As a business owner (or an aspiring one!) you know that you need customers, clients, people who pay you.
If you want to grow your business, you need more of those people. But there often comes a point in a new or established business owner’s life where the clients and customers don’t roll in as much. Maybe you’re seeing a slowdown in foot traffic at your brick-and-mortar store, or you aren’t getting any referrals for your online service-based business.
Whatever your situation is, you need more leads.
What are “leads”?
If you are new to the business world, “leads” are the start of a connection with a new potential customer or client. A lead can be someone who:
- Fills out a contact form on your site
- Gets referred to you by a past client
- Checks out your products
- Inquires about pricing or services
- Sets up a discovery call
- DMs you on Instagram
In today’s world, there are so many ways to connect with potential clients and customers, and to pursue the people who have shown at least some interest.
Of course, leads don’t just come to you. Sometimes, you have to generate them — which is where “lead generation” comes in. Lead generation is a strategy or practice you implement that helps bring those leads to you. This could look like:
- Cold email outreach or calling
- Creating email opt-ins to build your list
- Promoting fit calls, free demos, free audits, etc.
- Offering promotions/discounts to influencers and their audiences
- Making a guest appearance on a podcast
Really, the list of lead generation ideas is endless. But before you just pick one of these lead generation tactics and run with it, I want to talk about what you need to do FIRST.
The most important step: Do your homework
As you hear more and more about leads, getting them, and all the tactics out there to “generate leads,” you might find yourself doing something like this:
I was recently speaking to a mastermind peer who wanted to find a LinkedIn strategist. When I asked her why, she said it was to “get leads from LinkedIn.”
Great, right?! But as we dug in more, I actually found out that she just heard she should have a LinkedIn strategy. It wasn’t even that her people were on LinkedIn.
She was about to waste money on a strategy that would likely not work for her, because none of her ideal customers would find her that way!
Let me be clear: there’s no shame in this, my friends. This actually happens a lot! We hear about the latest and greatest strategy to get leads and then we don’t filter it through our own business, values, and audience.
But the thing is, you’re trying to grow your business. You have limited time. And you need strategies that work to help you find more clients. So why waste your time doing things that aren’t going to work for you?
Instead, let’s focus on the FIRST thing you should do: think about where your people are online.
Think about where your people ACTUALLY are. Are they on Instagram? Are they in Facebook groups? Do they consume blogs or videos? Are they investing in conferences or are they attending summits? Are they lovin’ emails or do they want to listen to a podcast?
Most importantly: how can you connect with them based on this knowledge?
Find ways to connect with your ideal customers
Thanks to the internet, there are so many ways you can connect with the people who might become your next customer. All you need to do is figure out where they are online and put yourself in the right place at the right time.
If you’re not sure where to start, I recommend looking at your ideal clients:
- Where are they most active online?
- What kind of content do they share on those platforms?
- What sort of engagement do they seem to enjoy from competitors or peers in your space?
Then there are your competitors. These are actually great people to learn from, rather than view as competition or “better than you.” Instead, use the information they’re sharing to your advantage! Look at:
- What they share
- Where they share it
- Who they associate with/talk to/work with
- What their customers/clients are saying or sharing
All of that is information you can use to decide on your first step toward lead generation. You might find that your audience is super active on Facebook, and they love connecting in Facebook groups.
You might find that your dream clients are in a specific mastermind or group coaching program, and you can find a way to get in there or share information with that group (expert sessions, contributions, etc.).
In-person events and virtual summits might also be something that you find out is really popular or desirable with your audience. Why not create one, or find ways to be a featured speaker?
There are truly so many ways that you can get yourself in front of more people to get more leads. But what works for one person might not work for you, so don’t take every “lead generation strategy” at face value.
The key here is focusing on choosing the right platforms, taking the right approach, and making the right connections based on you and your business.
I created Fresh Squeezed Social to help women business owners do just that. This framework and content curation system helps you find out who you’re talking to, where to talk to them, and what to say — without doing too much in all the wrong places.
Fresh Squeezed Social is where you go to deep-dive into lead generation strategies that work for you, but there’s one more thing I want you think about before you start dreaming up strategies: Your strengths.
Leverage your strengths to decide how to get leads
There are so many tried-and-true marketing efforts out there that I know work and have even used in the past to get more leads, but don’t use anymore.
Why? Because they use skills or require something from me that I know isn’t my zone of genius. The same goes for you.
If you hate being on video, maybe daily Instagram Lives aren’t the way to get more leads. If you struggle to write, maybe blogging or long e-books aren’t the way to a bigger audience.
Instead, it helps to know your strengths, know where you shine, and figure out how to creatively work in your zone of genius.
We’re not ignoring our shortcomings (I believe we should all work outside our comfort zone), but we are using what we’ve got to make the most impact.
I can already hear you saying, “But Amber! I don’t know what my strengths really are…”
So I’ve got something for you!
Meet the Marketing Superpowers Quiz
This is a super fast and simple way to find out what your marketing superpower is, and how it can help you generate more leads.
You might be a Connector (someone who thrives in relationship-building!) or a Social Media Maven (someone who can engage her following like nobody’s business!), or you might have different superpowers.
No matter what superpower you have, you’ll find out with this quiz. Then, I’ll share some awesome resources to help you use it to your advantage!
In the last decade, I’ve met women who have one (or more!) of these superpowers, and I’ve helped them develop marketing strategies that really help them lean into what they do best.
If you want to know what YOU do best and how to leverage it to help your business bloom…
TAKE THE QUIZ NOW!
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