10 Creative Lead Generation Strategies to Grow Your Business

10 Low Cost Ways to Generate Leads for Your Business

As a small business owner, it’s vitally important to continually generate high quality leads for your business. This report focuses on 10 low cost, highly effective lead generation strategies for your business.

1) A-Z List

The A-Z list is a creative technique designed to help you keep track of all the contacts you’ve made or would like to make. It helps you gather, in one place, a complete list of possible sources for well-qualified leads. Creating the initial list might take some time, but after this, you will have a continual source of people, places, and companies to connect with and with whom you can share your products and services.

In order to begin the list, you’ll need a three-ring notebook. You will label the first page with the letter “A”, and then place a few empty filler pages behind this letter, then label another page “B”, and add some empty pages, then label another page “C” and add some empty pages- continue this for the entire alphabet. Once you’ve set it up, it’s time to start filling it in.

Starting with any letter, begin to write down all the people, places, names of companies, cities, anything and everything that begins with that letter- aim for an exhaustive list.

For example, for the letter “A”, you might have: Acme stores, Alan (my cousin), AT&T, Adidas, Air Jordan… etc.

Generate a similar list for each letter of the alphabet. Once you’ve completed this, you’re ready for the next step.

Now, each time you meet someone new, add his/her name to your A-Z list. It’s wise to spend about 10-15 minutes, faithfully, each week, adding to your list. In this way, you begin to amass an ongoing, growing database of people you know, companies you might do business with, and people you’d like to meet.

Very soon, you’ll have an extensive list of potential leads.

The A-Z list is a wonderful, creative tool for expanding your thinking about how and where you might generate new business. In fact, in the process of explaining it, I had several new ideas, myself.

2) Mind Mapping

This is another creative lead generation technique to help you solve any problems or blocks around generating more leads. It can be a fun, inspiring process.

In order to mind-map a solution, you’ll need a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. You might want to save your mind maps in some kind of binder or folder as they are good resources to refer back to periodically.

Once you have a piece of paper, write the ‘problem’ or ‘question’ in the middle of the page. For example, “how can I bring more customers into my business?” You place a circle around this question, and then draw a series of spokes moving outward from this circle (like the sunrays in a child’s drawing). At the end of each sun ray, you quickly and easily write out a possible solution- or, in some cases, a word or phrase that comes to you. Once you have written a word or phrase, you then circle that and draw additional sunrays from that circle and repeat the process. So the page will end up looking like a series of suns, each connected by a line or idea.

Mind-mapping is a good technique for accessing your creative/intuitive possibilities and can provide a roadmap of next steps to take.


3) Email Newsletter/Ezine

Starting an email newsletter or ezine is both a marketing and a lead generation technique. In order to set up a newsletter, you basically need to figure out a name, find people to subscribe, and make it a point to offer relevant, useful, informative and valuable content.

An email newsletter is most effective if it’s sent out at least monthly- this enables you to continue to educate your current customers, potential customers, and new prospects about your business and the value you can provide them. Remember, your customer/prospect always wants to know- “what’s in it for me?”- so you want to keep the focus of your email newsletter on solving your customer’s problems. You don’t want to use the whole publication as an advertisement for your business. Instead, and much more effective, would be to subtly showcase your expertise. Use case studies, client examples, occasional testimonials, and your own expertise and knowledge to make your newsletter one that people eagerly sign up for and can’t wait to receive.

The advantages of email newsletters are that they are inexpensive to produce, easy to send out, and offer a means for customers to click through to your website or sales pages if they would like more information. The downsides, though, are that they can be seen as somewhat impersonal (maybe not good for businesses which focus on high touch service- like salons, spas, etc.) and people might feel overwhelmed by email and quickly unsubscribe. If you are providing good, usable content, though, very often your subscribers will stay with you for years. Be sure to highlight customer appropriate changes to your business- i.e. did you just recently
extend hours? Did you hire a new manager? Are you doing some charity or volunteer work that they might like to know about?


4) Contests/Giveaways

Contests or giveaways can be a really fun way to generate interest and excitement in your business. The majority of people enjoy obtaining something for free, and the higher the perceived value, the more excited people are to participate. A great way to use this to generate leads is to offer an item for free if people take a specified action (i.e. visit your website, sign up for your newsletter, know the right answer to a question).

