How to find new business leads

Why lead generation is important for business

New business leads is important for businesses who wish to continually grow by selling great products or services while finding new leads to target and convert into more paying customers. Leads ultimately result in increased revenue, which is only a good thing for businesses.

Once these new business leads are in, it’s really important to manage them in the best way. By managing leads effectively, you’re increasing the chance of them continuing through the funnel and converting into sales. The most effective way to do this is with a CRM. This kind of software could help you to manage hundreds of thousands of leads at once, putting automated processes in place to prevent the risk of losing leads once they’ve come in.

How to generate more leads and find customers

One of the best ways to generate more leads and find customers is through running a large-scale content marketing campaign. Content is one of the best ways you can attract new customers, and when you combine this with a shareable campaign, the results should speak for themselves. 

The campaign might include some new, fresh data that’s been compiled from a unique survey, bespoke images or videos or a whitepaper that provides helpful insights and advice. The campaign should be spread far and wide to ensure that it’s seen by the highest amount of people possible.

The benefit of generating new business leads in this way is that it is your campaign on your website. This means that you’re not relying as much on other platforms, such as Google or social media, where the content essentially belongs to them. That said, these platforms can also be good ways of driving leads when required.

How to generate new business leads from Google

There are a couple of ways to generate new business leads via Google. Firstly, you can rank organically for all sorts of keywords that reflect your products and services, but also through ranking blog articles. If, for instance, your business offers insurance, you want to rank on the first page of Google for queries such as ‘home insurance’, ‘contents insurance’, etc. But, it may also be beneficial to write blog articles and guides around how to make claims, what is covered with insurance, etc. That means when people ask these questions, you’re also ranking on the first page.

Alternatively, Google ads are a good way to bring in new business leads. Also known as pay-per-click (PPC), you can create ads that will appear at the top of Google search results for certain keywords. How effective these keywords are will depend on your budget and the keywords that you have chosen, but it can be a good way to get noticed and bring in leads or enquiries. 

How to generate leads at events

Nowadays, so much of our marketing efforts are digital that we forget that leads can still be brought in face to face. Events, such as conferences, networking events and more, are just another way you can shout about your business to other business owners and potential customers. 

Before attending such an event, you should consider what it is you want to get out of it, the kind of people and businesses you will talk to and also how you will present yourself. Ideally, you should aim to speak to as many relevant people as possible and hand out business cards where you can. Really try to connect with people (don’t just try to speak to everyone in as little time as possible) and make yourself stand out and be remembered. 

The key with events is to follow up any potential leads where possible. If you’ve received a handful of business cards or the email addresses of some attendees, it may be worth reaching out to them in an email with some more examples of your work and a link to your website.

How to generate leads from social media

Social media is an exceptional tool that isn’t just for photos of food and funny pet videos. It can (and should) be used by businesses to target the right audience, make potential new customers aware of the brand and sell products or services through the apps themselves. 

Facebook has notoriously been used to generate leads since it first launched. Originally, this was free, but as Facebook cottoned on to how people were using the platform, they began to charge businesses to advertise. Now, they have Lead Ads specifically to help you generate leads through the app and track performance. A sensibly placed call-to-action button allows users to go straight through to your website.

Similarly, Twitter allows you to promote a tweet, using a Lead Generation Card to generate leads through the tweet itself. The lead’s name, email address and Twitter username are all submitted within the card, and this data can be added to a lead management CRM and used in your email marketing efforts.

Written by Lauren Shaw, Marketing Manager at FLG.