Once you have set up your business, what comes next? Leads, of course.

You have to attract people for what you SELL.

So, one art that you must master is the ‘Lead Generation.’

So, take it as a hustle, which is a conjugation of art and science, specifically when you’re just starting.

You don’t have a budget on your end, and you still have this in you to take the world by storm.

You are dying to see your first sales coming, and you’re ready to put all your eggs in one basket.

So, if enthusiasm and passion drive you but you need to own a roadmap, we will break down how quick wins with minimal losses are achievable in today’s fast-paced world.

Know the ABC of Lead Generation as a Startup Founder

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So, first things first. When you’re ready to launch and start your business, you have to be very clear about your dynamic – those that hit the bull’s eyes without being too cringe to bring out sales.

With so many people selling the same service and products as yours, you must be distinct to appeal to your customers directly. And you’ll have to work to bring two leads:

1) Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLS):

These people might be your active followers, browsing your webpage frequently and reading your emails daily, but they still need to be ready to buy.

2) Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs):

These are the leads who are more inclined towards buying what you SELL.

Balancing these two SQLs and MQLs is critical for client acquisition and retention.

Quick Wins: How To Quickly Win Leads?

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When you’re starting, you need some easy-to-implement tactics to attract wins. You are not supposed to create lead-magnets but something bare minimum to keep your spirits alive.

So you may do a few of the following:

1) Social Media Apps Should Be Your First Resort

Ads on social media are far calculative at giving immediate results without spending a fortune. These ads specifically target those individuals who are either exploring your offered service or product or are highly interested in making a deal as soon as possible.

Comprehensively, with just a few clicks, you can set up a campaign that will reveal your products to only those individuals who have the most probability of buying your product.

Here, you must resonate with different graphic styles, content types, and animation to catch the eye and convert it to the best of your ability.

2) Create a Lead Magnet That They Can’t Resist

To scrape people’s personal information, you must give something huge for free. Whether it’s an eBook, checklist, guide, or webinar, ensure that your lead magnet is directly solving a problem that’s bringing tears to your audience.

It has to be actionable and specific, too, as this will ignite the purpose most.

At the end of the day, what do we need? Customer loyalty and their cash.

3) Collaboration With Influencers and Micro-Influencers to Spread the Word

When you step into a market, only a few people know you. However, influencers already have a huge audience that trusts them the most.

Micro-influencers with followers up to 50k tend to have a more intimate connection with the audience and are able to bring more significant engagement than the others.

Make sure you carefully choose influencers that align with your brand image, or you may end up losing the trust of many in the market.

4) Build a Personal Connection With The Clients Through Personal Outreach

If it’s B2C, personal outreach might get difficult; however, with B2B, the direct approach is the best. LinkedIn and email outreach can help you connect with the right audience, and adding a personal touch will make it more valuable. High-value leads are often contacted with a customization approach to win them over.

For this, you must keep your messages short, clear, and crisp. Don’t get a lot too personal, or perhaps it will affect your brand identity.

5) Time-sensitive Offers Are Killer

Leave people in a feeling of crisis. With time-sensitive offers, you can help people become more decisive about their course of action. Nothing moves people faster than urgency. Consider launching a discount or offering something for free for XYZ for a certain amount of time to drive an instant desire to have that product within your audience.

This approach can be adopted from time to time across multiple social media handles so that many people see it.

Here’s How To Build A Lead Generation Machine – Long-Term Goals You Must Achieve

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Rising steadily as a potential service provider will take time and patience. Over the course of time, you should use some tactics to achieve sustainable success and credibility, as well as a traditional scheme of inbound leads.

1) Put Your Money In Content Marketing

When you target the pain points of your customers and provide solutions to their burning problems like Superman, that means ‘you did the right job.’

Content marketing is all about extracting leads through blogs, videos, guides, webinars, social media posting, and whatnot. Not only does it improve the SEO of your brand standing on SERP engines, but it will also help people remember you and connect with you.

You must not talk about ‘you’; you should talk about ‘them’. Their problems, their experiences, their solutions, and then you’ll have plenty of ideas yourself.

2) Your Focus Must Be On SEO For Organic Traffic

Improving your website’s bounce rate and traffic by spending a fortune on Google Ads is a no-brainer. However, you must master SEO for long-term sustained growth.

Organic traffic is gold, and this can only be achieved by practising the traditional and contemporary requirements of search engine ranking.

Take it as a pipeline of lead that will never let you go hungry. And perhaps, people who will find you through search will genuinely have a problem and would want it to get solved asap. It means the conversion ratio stands tall in this aspect.

3) Nurture Leads With Email Marketing

A relationship can easily be fostered through emails. Building a sequence and sending a series of cold emails is likely to convert a good percentage of individuals.

But you have got to do strategic planning on what time of emails to send when to send, and the intent of an email. Don’t bombard them with your offers, but bring them comfortably from the initial pitch to the final sales.

This can be easily achieved by segmentation. Segment your audience and send only relevant content based on their interests.

4) Use Video Content To Connect Faster With The Audience

In a world where the attention span is getting shorter with every passing day, if you want to get acknowledged by your audience, adopt the strategy of ‘Video Marketing.’ Product demos, service reviews, testimonials, and how-to-do videos will help broaden your clientele.

Don’t chase high-end visuals at first. Get the basics. Your raw videos in the world of artificial intelligence will be the cream of the crop.

5) Implement Loyalty – Referral Programs

Loyalty programs appear rewarding to the customers. Cashback, small gifts, or money-back guarantees are certain ways to catch leads. Also, word of mouth is very powerful. Referral programs will appear highly rewarding to customers who love your brand and would get on cloud nine if they could expect a little treat with every Referral.

Which Tools You Must Use To Make Your Lead Generation Smoother?

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As a startup, it’s the key to getting yourself free from basic operations. And to achieve that level of efficiency, you must adopt a few tried and tested tools.

- Canva: For creating eye-catching graphics and videos

SEMrush or Ahrefs: For SEO research

HubSpot: CRM, email marketing, and lead-tracking tool
Google Analytics: For understanding where your traffic and leads come from
Zapier: Automate tasks between apps to streamline lead management

Know What To Track?

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Keeping track of your expenditures and performance must be your top priority in your lead generation journey.

Cost per Lead (CPL): Measures how efficient each lead generation tactic is and how much you are spending on bringing one lead.
Conversion Rate: Indicates the effectiveness of lead generation strategies, from impression to conversion.
Lead Velocity Rate (LVR): Tells you how quickly you’re growing your pipeline of qualified leads.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Shows the total revenue potential from each lead.

In a Nutshell

Take lead generation as a marathon with few sprints on unequal lengths in between. By combining a cumulative strategy of quick lead generation and long-term winning, you’ll master this skill. But one thing is for sure: you must keep track of what you’re doing with the use of key metrics to thrive your startup.