Top 10 Lead Generation Ideas for Small Businesses

In this digital landscape, small businesses struggle to increase their visibility and get the target audience’s attention. And one of the most important things for surviving & thriving is lead generation – the process used for converting visitors to loyal clients.

Moreover, consumer trends and behaviors change over time with technology, and that’s why small businesses need to adopt new strategies to attract potential audiences regularly. Now, the question arises, how to generate leads for local businesses or startups?

To answer your question, we have prepared a list of the top 10 lead generation ideas for local businesses. Right from email marketing to paid advertising and more, we will discuss the popular lead generation strategies in detail.

So, whether you are running a startup or a local business, all the lead generation strategies we have shared in this blog help you to attract, engage, and convert your target users.

Without waiting much, let’s start this journey.

1. Do Basic Local SEO

Basic local SEO is a must for every local business to grow exponentially in this growing digital world. There are some great ways to do local business SEO and generate leads.

It all starts with claiming a page on Google My Business and ensuring that all the information is accurate & up-to-date.

Conduct basic search engine optimization on your website by writing appropriate titles for every page. Also, focus on writing compelling and relevant meta titles & descriptions that gain the target audience’s attention.

In addition, focus on obtaining listings on popular online directories worldwide, which include Yelp, Yellow Pages, Bing Places, Foursquare, and more.

Lastly, try to obtain as many positive reviews & ratings for your business from customers in building trust & credibility.

Doing these things makes your business a powerful lead magnet that gets leads everywhere and becomes successful.

2. Create a Localized Lead Magnet

A localized lead magnet is a method to collect customers’ information in exchange for providing excellent resources, insights, or best incentives that align well with the potential audience. In short, lead magnets are compensation for obtaining contact information & engagement.

A lead magnet could be content you share with the audience through eBooks, infographics, webinars, etc. Your main goal here should be to craft a lead magnet that resolves the local users’ pain points or present yourself as an expert for that product/service in the region. It helps you gain users’ attention and set up your local business as the major solution provider.

Here are some examples of content headlines of localized lead magnets.

• Get a List of Discounts & Offers Running in Restaurants in [Your City].
• Explore [Your City] Culinary Delights: A Local Restaurant Guide.
• A Definitive Guide to Generate Leads in [Your Industry] in [Your State].

The primary purpose here is to obtain contact information in exchange for offering valuable resources. You can craft blogs or videos along with a compelling call-to-action.

Here are some extra tips for crafting localized lead magnets.

• Find SEO-centric keywords and add them in the title & description.
• Show your ad to people that live in your vicinity.
• Ensure the lead form is super easy to fill.
• Craft an attractive video or image to gauge users’ attention.

3. Utilize Highly Targeted Facebook Lead Ads

With a modern & strategic approach towards Facebook lead ads, you can connect with potential audiences in your region looking for products or services you offer. It is the most effective way to collect contact information of the targeted leads. In addition, it is a cost-effective way to collect leads and even monitor their performance whenever needed.

Here, the ad is shown to a lead who is scrolling through a Facebook feed; the user only has to enter the details without leaving the platform.

Here are some simple steps to create a Facebook lead ad.

1. Select a proper campaign goal.
2. Choose “Leads” in the ad format.
3. Target your ad to the potential users.
4. Craft an attractive ad copy with a proper image.
5. Make a simple lead form.

Here are some exclusive tips for building targeted Facebook lead ads:

• Provide an offer that users don’t resist submitting their contact information. This could be anything like a free eBook, a heavy discount on the product, or a trial offer.
• Keep the ad simple & short.
• Include an attractive call-to-action button.
• Ensure your form is user-friendly.
• Make 2-3 ads and conduct A/B testing of your ads to see how these ads perform.

Lastly, focus on generating high-quality leads by running Facebook lead ads, building long-lasting connections with the growing community, and taking your local business to a new level.

4. Become Active on Social Media

Social media has become vital for local businesses to establish their online presence, create a highly active community, build a brand, engage with potential audiences, and generate leads. Here are some statistics that prove the same.

As per Statista, there were 96.9 million social buyers in the US in 2021, and the number is expected to grow by 18% and reach 114.3 million in 2025.

Hence, it is considered one of the vital lead generation ideas for local businesses.

So, start becoming active on social media. The question is, How?

Identify all the channels where your target audience is present. Shortlist the ones on which users are active. Craft a highly-effective content strategy that aligns well with your brand, and share valuable insights, updates, and more on the desired social media platform.

Engage with as many users as possible to build great relationships with them. Secondly, feel free to promote the channel you create wherever possible.

Additionally, you can collaborate with influencers in your industry and start building long-lasting relationships with them.

Following these things will let you enhance your social media presence and generate quality leads for your business.

5. Run Paid Search Ads

Paid search ads are essential for local businesses to reach out to customers actively looking for products & services from local businesses.

