In a technologically evolving world where businesses and competitors, as well as the rate of business failure, are on the increase, acquiring leads for your business should be a major concern as a start-up or established brand.

Sales become difficult when your prospects aren’t interested in your products. Assuming you launched a new product line and 80% of your prospects showed no interest in it, your business would go downhill fast. Creating products of interest to your prospects and turning them into leads is every business' aim.

In this article, I'll tell you what lead generation is, who your leads are, and five best ways you can generate leads for your brand.

WHAT ARE LEADS?

A lead is a unique visitor who may eventually become a client to your brand. A lead is a person who is interested in what you sell and may desire to acquire that product in the long run. For you to know who your lead is, you have to do a feasibility/market survey, and target your audience base on what you have to offer.

You cannot have a typical man as your target audience when what you sell are makeup products. Know who your target audience are, this will help you create products that will attract them to your site.

WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION

Lead generation is the process of using your content to attract and make a prospect interested in your brand. Lead generation can be seen as finding unique ways to attract people to your business. You run a fashion blog, for instance, and your target audience is young women who are mostly in dilemma about what to wear for every occasion.

Creating content with a topic like “outfits for different occasions” can draw your target’s attention to your blog. Creating content based on knowledge about your buyers who first start out as leads then prospects and subsequently into clients. Knowing who your target audience is, what they want and how you can serve them is the number one step in creating content. Your content should be in sync with what your target audience seeks and it should be valuable and catchy enough to keep them hooked on your page.

There are so many ways you can generate leads for your business, but the most common and effective ways are what will be discussed. The best ways you can generate leads are:

● Understanding customer needs.

● Networking.

● Earning customer trust.

● Giveaways.

● Price Flexibility

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER NEEDS

Your buyer's persona is one of the most important things you need to know to generate leads for your brand. Buyer Persona is a detailed semi-fictional description of someone who represents your ideal customer; a reflection of your customer base.

You can know your buyer persona through real data or selected educated speculations about your customer demography, goals, motivations, and or behavioral pattern. This information will help your brand create solutions for your target audience. You need to understand what your targeted customer needs at every stage of their purchasing journey and create valuable solutions for every stage.

Not understanding who your target audience is can lead to a reduction in leads and consequently, customers. Your target audience should be able to relate and connect with the information you are providing them. If your content does not align with the info of your target audience, you have failed already.

NETWORKING

Another way to increase your leads is networking. Networking can be seen as the process of creating and nurturing long time relationships between two or more people. It is the process of sharing ideas and information amongst people to increase knowledge and establish good cordial relationships.

Networking with people who are in the same line of work as you can also help generate leads for your brand. This works notably well on social media and mouth-to-mouth marketing. The more people you interact with, the more people know about your brand and resultantly, the more people are likely your site.

EARNING CUSTOMER TRUST

To earn your customer's trust, you have to give them what they want and how they want it. Make sure your customer is satisfied with what you offer. A happy customer means more leads to your site. When a customer is happy, you get more leads, when they are unhappy it's the reverse.

Be attentive to your customer; know what they want at every stage of their purchasing journey. Be transparent and honest with them, make them happy at every opportunity, make them hungrier for your products, and as they continuously patronize, they'll bring others with them.

GIVEAWAYS

This is one of the easiest ways to create leads for your brands. This is prevalent on social media platforms. There are people who would hardly visit your page or site. Organizing a giveaway will attract those who weren’t in the know to like your page and be familiar, even if it's just for the sake of winning.

Your giveaway does not have to be money. It can be some of your old stock, a free training course you know your target audience would be interested in, a newly launched product or even a free webinar.

PRICE FLEXIBILITY

Adding a flexible price to your products is another way of generating leads. You know what your customers need, you know how to get it across to them, fixing a price they can afford is very paramount.

A customer may go through all the processes in the buyers' journey but still not be converted because you have outrageous prices compared to your competitors. Fix a price that will be affordable to your target market, and still earn you profit.

A customer can reject your product no matter how good it is if the price is too much.

All these are awesome ways you can generate leads for your brand. Acquiring leads is just a step in growing your business.

For your business to attain its desired height, you'll need a lot of consistency and patience. Rome was not built in a day, and as the saying goes, “patience is a virtue.”

About the Author

Lilian Elijah is a budding digital marketer with skills in digital marketing, content writing, Social media management, and email marketing.