward people who provide referrals.

When you receive referrals as leads, be sure you thank the referrer. And when referrals turn into a business, follow through with the promised rewards. There are many other referral systems. This is just one idea to trigger your imagination. The key will be creating a system that is pain-free to your clients, which can be operated by your people without any significant overhead.

Invitation-only workshops can be hosted for referral sources with accountants, attorneys, financial planners, business owners, as well as and other non-competitive professionals in your target market to generate new leads. The previews will be the actual product, service, or program offered to pay customers. The intent is to provide value and proof of your product or service so that customers will be comfortable making referrals. We recommend that one of these briefings be held monthly. Referral sources and potential customers who attend and are interested will have a follow-up call made to them to further discuss what you can do for them.

Even if you have done this in the past, you can do it again. There are many, many ways to leverage your existing network for new leads. We have found the most effective way is to send a marketing letter and follow up with a phone call. Quite simply, a marketing letter is an announcement about your business. It should specifically ask for referral leads. We recommend that you send these out in batches (perhaps 10-20 per week, depending on the size of your mailing list and the time you have available) and then follow up each letter or email with a phone call.

Many business owners are hesitant in utilizing their existing network as a way to generate new sales leads. We feel this is caused by fear or lack of belief. If you truly believe in the value of your business why wouldn't you want to let your network know what you are doing and ask for their support and encouragement?
You already have a group of people, who know you, respect you, and like you. Many of these people would be more than happy to help you build your business by providing you with some new potential leads! This is an incredibly effective way to attract new clients, make connections, and secure opportunities you might not otherwise have gained.

Getting salespeople can be one of the smartest things you can do for your business and lead generation. These salespeople don't cost you a cent to employ and can bring in huge profits. They earn and keep their commission. Every salesperson can bring many, many new sales leads
It doesn't take a huge sales force to generate huge profits. One or two motivated people can do the job. You can offer them a low basic salary and a generous commission. Like marketing, salespeople are an investment and not an expense but invest wisely.

It is very important when you use this method to:

•  Hire the right people with the right attitude.
• Support your people with marketing firepower.
• Offer a generous commission.
• Give them sales training.
• Constantly motivate them.
• Provide goals and performance standards.

The salespeople in a company are the most important people in the organization. They are the people that will bring in new leads and potential customers. Those are the people that the customer will see and talk to when walking into your business. Your sales will depend upon these people. What they know, how they walk and talk, how they look and how they manage to handle customers. Give them the necessary training, set lead, sales conversion, and sales targets and incentives.

Marketing at trade shows and exhibits give many businesses a terrific shot in generating qualified leads. Trade shows is a great opportunity to make contacts and with purchase-minded people who are thinking about the primary topic of the show or exhibit. It is highly advantageous to reach people who have this mindset, just ensure your booth looks different and interesting and collect leads and contact details, which you can use after the show.

Trade Shows are a good source of many highly targeted buyers and heads of companies. All under one roof that is easily accessible to you and with an opportunity to meet people face to face, where otherwise you'd struggle for months to make contact within the normal course of business. Remember to follow up after a show and to keep on building the relationship afterward. It's important to follow up after attending the trade shows because research shows that when the bulk of the business is done.

This is a powerful way to increase the number of your relevant business contacts and grow your business. It increases the number of your relevant business contacts that may lead to more leads and referrals. Networking among your industry contacts, through professional associations, and with my peers in consulting, will complement your direct mail efforts in building your business. People like to buy from someone they know. Networking is an enormous industry.

The most effective networking is targeted networking. In other words, you want to go to networking meetings and events that are attended by your target market. Sure, you can still attend general networking events such as the Chamber of Commerce where a small percentage of attendees may be qualified leads. But why not network at associations where virtually every person there is a prospective lead and possible client?

Do you see how just choosing your target market allows you to network more effectively? Get on the internet and research the local organizations and associations in your area that cater to your target market. Join those groups and get involved so that everybody knows what you do, who you do it for, and the impact you can have on their business or life.

Would you prefer to get one or one hundred new leads and potential clients at a time? This can be the difference between working on your own and creating strategic alliances. Alliance partners could send you hundreds of leads and clients each over the next year. Perhaps you have heard these terms before partnerships, alliances, circles of influence, Team 100, etc. These all describe relationships where someone sends you leads, referrals. This is good and can be even better by forming Strategic Alliances that perfectly match your business, based on your target market. Ideally, you want to form a powerful partnership with someone who regularly comes in contact with people in your target market. For example:

•  A business coach partnering with a business broker service.
• A bridalshop partnering with a flowershop, or dresmaker.
• The list is endless

Perhaps one of the quickest, and in some cases, most effective ways to build a business practice with hot qualified leads is to give speeches in the form of a seminar or workshop at different organizations in your area.

Speaking is one of the most powerful marketing strategies for securing clients. Think of the successful coaches and consultants that you know. We bet that a majority of them use speaking to market their business.

Seminars and Webinars come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from talks at local associations like Chambers of Commerce, trade councils, professional organizations, to Webinars hosted on the internet and social media platforms. The list of lead generation opportunities is endless.