So, you have an innovative business idea. You’ve put together a strong business plan and even found investors who can back you. You did a fantastic job, and your startup project is now safe and sound.
But what about clients? What about marketing? Startup businesses face many challenges when entering the market for the first time. Gaining the trust of customers and strengthening the reputation of your brand – these are the most popular problems that all startups face at the beginning of their journey.
Here’s where lead generation can help.
You can read more about what this phenomenon is in the lead generation blog. But in short, lead generation is finding people who are truly interested in your brand, informing them about what you do, and attracting them as customers. If you manage to play safe, you will eventually build a base of happy and loyal customers.
So, while developing a lead generation strategy for your business, what techniques and strategies should you employ? Let’s dive in!
The overall lead generation picture
The two main methods of generating leads are inbound and outbound marketing. In a perfect world, a firm would balance its resources and work to maximize both. For a startup, it might be smarter to choose the more cost-effective.
While outbound marketing involves finding potential consumers through targeted advertising, inbound marketing is having people find you through the web content you publish.
Assuming that a startup may have a limited marketing budget at first, an inbound strategy would be a better choice. In this case, it takes more time to achieve results, but at the same time, there is a greater positive impact on the company’s brand.
Below you will find useful tips for attracting potential customers. Keep these tips in mind when planning your marketing strategy.
#1. Create an action plan
First, keep in mind that you can’t do everything at once. Think about what you can save on, and take into account the subtleties of your business niche and the characteristics of your target customers. Then set goals.
Setting goals for a specific period makes it easier to check which course of action produces the best results. Always monitor and analyze the results of your tests, if something doesn’t work for you, find out why. If you can’t fix it, focus on something else.
#2. Study your target audience
To find qualified potential clients, first of all, you need to know who exactly you are seeking for and where to look for clients with such parameters.
Qualifying a customer or qualifying a lead means collecting data about the customer, their ability to pay, and assessing the likelihood of a deal being made. This includes the client profile, projected volume, and trade probability. In general, this is what the prospecting definition includes.
Study the customers of competing companies and create their profiles – a type of buyer personality. This will help you focus your efforts on the right prospects and increase your chances of moving smoothly up the marketing funnel.
#3. Place interesting content on your site
The foundation of inbound marketing is content. Potential clients visit your website because of the high-quality information there, which introduces them to your company. It’s a subtle technique to lure total strangers to your brand and make them work with you.
Make sure to conduct keyword research and optimize your material. Your pages’ online exposure and ranking will both increase thanks to SEO improvement.
#4. Use landing pages
Another good way to attract potential customers is to create a landing page, for example, with the ability to download free templates simply by providing a username and email. Thus, potential customers who already understand in your field of activity “land” on your site, and you have the opportunity to get their data.
To do this, come up with awesome lead magnets. These are specific items that you can offer to potential customers in exchange for their contact data. It could be an e-book with useful tips, a demo version of your product, a helpful checklist, a template, etc.
#5. Always be available for online chat
Your availability online via chat shows your willingness to help and be helpful at any time. Clients will feel more confident doing business with you if they know they can count on your immediate support. Always be ready to offer help and solutions to problems.
As a startup, you need to connect with potential customers and show them that you care about them and are ready to meet their needs.
#6. Engage social networks
Everyone is on social media. Obviously, your prospects are here too. Depending on social and business profiles, some of your customers may spend more time on TikTok, others on Facebook or Instagram. Learn where potential and competitive customers are and focus your efforts on them.
Also, be actively discuss your industry stuff. Show that you are an expert in your area and people will be more willing to listen to you.
#7. Encourage customer reviews
Do your best to provide the highest quality service, and in return, ask your customers to give you feedback. Let them know that you value their opinion.
Positive feedback will encourage other potential customers who still doubt you to take action.
Final thoughts
It might be challenging to draw in new clients when your company is just starting to operate on the market. However, a targeted, practical inbound approach might assist you in luring in the most qualified prospects.
So go to work and start producing insightful stuff. Then determine which lead generating channels are most effective, and concentrate all of your efforts there. You will be one step closer to generating your first sales and starting to develop your enormous customer network once you have a strong list of quality leads.