Over the last 10 years, the explosion of tips, tools and tricks can make it overwhelming to start building and scaling your marketing efforts. And while there are tonnes of sites out there trying to sell you on the “silver bullet” to drive “double digit sales growth” and “crush your quotas,” for most businesses it’s a matter of trial and error before you find the channel with the highest ROI for your target customer. Here are a few tried and tested ways to consistently generate high quality leads for your business.
Word of Mouth Marketing
It’s often said that word of mouth is the most valuable form of marketing there is, and in today’s modern age when a single comment can go viral in an instant, that’s never been more true. Your customer referrals and positive word of mouth marketing are simple, passive ways to generate more sales leads if you don’t have dedicated marketing support.
However, and this seems like an obvious point, if your customer experience isn’t high-quality, that powerful word of mouth marketing can work against you. It’s no surprise that many businesses put the customer experience as their top priority.
Not only is word of mouth marketing extremely powerful and effective, but it’s also free, which is why it’s the most valuable form of marketing out there. Simply put, if you want to generate sales leads without marketing support, focus on making your customers’ experiences the best they can be.
Get Active on Social Media
Simply having an active presence on social media can help you generate sales leads without dedicated marketing support. Customer engagement is essential for fostering customer loyalty and creating new sales growth. It doesn’t take much effort to set up a Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter account, and you won’t need to dedicate too much time managing the pages if you don’t have excess time throughout your day.
Regular updates and posts help create engagement with your business, but what’s just as important as posting quality content is responding to your customer concerns and comments. If your business isn’t active on social media, you’re missing out on potentially countless sales and quality leads.
In December of 2018, Facebook benchmarked 2.3 billion monthly active users. You don’t even need to invest in Facebook Ads to get a solid return on your efforts. Simple, effective engagement on social media will go a long way.
Networking Events
Regardless of what industry you’re in, local networking events are a great way to connect with potential partners, vendors, and customers. You should try to incorporate networking events into your regular schedule. Thinking back to point number one, networking events get your business name and brand out there.
Even if you don’t generate any solid leads at a networking event, attendees now know your name and business, which may create opportunities in the future. Always bring business cards, but don’t be afraid to ask if you can via LinkedIn as well.
Don’t think about networking events as a sales tactic. Use these events to generate important contacts in your industry, and think of ways that your partnership can benefit both parties.
Work on Your Website
Consumers spent over $500 billion shopping online in 2018 in the United States alone. If you haven’t spent time working on your website, you may be missing out on a massive online market. Apart from being found online, which we will discuss in our next point, your website needs to be simple, attractive, and user-friendly.
On average, a consumer will leave a website in about ten seconds if they can’t easily find what they’re looking for or they don’t like the look and layout of the site. That’s not a lot of time to grab your customers’ attention and get them the information they need.
Outdated websites drive customers away, and fortunately, it doesn’t take a web developer to create a beautiful website these days. With so many drag-and-drop website building platforms available, you can have a beautiful website up and running in no time at all. Just a little bit of effort on the look and functionality of your website can go a long way.
Adopt Basic SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the method of generating organic traffic to your website through major search engines. Rather than paying for ads on large ad networks such as Facebook or Google, SEO focuses on high-quality content and back-end website data to rank your page higher in searches.
When you update your website pages or blog, your pages are indexed, meaning the content is analyzed by search engine algorithms and assigned a search rank based on quality, website authority, and other factors. You don’t need to be an expert in SEO to leverage SEO in your favor. By posting regular updates to your blog or maintaining your web pages with up to date information, your site will naturally begin to rank higher.
Offer Freebies
One of the best ways to generate sales leads is to offer freebies or promotional items to your customers. Some businesses require a purchase to redeem a freebie, while others may not require a purchase at all. Offers may include free promotional items or services, discounts, or free add-ons.
Whether you promote the offer on your website, social media page, or brick and mortar location, simply getting the word out about your promotion can bring in solid leads.
Guest Posting
The name of the marketing game is simply getting your business name out there. Brand recognition is a powerful factor when it comes to increasing revenue and sales, and without a way to get your brand out there, it’s tough for a business to grow. Guest posting allows you to share your expert knowledge with others in exchange for a link back to your website.
For example, you may be able to reach out to website X to write a guest post that will be posted on their blog. Website X has 500,000 active readers a month, meaning you could get significant exposure if you submit a guest post. When website X posts your article, they’ll give you and your business the credit and link the article directly back to your website.
Not only is guest posting an easy way to generate traffic and sales on your website, but guest posting is also free.
Reach Out to Previous Clients
Our final tip for generating sales leads if you don’t have marketing support is to simply reach out to previous clients and contacts. If you’ve done business with a client previously, there’s a chance they may want to do business with you again. Even if they aren’t interested, they may be able to get you in contact with someone who is.
Keep a list of attempted contacts and sales as well. You may find that previous attempts that were originally not successful may be successful if you reach out to those potential clients in the future. Whether they went with a competitor and aren’t happy with what they’re getting or their financial situation has improved, it’s always worth reaching out to try again.
At the end of the day, if your business can’t support dedicated marketing support, there are plenty of tactics that you can try to generate more leads for your business. To make it even easier to find customers and close deals, let the team at TechTrack data transform your customer outreach platforms.
Have even more ways to generate sales leads without marketing support? Let us know in the comments below!
