Lead Generation Methods and Strategies for Startups

Quality leads are the lifeblood of any startup. Without them, your business will fall by the wayside as others prosper. Use these lead generation ideas to boost your business.

Lead generation is the biggest challenge facing startups.

If you can’t generate leads, you can’t sell your product.

This has business owners trying all the lead generation methods under the sun to attract people. They lose focus on sustainability and opt for the quick fix.

Here’s what sustainability offers. Your lead generation ideas grow with your business. Instead of spending too much at the start, you scale your spending to your business.

But that’s difficult to see when you have a limited budget and major competitors. We can help with these lead generation marketing strategies.

Method #1 – Use Social Media

It’s remarkable how many businesses don’t understand how to use social media. They create pages, then do nothing with them. Nobody follows them, and they consign social media to the scrapheap of failed ideas.

Here’s what social media offers your business. It’s a way for you to connect with your audience and expose your brand. Every piece of content you share establishes you as an authority. With social media, you give people a reason to listen to you. Furthermore, you receive valuable audience insight.

Dedicate time to your social media pages. Update them regularly and give people a reason to visit them. Those likes, shares, and retweets develop into leads over time.

Method #2 – Build Opt-Ins into Your Website

Website traffic means little if you can’t convert it. Converting traffic into signups helps you to generate leads. You turn passive customers into active ones and open the door to communicating with the customer.

So how do you get signups?

Opt-ins are the answer. Offer users something to sign up to with every piece of content. If your offer’s attractive enough, you’ll soon gather email addresses and signups.

So what can you offer? It depends on your target audience. Try everything, from webinars and PDFs, to eBooks and whitepapers. Analyze the signup rates to see what your audience latches onto.

Finally, make your signups visible. No visitor becomes a lead if you don’t show them how.

Method #3 – Use Your Network

Even the smallest of business owners has a network. These are the friends, family, and business contacts who have some interest in your business.

Leveraging your network is one of the best lead generation methods. Click To Tweet

Start by writing a list of people who you think can help you. Now, start arranging meetings, brunches, and coffee breaks to discuss your business with them. Focus the conversation on who they can connect you to.

If you’re lucky, your network will grow with each meeting. Now you have even more people who can help, or offer opportunities to generate leads.

Effective networking gets your foot in the door with potential partners and further connects you with your target audience.

Method #4 – Branch Out

Your website isn’t the only place for you to post content.

In fact, you could reach more potential customers using third-party websites.

Take Quora as an example. People post their questions to the site in search of answers from authoritative sources. There’s nothing stopping you from being that source.

Using sites like these establishes you as a problem solver in your industry. The question asker gets their answer, and everybody who sees that question knows you provided it.

You can use these third-party websites to draw people to your on-site content. People will want to read more about your expertise after seeing you demonstrate it elsewhere.

Method #5 – Customize Your 404 Page

Your website’s 404 page doesn’t seem like that big a deal. It’s just a stockholder telling the visitor the page doesn’t exist anymore.

How can you use that to generate leads?

It’s simple. Add an opt-in form to the page, or offer a link to a relevant piece of content. You show the user the website’s still active, so the potential lead stays alive.

A bog-standard 404 page gives the reader no reason to explore further. They may even assume your website doesn’t exist anymore. With a custom 404 page, you can direct users to your best content.

Conclusion

You’ll notice one commonality with these lead generation marketing strategies. None of them require a huge cash investment. In fact, small changes to your website are the only things you may have to pay for.

Compare that to the thousands of dollars you may spend on other lead generation ideas. Use these methods to get a jumpstart on other startups. These simple changes to your strategy help you to generate more leads with little outlay.