Lead generation is one of the biggest challenges faced by marketers, yet one of the most important.
Gone are the days of cold calling and door-to-door sales, and the cost of search engine marketing is often too expensive for smaller businesses. Consumers are bombarded daily with advertisements online leading to them downloading AdBlocking software, causing many businesses to shut out ads.
Because of this, social media marketing is one of the main channels for generating leads, below we have detailed some tips on how you can utilise social media for lead generation.
FIND PEOPLE LOOKING FOR YOU
Many people focus a lot of their time on searching for their ideal client base but overlook something that seems rather obvious in the grand scheme of everything, they don’t look for people who are looking for them!
With billions of active social media users, many of them take to the platforms to enquire about a specific products or services, and for good reason.
Firstly because, given the number of active users, chances are there will be someone who has a great deal of knowledge or experience with a product/service that they are willing to share, regardless of how obscure it may be.
Secondly, online audience reviews tend to be treated as more trustworthy than other sources of information because they are from real people, not big corporations.
Because of this many people turn to online communities to look for the information they require, so ultimately, your goal is for your business to become well regarded within these communities.
The best way to discover these communities is by looking for searches by people looking for information or products in your industry, you can even set up social media monitoring tools that send you a notification when someone searches a specific phrase such as “Can anyone recommend” + “your industry” or “Looking for a” + “your industry”, etc.
Once you have collected a list of potential leads from this process, what you do next is very important, you want to convert them and not risk scaring them away, here are some ways you can gently approach them:
- You can reply to the comment but be careful how you word your reply, you don’t want to appear like you are spamming them, so take your time writing a good message that doesn’t look automated.
- Another option is to privately message the person, in which they are much more likely to respond to rather than a public message which can be seen by all of their friends/followers.
- Offer them a free trial or discount on your product/service but again, try not to come across as spam.
- Simply follow them, doing this will make them aware of your business and potentially set up a future connection.
Some leads may be quite cold, what we mean by this is, their search query may not be urgent, and they are simply enquiring out of curiosity, but this doesn’t rule them out as a potential client in the future. Seek to build a relationship with them and they will keep you in mind for the future or even recommend you to a friend whose situation is more urgent.
TARGET UNHAPPY PEOPLE
Although the idea can come across as sly and devious, stealing unhappy customers from your competitors is a great way of generating leads.
To do this you need to look at other businesses in your industry and look for negative mentions of their brand. You can do this for as many businesses as you want.
Connecting with these people is much the same as connecting with people looking for you as we mentioned above, gently approach them by giving them information on your business and possibly offering them a free trial period, while also seeking to build a relationship with them and not coming across like a spam email.
You can also use this technique for research purposes by speaking to the unhappy customer and learning your competitors key flaws and where they are lacking.
JOIN RELEVANT CONVERSATIONS
The internet is a vast place and full of people just like you, regardless of how specific your interests are, there will be a chat somewhere that discusses it – and as someone trying to grow their business, it is your job to find these chats that involve your industry and join the discussion.
You can find these groups fairly easily by searching keywords/topics relevant to your business and finding live discussions or groups/pages that regularly discuss and share information on said topics, most groups will be ‘open-to-everyone’ but some may require you to be accepted by an admin, if this is the case you may want to request to join from your personal account as opposed to your business account.
Once you have found these groups or discussions, don’t go 100mph into promoting your product or service straight away, you don’t want to come across as too ‘salesy’ and risk being removed from the group or freaking people out.
Interact with people, aim to be helpful, give out tips, link to useful content that doesn’t necessarily have to be your own. And when the time is right, if the opportunity strikes, mention your product or service.
Social media lead generation isn’t easy, it requires a lot of time, effort, social skills and relationship building, but it definitely pays off when done correctly!
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