10 Ideas to Spice Up Your Lead Generation Strategy (that aren't just a PDF freebie)

Generating leads is essential for small businesses to thrive and grow. Effective lead-generation strategies can help small business owners attract potential clients, nurture relationships, and drive conversions. Bored with your PDF freebie? They probably are too.

Here are 10 ideas to get you leads on repeat:

Content Marketing:

Content marketing remains one of the most common lead-generation strategies for small businesses. Small business owners can attract and engage their target audience by creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content (outside of social media) such as blog posts, videos, and private podcasts, setting themselves up as thought leaders, and driving traffic to their websites.

Email Marketing:

Email marketing is an effective way to generate leads and nurture relationships with prospects. Small businesses can build an email list & then use targeted campaigns and ads to deliver personalized content, driving up engagement and conversions.

Social Media Content:

Social media (unpaid content and paid ads) offers small businesses an easy, affordable, and effective way to reach and engage their ideal clients across various platforms that they're ALREADY ON! If you run paid ads, you can drill down potential clients based on demographics, interests, or behaviors and capture leads through forms on your ad or website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

SEO and keywords have become buzzwords these past few years since the rise of online businesses. Optimizing your website for search engines, AI, and organic search is helpful to generate traffic, but still needs some sort of tracker (like a pixel) or lead form to capture the leads.

Networking:

Networking provides valuable opportunities for small businesses to connect with potential clients or partners. Networking can also be virtual meet-ups or connecting in groups (like a Facebook group for business owners in your local area). While this is a more manual approach to lead generation, it's one of the OGs and can still be modernized using social media or virtual meeting rooms.

Rewards & Referral Programs:

Rewards & Referral programs are often overlooked because they focus on new sales with EXISTING clients or rely on existing clients' word-of-mouth. Honestly, this is one of the most underrated strategies because it's 50% easier to sell to existing clients than new clients (according to Forbes). One thing I've done since the start of my business that has been an INTEGRAL part of my success is treating my loyal clients with exclusive VIP services that I don't advertise to everybody.

By incentivizing your current clients by offering rewards, discounts, or exclusive perks for successful referrals, small businesses can tap into their network to attract high-quality leads who are usually in the same boat as them!

Partnerships:

In a similar mindset, you can strategically partner with complementary businesses to expand your reach AND services. For example, if you're a copywriter, a great strategic partnership would be with a website designer to make the BEST high-converting and aesthetic websites around!

If you're a fitness coach, you could partner with a therapist to ensure you're not overstepping your scope of practice but giving your clients the ultimate care.

Webinars:

People tend to separate webinars/events from lead magnets by calling them "conversion events," but I put them into the same category because they essentially operate the same way! Hosting a webinar is an effective way for small business owners to warm their audience up to the general topics their business covers, be a thought leader for the industry, and generate leads by pitching your offer at the end.

Lead Magnets:

Gated content, free access, or other desirable materials are given in return for your potential clients' contact information. These can be ebooks, free trials, or other proprietary works that provide value yet give you something in return (the chance to nurture them through targeted emails and follow-ups).

Contests:

Contests and giveaways are fun ways to capture leads and increase brand awareness, but I recommend cautiously proceeding with this. Not only are there disclaimers and rules you need to abide by, but this can also generate more of a hassle of attracting people who would most likely never buy from you. The trick is to make it super niched down to your business and offer (instead of something generic, like cash or a coffee gift card). Again, the goal is to nurture them to grow a relationship and introduce your business and offers to them.

Incorporating these marketing & lead-generation ideas can help you attract, engage, and convert potential clients into repeat, loyal ones! Whether you're focusing solely on social media marketing or want to dive outside of digital and into strategic partnerships, the key is to experiment, measure, and optimize your approach over time to shorten the time someone meets your business to your first sale!