When your team is small, it can be tough to generate enough leads to keep the business running smoothly. In fact, in many businesses, virtually everyone in the company is expected to bring in new business. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is a salesperson, but it does mean that regardless of their job description or title, everyone is expected to pitch in and help grow the business whenever they can.
Understand you can't be everywhere all at once.
We all know that face to face connections are a sales activity with one of the highest returns on investment, but even in large organizations, there often simply aren’t enough people with enough time to get out there in the real world and hit the pavement to drum up new business. There are only so many trade shows, conferences, meetups and happy hours that any group of people can attend in a given time frame.
Digital and software solutions are obviously beneficial in helping companies with their growth, and some of these have enabled sales and marketing activities such as webinars and other digital events to become quite popular lead generation activities.
However, anything digital that’s centered around programming of content or education (like a webinar) is inherently unscalable. The people you need pounding the pavement also need to produce the content! This is a physics problem.
There are only so many hours in the day, and things like webinars take a ton of time to create and promote. And what’s worse, the value of that content is often very short lived because it ages out quickly or can’t be repurposed elsewhere. So, in many cases, it’s “one and done”, and the team needs to churn these out constantly to keep the leads flowing. That’s a lot to ask, right?
All that said, here are a few ideas for how teams of all sizes can get more leads without having to be in two places at once or creating constant streams of content.
Tap into personal networks.
This is one of the most underutilized lead generation tactics in business. Whatever role you’re in, reaching out to personal connections in your network is one of the quickest ways to increase leads for your business.
How to do it: Approach this like a virtual event with a clear goal in mind. For example, set a goal like “Get introductions to five people who need an accounting service.” Next, reach out to people you know personally with a short message like “Hey <contact>, we’re in growth mode over here at <your company>. Do you know anyone who needs an accountant? Send them my way.” You’ll want to include your contact information in a way that can be easily shared and used across any device. This way, it doesn’t matter where or on which platform you reach out (email, social, messaging, etc.) This is what NodCards is all about.
Use social media.
Use social media to broadcast and communicate your goal. Send direct messages similar to the one above to your connections and also post to your pages about what your goal is.
How to do it: Create a post on your page that says something like, “Hello Friends, my company is having a big sale on patio furniture. If you want to take advantage of this great weather and get outside in comfort, I am here to get you a huge deal! Here is my direct contact information.” REMINDER: Make the post “public” so people in your network can share it with theirs. This is important.
Partner with adjacent businesses.
Your audience and customer base is already out there. You just need to find out where and get a message to them. Partnering with another business could be just what you need.
How to do it: Using the patio furniture example above, think about the other businesses that serve these same customers. Pool services. Landscape contractors. Lawn care. There are probably dozens of them. Reach out to them and offer them a joint marketing agreement. Write up an email for them to send to their email list, and offer the same in return. The same goes for a social media post. Make sure you can track lead generation from this effort. NOTE: you can now collect email leads directly on your NodCards, like this.
Be creative.
Creativity is a way to cut through the noise. The key is to do something unexpected while adding value at the same time.
How to do it: Once again, think about where your audience hangs out or what they do every day. For example, if you are an auto insurance agency, find some online communities like social media groups or open forums for car enthusiasts (there are literally thousands of these). Start by answering a few questions and contributing to the discourse, and sign off every post with a link to your digital business card.
Market your small business brand everywhere your people are
Give your people the power to promote your brand! With a unified brand across web, mobile, email, search, and social, NodCards turn every interaction into a call to action to do business with you. Start for free and pay as you grow!
