How Small Businesses Can Reach New Leads Before the Competition Does

Small businesses don’t have the time to wait for leads to reach them. Instead, they must be proactive and try to be the ones who reach the leads first. This puts a lot of pressure on the management and the teams responsible for lead generation.

To make this process as effective as possible, it’s important to branch out. This means leveraging cold outreach, social media, SEO, and PPC ads all at once. It can seem overwhelming at first, but once these processes are in place, getting leads becomes easier.

We’ll provide you with a list of simple, yet effective, tactics that will help small businesses and startups reach new leads before their competition does. These methods differ in complexity and costs, but they are all tried and proven.

From industry to industry, the audience’s specifics differ. A customer who’s looking for fishing equipment and the one purchasing virtual reality devices certainly have different desires and characteristics. 

However, businesses must gather data on their customers so they’re able to make accurate assumptions about the customers. Some of the key characteristics they must understand include demographics, behavior, pain points, and intent. 

You can find this data through data provider platforms that are already collected and structured for you. This can be quite valuable in the quest for leads. Some providers offer data on which purchases customers made, allowing you to understand whether your product is what they want.

On the other hand, understanding the audience can come from internal processes. Instead of relying on third-party data, you can get a better sense of understanding your customers through internal methods, such as CRM data, surveys, and social insights. 

All of these methods can help companies understand their audience. While internal data can be valuable, it’s specific to your already existing customers. This might not be helpful if you don’t have enough data. 

Some people believe that cold calling has become obsolete. While there are other ways of reaching out to leads nowadays, such as email and social media outreach, cold calling is still a great method. 

Cold calling is one of the more personal approaches, and it establishes connections in real time. However, it’s quite important that the calls are conducted in a human and personalized manner. Understanding the target audience is crucial for making the most out of your calls.

Phone systems also come packed with other features, such as CRM integrations and call routing. These modern features can have a highly positive impact on the cold calling campaign overall. 

Social media is basically a free way of getting leads and building your brand. You can use SM to engage in groups that are in your business’s niche, allowing you to establish connections with local and global enthusiasts. 

Other actions, such as commenting or using hashtags, have the potential of reaching thousands, if not millions, of people without a cost. However, using social media requires understanding the algorithm and content creation for different platforms. 

Tools like SaveMyLeads can help businesses to transfer leads directly to CRMs, messengers, marketing platforms, etc. This process doesn’t require coding knowledge, yet it saves the company a lot of time and allows for the prompt capture of leads.

Social media platforms, such as Instagram or Facebook, also have ads, which can be used for promoting your business even further. Furthermore, you’re basically free to slide into anyone’s DM on social media. Of course, not everyone will respond or be glad that you’ve contacted them, but it’s a free and straightforward way of contacting leads. 

More and more searches today include “near me” or are spoken aloud using voice assistants. If you need a physical service, like moving or roofing, you’ll likely look for businesses that are near you.

This means that you’ll either include “near me” or the name of the place you’re based in. It’s important for businesses to grasp this, as it will open their doors to numerous local leads that are easy to convert. 

To optimize for local and voice search, it’s important to include local keywords as well as update the “Google Business Profile.” The use of natural and voice-friendly language in the website content further improves the chances of reaching the top spot on search engines. 

One of the best SEO tips anyone can give you is to create high-quality content. This doesn’t mean that the content must be complex; it should be easy to understand for your target audience. 

In terms of content, helpful pieces like FAQs, guides, product explainers, and blogs can help you get ahead of the competition. This is especially the case if you offer specific helpful information not found anywhere else. 

Consistently updating your content and incorporating relevant keywords naturally will improve your search engine rankings over time, driving more organic traffic to your site and increasing your chances of reaching new leads.

Sometimes, you’ll want your pages to show up immediately, and that’s where PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising shines. By focusing on high-intent keywords, you’ll be able to appear as the first choice for potential customers. 

This is especially helpful for retargeting people who have visited your website or know about your brand but didn’t convert. Ads can be costly, which is why it’s important to set a small, daily budget to test what converts.

You can find PPC ads useful because you can control exactly who sees your ad. This can be based on location, keyword, device, and more. However, this will also require testing, as you can never guarantee that the initial setup will yield maximum results. 

Partnerships with other local or related businesses can open many doors for your business. If you partner with more successful businesses than yours, you’ll be able to establish more authority and legitimacy in the eyes of the consumers.

Partnerships can lead to actions, such as co-hosting events, offering bundles, creating products, and swapping leads. All of these examples can lead to various short- and long-term benefits that will ensure getting ahead of the competition in your industry. 

It’s also possible to establish partnerships with influencers or content creators, which can test or show your product to their audience. This can lead to an influx of new leads and potential customers. However, it’s important to find the influencer whose audience overlaps with your target audience. Otherwise, you might waste your money on a partnership that won’t yield any specific results. 

If you can measure something, you can improve it. It’s great to track everything—clicks, conversions, calls, and everything else that could be helpful for your business. However, it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Suppose your business has multiple operations, such as SEO, outreach, social media, PPC, etc. Tracking everything at once can be tedious and confusing. This is why it’s important to pick the numbers that actually matter the most.

If you’ve recognized potential in SEO, then it’s crucial to track numbers through Google Analytics. There are also other amazing tools, such as Hotjar or CRMs with advanced statistics and analytics. 

Once you get enough data on one of the strategies you’re testing, it’s best to implement A/B testing and see how performance changes based on the data. This allows you to understand what changes could be made in real-time. 

Scaling as a small business is always possible. However, you must ensure that you have effective methods for reaching leads. Smaller businesses often offer products and services that are on par with the large players. But it’s crucial to show this to customers.

The key to finding leads is to combine speed with relevance. This means that SMBs should focus on finding relevant leads quickly and contacting them before their competition does. 

While it’s great to have all of these strategies at once, it’s best to start with one or two in order to put the processes into place and not get overwhelmed. Small businesses can absolutely compete with the giants, but they should move smart and fast.