THE MYTH: 

Simple methods of online lead generation just don’t work for small businesses.

Why? Because with so many other existing players in the market, there’s so much pressure to try innovative methods to generate leads and become profitable. It’s not enough to just run a few campaigns and get people to purchase your products or services.

You have to set yourself out from the competition. And if your competitors are using the same, simple lead generation tools and tactics as you – there’s no way to make your business unique.

THE TRUTH: 

There’s no denying that it’s harder to make your business stand out with so much competition around.

But that doesn’t mean that certain methods of lead generation don’t work. It just means that you need to adapt your strategy to ensure that you’re convincing your audience why they should buy from you alone.

And yeah, that’s easier said than done. However, it’s not impossible.

Most of the tools that you need for lead generation are easily available. You don’t need to to buy fancy technology or invest in overpriced tools to start your lead generation campaigns.

To prove that simple, online lead generation can work for small businesses, we’ve picked out 3 methods that you can start using today. 1. Advertise With PPC

1. Advertise with PPC

Pay-per-click campaigns (PPC) is the most popular form of paid marketing all over the world.

In these campaigns, you simply pay every time your ad is clicked and the visitor lands on your website. How much you pay depends entirely on the cost of the keywords and competition that you’re bidding on.

If the keywords you’re bidding on face a lot of competition, like “shoes” for example, your CPC (cost-per-click) could be rather high. But if you bid on less heavily competed for keywords such as “blue faux fur lined boots”, your CPC could cost mere pennies.

It’s all about context. 

The advancement that PPC has seen in the last few years is unparalleled to anything we’ve seen before. There are different kinds of campaigns to suit the needs of every business on the face of the earth. There’s rarely a business that has not found success with a PPC campaign. With the amount and the kind of inventory available today, PPC is every marketers’ dream.

You can optimize your campaigns based on the parameters you set for your business.

Measure the quality of leads generated through each and every single campaign and ad determines their value-addition with the help of attribution. The best part about the PPC campaigns is that you can scale the campaigns as you grow.

Our tip for making your business stand out? 

Lead with your benefits. Find that one thing about your business that no one else has (your USP) and put it front and centre.

Whether it’s that you:

• Offer free delivery 
• Have the cheapest price on the market
• Provide more colour ranges than anyone else
• Can personalise the product
• Offer a 5-year guarantee

Shout about it. Whatever it is, make it loud and clear, like this advert here: 

And, as we have a PPC platform, we have to point out how we can also optimise your PPC campaigns nice and efficiently when you’ve got them up and running. Just a quick mention there. Nothing major.

You can discover more PPC tips for small businesses here.

2. Get organic leads with SEO

While a PPC campaign gives you a quicker way to generate leads, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is key to grow your business organically.

For those unfamiliar, SEO is a way of getting your website found on search engines like Google. Get the full low down of what SEO is here.

SEO grows steadily and over time, can give you similar results as your PPC campaigns. But the two are best when working together.

Let’s look at it this way, SEO and SEM should be your twin engines that will help your business grow and become profitable. So, while you are focussing on your PPC campaigns, keep an eye out on your website rankings as well.

Adzooma’s SEO Performance Report will analyse your website and identify immediate actions you can take to improve. You’ll then get a more detailed breakdown of your performance into 4 key areas: keyword performance, onsite SEO, page speed and backlinks.

You can also compare your client’s performance with a competitor, showing how they compare with the competition. The report is available to all Adzooma users, try the basic version for free to get a taste of what this report can offer. Not an Adzooma user? Sign up for free, here.

3. Grow your audience with affiliate marketing

Nothing validates a product or service than a stamp of approval from its users.

Affiliate marketing is where other people promote your product and you pay them for the leads that they deliver. How much you pay depends on each affiliate. Basically, it’s a way of turning your most loyal customers into advocates of your products. 

Setting up the affiliate program is not very exhaustive but can be very rewarding. With a wide affiliate network, your brand’s reach can be very far and wide.

All you need to ensure is that you have an active affiliate network, keep your affiliates engaged with enough content and timely payment. You can scale your business up with your own affiliate program.

Need some inspiration? Check out what we’ve done for our own affiliate program.

Lead generation starts here

As a small business, you should never shy away from tried, tested and simple methods of lead generation for fear of not standing out from the competition.

Every method is there for your disposal. You just need to make sure that no matter what you do, you shout about your benefits and make it clear to your audience why they should buy from you.

Do this, and you’ll get lead generation success no matter what method you use. But the above 3 are a great place to start.