How to Generate Targeted Leads for Your Business

Is your business struggling with lead generation? You’re not alone. It’s a significant challenge for many small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). 

Generating targeted leads and then managing those leads is critical to your business. After all, without a steady flow of interested potential customers, it’s tough to make sales. Failing to convert leads may have little or nothing to do with the skill or effectiveness of your salespeople or marketing collateral. 

It could just be that you’re attracting the wrong audience or that your prospecting isn’t great. It’s not just about generating leads. It’s about finding good ones — those most likely to convert into customers. Continuing with “business as usual” will mean struggling to generate profit and could lead to eventual closure. 

The good news is that effective lead generation isn’t rocket science. You can generate targeted leads for your business with a wide range of tactics. We’ve collected some of the most effective options below.

1. Double down on your SEO strategy

The most important thing is to get your message or offer in front of interested people. Today, that requires using search engine optimization to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant searches. 

For instance, let’s say you operate a running shoe store in Akron, Ohio. You would incorporate relevant keywords and phrases into your website content like “women’s running shoes Akron,” or “Akron running shoe store.” 

Of course, this is a pretty simplistic example, but SEO is probably the most powerful tool overall for generating targeted leads for your business. This will help potential active buyers more easily find you in Google search. Make sure you’re targeting the right keywords and phrases, that you’re peppering them throughout your content, and that you’re paying attention to both on-page and off-page SEO.

2. Get social

This should go without saying, but if you’re not active on social media, you’re missing a critical marketing tool in your toolbox. Facebook, X, Snapchat, and LinkedIn are just the tip of the proverbial social media iceberg and can help you connect to and interact with people interested in what you have to offer. 

Of course, you’ll need to determine which social platforms to invest your time and money. They’re not all the same, so do your due diligence and find where your audience is most heavily concentrated. For most businesses, Facebook is a must, but what about other platforms? LinkedIn is better for B2B marketing, while Snapchat might be best for those targeting teens and younger buyers. One of the keys to success is consistency. It could take some time before you gain traction, but stick with it. Creating weekly or daily content will be seen over time, as long as your content is helpful to your audience and you create a regular ongoing cadence of posts. 

3. Create great content to generate targeted leads

How do leads learn about your business? Today, it mostly happens online. That’s why having a strong content marketing game is essential. People will still learn about your brand offline, but they’ll turn to the Internet for more information, so you must master content creation to generate targeted leads.

How do you create quality content? There are entire books written on the subject, but we’ll offer some high-level pointers. Follow these steps:

1. Create original content that offers value to your readers. It shouldn’t be a sales pitch. It should engage, inform, and educate. It can also entertain while educating.

2. Optimize your content with relevant keywords. Those keywords should connect with your ideal audience, but also the specific segment’s position in the sales funnel. Are they just learning about their problem? Comparing solutions? Looking for a provider? 

3. Don’t limit yourself to a single type of content. Blog posts, videos, social media posts, articles, podcasts, infographics, and guest posts all help you cast a wider net, while your keywords ensure that you’re delivering content that will help you generate targeted leads.

4. Create effective landing pages

Your content marketing and social media marketing efforts should be designed to drive traffic to specific landing pages. If those pages aren’t constructed correctly, your leads won’t take the next step down the funnel, no matter how interested they might be. This begs the question, what makes an effective landing page?

For a landing page to generate targeted leads for your business, you must find ways to encourage visitors to express their interest in your business by sharing their information. The whole point of the landing page is to convince leads that they want to give you their name and email address.

This is usually done by offering something of value — an eBook, whitepaper, report, or something else. In some cases, it might be booking a free demo or requesting a personal consultation. You’ll need to clearly communicate your value proposition, build trust and authority, provide social proof, and deliver a positive experience to achieve that goal.

5. Convert leads when they contact your business

The point of all these efforts is to generate targeted leads who will then reach out to your business. Too often, business owners do a great job with their marketing but fail when it comes to the last mile. Who will answer the calls your marketing efforts generate? Who will handle the web chat requests? 

Most small businesses don’t have the budget for a dedicated receptionist. Even if you do, that’s just one person, so who handles overflow answering or during nights and weekends? A missed call equals a missed opportunity to convert a lead, and today you can’t expect leads to keep calling back until they get a live person.

Don’t just generate targeted leads — convert those leads to customers

At Smith.ai, we ensure that every caller is greeted by a live, experienced virtual receptionist. Our virtual receptionists are all based in North America and are fully trained in your brand positioning, as well as important best practices to help convert leads into customers. 

Don’t let your lead generation efforts fail at the very end. Make sure you have live virtual receptionists answering every call to handle lead screening and help your business grow. To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai.