What Is Lead Generation? How Can Businesses Best Use It?

Any business that wants to keep growing cannot rely on blind chance to reach more customers. It needs a well-thought-out strategy to attract interested individuals (called leads) to its doorstep and turn them into customers. Otherwise, businesses are limited in what they can accomplish.

Lead generation is the quickest and simplest answer to any growth-related problem you face. Here are some crucial tips on Chicago lead generation that any business has to know:

• Defining lead generation
• Five benefits it brings your business
• Five best lead generation strategies

There’s a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

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What Is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is the process of attracting people to your business by capitalizing on the most appealing and compelling content for them. For instance, with search engine optimization (SEO), you can generate leads by appearing higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) with relevant, high-quality content.

Other methods of lead generation exist, too, such as reaching people through email marketing and using landing pages to collect customer information. These (and more) are presented below in detail. First, however, you should learn about the benefits of Chicago lead generation.

     What Does It Do for You?

As mentioned, lead generation brings your business closer to new customers and translates to better sales numbers when properly done. Discovering and pursuing only the highest quality leads for your business requires careful thought.

Without a strategy to back up your efforts, your business can struggle to maintain a steady flow of sales and customers to keep itself operational, let alone thriving. A strong lead generation strategy is vital for safeguarding your organization because it supports business growth.

Five Benefits of Lead Generation

Apart from those mentioned above, lead generation plays a vital role in how your business can build authentic and long-lasting relationships by finding customers in the best circumstances. In that sense, it sets the stage for positive interactions and customer retention from the start.

Here are five benefits of a lead generation strategy that you cannot afford to ignore:

     1. Attract High-Quality Leads

Not all leads are equal; not all of them have an equal chance of becoming a customer. The types of leads that matter most are marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs). Additional types of leads are product qualified leads and service qualified leads.

Knowing which is which matters because the optimal approach to successfully converting a lead depends on where they are along the customer’s journey. Are they open to a conversation about making a purchase? Have they tried your product or service at any stage?

     2. Improve Conversion Rates

By using the right strategies, you can convince a person to finally decide to make a purchase. For example, a Chicago lead generation strategy might look something like this. The Fourth of July is a busy holiday, and restaurants can generate leads by offering discounts and bundles.

Themed dishes are another effective way to generate interest from people looking for options.

     3. Broaden Brand Awareness

Lead generation increases brand awareness, especially for strategies that share a primary purpose, such as pay-per-click (PPC) ads and email marketing. SEO is another strategy that functions mostly by improving visibility. Needless to say, all businesses stand to gain from this.

Of course the main benefit of brand awareness is that it naturally creates more value for your brand.

     4. Build Strong Relationships

Lead generation works by using people’s curiosity to attract them to your business. For the most part, leads are looking for something when they come across your content. That could be either a solution to a problem or information; either way, leads find you over the course of research.

For instance, Chicago pet owners might find dog walkers while searching for vets or groomers. That opens up a fantastic opportunity to immediately build relationships with potential clients.

     5. Better Sales Opportunities

Lead generation does not make you more visible only to individual prospects, though; it also makes finding other business opportunities easier. For example, a Hyde Park flower shop can find weddings, birthdays, and catering decorating services with a lead generation strategy.

Besides that, high visibility online raises the possibility of partnering with other local businesses.

Five Best Lead Generation Tactics

Lead generation has many obvious and critical benefits that every Chicago business needs, but how can they properly do this? Apart from optimizing SEO content to draw more traffic, you can set up a referral system and social media accounts to expand your reach.

Here are five simple lead-generation strategies that most businesses successfully use today:

     1. Renew Your Landing Page

Landing pages play a central role in your organic and paid Chicago lead generation strategies. Not only do they serve as a quick primer on your business, products, or services, but they are also where conversion actions happen, including phone calls and newsletter subscriptions.

A good landing page should have all the essential information you want to convey to prospects in a condensed and simplified format. Adding positive comments and videos also helps.

     2. Assemble a PPC Strategy

PPC marketing is one of the fastest methods you can use to refine your online reach and ability to target the right market segments. For example, a Chicago sports club trying to increase its membership can target people based on interests and behavior to find people who are more likely to convert.

Posting paid ads on sites that deal in sporting goods and sports supplements is a good start.

     3. Leverage Email Marketing

Landing pages and PPC ads alone cannot capture all possible leads for you, however. In fact, mixing different strategies is necessary to maximize your lead generation rate. Email marketing is an excellent choice because it is essentially a cheaper and more efficient version of PPC.

With artificial intelligence (AI) empowered customer relationship management (CRM) software, you can automate your email marketing and track your leads’ movements along the sales funnel.

     4. Be Active on Social Media

Social media is a powerful resource in today’s world for both businesses and customers. Many users, particularly younger audiences, source ideas and business recommendations from these platforms. Being active on social media makes it easier for people to know and learn about you.

For instance, a Chicago bakeshop that starts posting its unique creations on Instagram might catch the attention of curious or hungry users. It gets more and more customers as a result.

     5. Get Referrals from Clients

Happy customers are a natural source of high-quality leads through referrals, as mentioned in the previous point. It is normal and common for people to want their friends and families to have similarly excellent experiences or use the products or services they find beneficial.

One way to leverage this method of lead generation is by creating your own rewards system.

Summing Up

Generating leads is essential in growing your business. Without a strong strategy, you might struggle to form meaningful connections with people you can turn into loyal customers. Even a simple email marketing strategy works wonders for your business with a little patience.

Need help generating leads for your Chicago business? Contact Digital Authority Partners to learn how we can help.