Wondering how to generate more sales leads for your small business and are stuck on the way forward? This article is for you.

You can generate new sales for your business in several ways, including using online forums, upselling current customers, hosting webinars, and sending press releases, among others.

However, it’s not a walk in the park.

About 68 percent of companies admit struggling with generating leads—that’s huge. To make it easier for you, we have shared some of the best and most unconventional ways you can generate more in-market leads for your small business.

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First, Understand Your Target Market

Understanding your target audience is the first step toward getting steady streams of leads.

A solid marketing campaign should aim to reach a specific group of people instead of trying to sell to everyone at once. It improves your conversion rate, lowers your acquisition costs, and lets you personalize your offering to drive higher average order value.

You can take these seven steps to understand your target market.

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Let’s get started.

1. Host Webinars

A study has shown that around 20 to 40 percent of webinar participants eventually become qualified leads.

Webinars create an atmosphere where you can educate and connect with your target audience.

You could, for example, educate people on how to develop a marketing campaign using images and video to demonstrate each step along the way. Every participant in the webinar or workshop is a qualified sales lead. 

By imparting information to others, you build trust and position yourself as a leader in your industry, thus improving your lead generation.

2. Create Value-Rich Content

As a business, you must create the most engaging and valuable content for your prospects and consumers since only captivating materials can encourage a customer to buy from you.

Monthly blog posts, newsletters, and ad landing pages are just a few ways you can distribute priceless content. Furthermore, you can create and disseminate case studies, develop white papers, and publish often on reliable social media platforms. 

Your products and services are more enticing when your content is engaging. 

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3. Optimize for Search Engines

Paying attention to your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) ensures that it appears on Google’s first page for terms describing your goods or services. This strategy will boost the number of incoming sales leads and help drive new clients to your website. 

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4. Send Press Releases

Press releases can help you build brand recognition and establish connections with surrounding firms that might become customers. These publications are great marketing tools to boost website traffic and make people perceive your brand as trustworthy and credible. 

One of the easiest methods to spread the word about yourself is through media attention, and the greatest thing is that your press release will live on forever.

5. Automate Your Email Marketing

When you integrate your website’s performance metrics with your email marketing software, you can target customers based on their behavior, preferences, and prior purchases.

The software tailors each customer’s experience, and your automated advertisements will be more pertinent.

Email automation saves you from repetitive tasks like categorically grouping contacts every time you get a new prospect, sending emails that suit the category each prospect falls into, re-engaging old clients, etcetera.

Also read: 15+ incredibly effective email list-building ideas to grow your list fast

6. Use Online Forums

Most buyers today visit online forums to seek product reviews and information before making purchases. 

As a business offering goods and services, you can offer solutions and give valuable advice. Soon, you would have amassed a pool of prospects who trust you and would be willing to buy from you if you made them a good offer.

7. Be Social

Another effective lead-generation strategy is talking to people. Regardless of the circumstances or mediums you use, you can tailor your approach to sell them on your offer. 

For example, you can talk about your services with your friends and relatives.  

Close friends aside, you can also engage individuals you come across and inform them about your brand and what services they’ll enjoy by patronizing you. 

Social media is another effective tool you can use in this context. With current social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etcetera, you can easily reach thousands of people and encourage them to patronize your brand.

8. Go to Trade Shows

Most business owners don’t consider trade shows when strategizing to generate leads for their business, but in reality, they’re effective tools you can use to your advantage. 

A typical trade show comprises people ready to sell and those who attend just to buy something. So, why not leverage their hunger to buy, and win yourself some new prospects?

9. Build Customer Reviews

One key factor that has taken large-scale businesses where they are is the availability of customer reviews.

A typical review reveals your customers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction levels, what they like and dislike about your service and their suggestions on how you can improve it. 

With this information, you can make improvements to your business strategy.

Also, prospects see you as trustworthy when they see solid customer reviews.

10. Win Lost Sales With Remarketing

Remarketing can assist you in regaining lost leads. 

Having a prospect reject your offer doesn’t always mean they’ll never buy from you. It could be your offer wasn’t convincing enough, or they just weren’t ready to buy from you at that moment. 

Remarketing can help you win back these lost prospects. You simply need to reestablish contact with them and gradually sell them your products. 

You can also re-engage previous customers and people who have purchased from you. Remarketing is that powerful.

11. Ask Customers For Referrals

Did you know that, when properly handled, your existing clients can be one of your most effective lead-generating sources? This is true because they have already purchased from you and are familiar with your products and services. They should thus be a key component of your plan for generating fresh sales leads. 

After making a profitable purchase, 83 percent of customers are eager to recommend a company.

In any market, referrals outperform cold emails or marketing to prospects who know nothing about your company. 

Spend the time to follow up with your current clients. Don’t forget to express gratitude to customers for their patronage while requesting referrals or assistance in bringing in new clients.

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12. Partner Businesses Offering Complementary Services

A complementary service adds value to another service or good. For example, a toothbrush manufacturer might partner with one that manufactures toothpaste. When demand for toothpaste arises, there’s likely a need for toothbrushes and vice versa. 

Likewise, partnering with a business offering a complementary service can increase your inflow of sales leads without you even expending effort.

13. Upsell Existing Customers

Upselling is a sales strategy that encourages clients to buy more pricey product variations or service variations.

It’s common practice to upsell things by proposing add-ons and items that come in bigger sizes and with advanced features. 

When you encourage a consumer to buy a bigger product or service, for example, they may save money over time, increasing their trust in your company. Upselling is also good for the customer experience.

A satisfied customer will likely recommend you to friends and relatives, thus generating more business sales for you.

14. Reach More With Paid Ads

Nowadays, you don’t always have to advertise your business yourself. You can pay for an ad campaign on a renowned platform and let them advertise for you.

Studies reveal that paid ads can achieve up to a 200 percent ROI.

Their effectiveness isn’t their only impressive feature; paid ads produce instant results.

Blogging, search engine optimization (SEO), and other organic lead-generation tactics take time to bear fruit. With sponsored media, however, you pay to instantly put your content in front of potential prospects. 

Implementing both strategies will yield tremendous results almost immediately.

To set up a paid ad for your business, you can use a pay-per-click (PPC) platform like Google Ads or social media platforms. Either way, you’re reaching thousands, if not millions, of people.

15. Build a Sales Funnel

Once you’ve identified your target market, you need a medium with which to collect their contact information.

You can easily do this with a landing page or standard form that carefully outlines what your prospects will gain from sharing their contact information. 

You can also include a free gift, active coupons, and incentives you know will encourage them to comply with your requests.

Once they’ve submitted their contact information, you need to carefully group them based on several categories, including their personal preferences, the reason for joining you, the services they want to buy from you, etcetera. 

Grouping them will help you devise an effective plan to contact them since you might need to tailor the information you pass along to each group.

Choose a Strategy That Suits You

There are several strategies for growing your sales leads from which to choose.

You don’t have to adopt all the methods listed above. Stick to the ones that suit you and develop them even further.

Remember, identifying your target market is the first step to generating more sales leads. Then you can move forward with a viable lead-generation strategy. 

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