Written By Seva Call Co-Founder, Manpreet Singh
If you’re here, you probably want more and higher quality business opportunities for your company. So, what you want is lead generation… you think. But what exactly is lead generation, anyway? In an effort to strengthen local businesses, Seva Call is publishing a series on business management topics, leading off with a lesson on lead generation. Class is now in session!
What Is Lead Generation?
This marketing concept refers to efforts which generate consumer interest in a specific business, service, or product. Businesses use lead generation strategies to gather consumer information or otherwise connect with consumers for direct marketing, e-mail marketing, or to get an immediate sale.
The major lead generation strategies are:
– Advertisments like flyers, commercials, or online Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads
– Inbound marketing like social media, search engine optimization (SEO), directories, and blogs
– Paid referral services like those which sell contact information for later follow-up
– Word of Mouth/Referrals
When determining which combination of lead generation strategies is right for company, it’s important to ask the following questions:
“What is my marketing budget?”
“How much time am I willing to invest in follow-up?”
“How much additional business do I need?”
“What do I deem a worthwhile return on investment (ROI)?”
Answering these questions will go a long way towards determining your lead generation strategy. For example, businesses interested in adding a few additional bookings for free may simply need to update their business directory information and become more active on social media sites, with more qualified leads. LinkedIn is a great option, as it drives more business-to-business (B2B) leads than other major sites, but only 47% of service pros who want business customers market themselves there (InboundWriter).
You work hard enough, so now it’s time to work smarter with a lead generation strategy which broadens the accessibility of the great services you provide.
Word of mouth marketing strategy is one of the best strategies. If any business owner has an established clientele then they can easily take the advantage of word of mouth marketing. If any client gets quality service he can spread the word around and make many people interested in the services. I got a few quality auto leads for my business where word of mouth played an important role.
Agreed. Word of mouth can be a useful lead generation strategy, but you need to build the initial clientele first 🙂