As
a business owner you might find yourself struggling with lead generation
because you wouldn’t have a marketing department to support you by providing
quality leads. Neither will you have a sales team at your disposal to go
convert those leads into deals.
Web presence: Establish a strong web presence. As a
business owner, you will not have a physical office address, as such, but
that shouldn’t stop you from getting a virtual office space. We’re talking
about websites here! Having a business website will lend credibility and a
touch of professionalism to your home business.
Add value: If you want to attract leads make sure
you add value to them through your products, services and even the content that
you have on the web. For example, if you sell baked goods from home, it’s a
good idea to provide culinary tips on your website. Something like that will
attract people to your site, where they will eventually find more about what
you do and perhaps become a customer.
Get information: Get as much information as possible
about your prospects. You could have your prospects fill up one line web forms
that help you gather information about them. When someone visits your website
or social media page, you should be tracking their online behavior. There are
good marketing automation software programs that allow you to do so. You can
later use this insight to position your business offerings in a manner that
most appeals to them.
Advertisements on Facebook &
Google: Facebook and Google Ads are catching up big
time. These advertisements place your product/services on relevant web search
results and web pages. For example, if you are selling baked goods from home,
then you can choose to place advertisements of your products on sites and
Facebook pages that talk about cooking or on the search results for ‘cake
shops’ or ‘bakeries’ on Google.. To know how to go about AdWords or to get
started, click here.
Social media: Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are
fast becoming a home business owner’s best friend. Not only do these sites
offer unlimited audience for your services, but are also low-cost marketing
media. Along the same lines are blogs, newsletters and YouTube videos. All
these avenues act as great platforms to showcase your expertise and knowledge
in the domain of your business and to attract leads in the process.
Partners & referrals: It can get a little overwhelming to do it all at once—all alone.
That’s when you could use a partner to help you out. You could partner with
businesses that complement your start-up. For example, if you bake cakes at
home, consider partnering with the local supermarket or grocery vendor.
Similarly, ask every happy customer to provide you with a referral. Leads
through referrals are more likely to convert than the ones you generate in
random.
So, even though lead generation can seem
like a challenge for business owners, it can be easily surmounted if you have
the right strategies in place.