First of all, leverage Google Ads wisely. Check out different types of advertisement options provided by Google. These include search ads, display ads, video ads, shopping ads, etc.

For instance, you can utilize search ads to rank higher on search engines or display ads to engage well with your audience. Here, you need to identify the right set of keywords and craft an attractive ad copy that gains potential users’ attention in the particular location.

Further, your goal should be to refine the ad in such a way that helps you to reduce cost per click and offers you better ROI.

Apart from Google, you can leverage ads on other search engines like Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo search. Even though there is not much audience on these search engines, you can still significantly reach out to local audiences.

We understand that this can be a daunting task for you to manage these ads and other business tasks simultaneously. So, it’s always good to collaborate with an experienced digital marketing agency to handle your paid ads campaigns.

6. Run Native Advertising

Native ads are a kind of online advertising that merges well with the form & function of the specific platform where it lies. Compared to traditional banners & pop-ups, native ads look like natural content and take the style of the environment around it.

Examples of native ads could be sponsored posts, promoted search results, recommended articles, and in-feed videos.

Unlike search and social ads, native ads provide extensive access to millions of publishers worldwide.

Small local businesses can benefit heavily by running native ads as they are less disruptive and relevant to the users’ interests. Secondly, they allow you to bring the light of your business to a broader audience by showcasing it on multiple websites & platforms.

Local businesses can run native advertisements using native ad platforms Taboola, Outbrain, Paved, and more.

7. Build a Referral Network

Building a referral network is one of the best lead generation ideas for small businesses. Before that, you need to go through its basics. So, let’s start.

A referral network is a set of individuals or organizations who recommend your local business to their network. In general, companies with related industries connect with each other. For instance, a real estate agent might build a network with mortgage brokers, packers & movers, etc.

A referral network lets you build a wonderful community for your brand. How? These referrals are not your competitors but rather helping you by referring your business to their clients. It ultimately leads you to have control of your sales cycle and decrease sales expenses.

Now the question is, how to build this network?

Here, you need to identify suitable marketing initiatives like co-hosted events, content creation, or social media collaboration and then build SEO-friendly and compelling content around it.

Another way to build a referral network is through taking on projects that consist of interviews, case studies, and many forms of collaboration. Further, invite these respective authorities to guest blog on your website.

In the end, the purpose of this lead generation method is to offer best-in-class support to your supporters whenever needed without having any feeling of reciprocation. It helps you build a successful network and a community of trusted users.

8. Use Email Marketing

You can utilize email marketing in two effective ways to generate leads for your local business.

Firstly, you can build an email course and send emails to subscribers for a specific period. As a business owner, you can share educational and informative emails related to products/services with a subscription charge. Participants need to quickly sign up through their email ID to get daily emails. Here, you obtain emails to nurture leads regularly.

Secondly, you can even leverage email marketing to run a campaign to send your subscribers informational, promotional, or a combination of both emails. Further, you can bifurcate the email list depending on the user’s behaviors and preferences. Lastly, send personalized emails to them, which ultimately leads to conversion.

9. Create an Interactive Tool

One of the most effective ways to generate leads for your local business is to run quizzes, polls, and surveys for your target audience and generate valuable information from them. Let us look at these things in detail.

A quiz comprises a series of questions along with multiple-choice answers. You can create a quiz to test users’ knowledge of a specific product or industry, encouraging their participation. In exchange for the quiz results, you can ask for contact information like Email ID.

On the other hand, polls are simple short questions that are answered to know the opinion of the users about any product/ service or industry. They are meant to obtain quick insights from the users. In the end, users would be prompted to enter their Email ID to get poll results.

Last but not least, surveys are the most interactive tools that help you to obtain essential details about the attendees. As a business owner, you can utilize surveys to know attendees’ preferences, challenges, and more.

10. Create a High-Quality Content

Content marketing is one of the crucial strategies to gain the interests of potential leads and sustain them. How? It helps you to build content around the likes of the audience and pave its way towards their minds. Soon, your brand becomes the primary choice of audience for everything related to a specific topic.

Now the question is, how to achieve this?

You should focus on sharing high-quality educational and informative content that touches the users’ pain points, solves burning problems, and offers an in-depth guide. It helps you increase your brand’s trust in your audience and label yourself as an expert.

Here, you can leverage different forms of high-quality content to attract users and provide valuable insights. Blogs for educating users on any topic, videos for visually appealing and engaging content, infographics for presenting complex ideas in a simple manner, and eBooks to offer extensive resources to understand anything & solve their issues.

Conclusion

Lead generation is crucial for small businesses to survive in this growing competition. Considering all the lead generation ideas shared in this blog, you can reach potential leads and convert them into regular customers. However, it’s crucial for you to continuously experiment with different strategies and stick to those that provide you with the best results.

If you still have any issues generating leads for your business, feel free to contact us.

WebDesk Solution offers professional lead generation services for small businesses. We understand the needs of your business well and help you to integrate the right strategies that draw more leads and take your business to a new level.