Contests are most effective when there is some element of challenge- too easy and people quickly lose interest, too hard, and people don’t want to play anymore. Also, it’s best to kind of spread out these types of offerings. A contest every month might be too much, but a contest once a quarter (perhaps tied to the season, or a theme) might be just perfect. Be sure to get pictures of the winner and/or written testimonials about your contest. This will encourage more and more people to participate. Since they will be entering the contest to win a prize, you can also make some educated guesses about what kinds of products/services they might be interested in. Once you’ve held a contest or giveaway, you can also follow up with people and ask them what other products/services they might like to see offered for a contest or giveaway. This will tell you what your customers really want and need, and you can then step in to address this need.

These are really fun, and people love to win- so you might create a tip sheet or small product/package to give away and start holding contests/giveaways to increase your customer base.


5) Updates to Your Website

Updating your website is an important lead generation technique, and is a way to retain your current customers or clients. The main purpose of your website should be to educate and inform the consumer; to encourage him or her to stay aware of your business and to take the next step when s/he has a problem you can solve. The more current you keep your website, the more likely you are to have a flow of new leads and potential customers coming into your business.

Many people forget that people searching the Internet are often looking for information to solve a problem or answer a question. The more relevant content you have on your website, the more likely customers will come to you to solve their problems. You will want to continually update your offerings, sharing new, relevant links, resources, articles, products- anything that will serve your customer. You can announce these updates in your email newsletters and/or in any direct/print mailings. Give people a reason to visit, and they will. Give them frequent valuable updates, and they will keep coming back.
Of course, the more they come back, the easier it is to gain their trust, and to build your visibility and credibility. Once a customer has visited your website, s/he is more likely to sign up for your email newsletter. Once s/he has read your email newsletter for a while, s/he is more likely to attend a free informational call or seminar. Once s/he has attended a seminar or requested more information, s/he is more likely to purchase a product or service. Once s/he has purchased a product or service, s/he is more likely to purchase another. And so on.
So providing good, solid website content is a great way to generate repeat business and new leads- plus, it’s generally very cost-effective, and gives you a great deal of credibility and visibility with your target customers.


6) Storyboarding

Storyboarding is another creative lead generation technique which can aid those of you who are visual thinkers or visual planners. In this process, you will take a series of sticky notes (like Post-It Notes) and you create space on a blank wall in your office. At one end of the wall you put where you are now (Point A) and, at the other end of the wall, you put your desired outcome (Point B) - for example: 10,000 new customer names. Then, with the remaining Post It Notes, you chart out (map out) all the steps which go from Point A to Point B. It’s good, in this process, to just let the ideas flow- get as many sticky notes up on the wall as you can.

This is a great visual brainstorming technique because it not only allows you to generate many ideas of how to get from Point A to Point B, but it also then allows you to move the sticky notes around to define the next steps and the next set of actions you’ll take to move from Point A to Point B.

This works especially well for defining processes that are complex, and those which might involve input from other sources. It can also be a great tool for defining and diagramming your lead generation strategies and noting how/where each strategy will drop a lead into your marketing cycle, so you can plan how much follow up is needed and track time to completed sale.


7) Free (Tele)Classes or Workshops

Offering a free “sample” or “taste” of what you can do is a great way to showcase your experience and generate interest in your business. A free (tele)class or (tele)workshop enables you to easily make contact with many interested prospects at one time, saving you the time and effort of arranging individual meetings. These classes or workshops can be on any topic you feel is valuable and informative to those you wish to serve.

Use these classes as a platform for sharing your knowledge, helping build your visibility, and increasing your credibility among your target market. It’s a proven psychological fact that the more people know you, the more they will like you (if they are predisposed to do so)- so the more you have contact with people, the more they will like you, and ultimately, will buy what you’re offering.

It is very easy to arrange a telephone-based class or an in-person class. For telephone classes, you’ll need to obtain a teleconference line (also known as a phone-bridge) and these can be had inexpensively from various services providers on the internet. Once you have obtained the bridge, you will set the class date, decide on a topic, develop it, and invite anyone who might be interested in attending. Participants pay their own long distance charges into the phone line. Have some way of tracking who attends, and offer something valuable as a “thank you” for attending- this will activate prospects and move them further into the sales cycle.

To arrange an in person class, you’ll follow very much the same process, except you’ll need to reserve physical space- a location- instead of a telephone line.

Workshops and classes are a great way to create a fast inflow of new leads into your business.


8) Direct Mail

Direct mail refers to any promotional or business item you will mail out to prospects. It might include business cards, postcards, brochures, advertisements, etc. This strategy is especially useful for those of you who work in a well-defined geographic location and/or can tightly segment out your market population.

In this process, you directly mail potential customers/prospects and invite them to visit your store, visit your website, sign up for a contest, or give them something for free.

The action you want them to take is one that will bring them into your business- so, at minimum, you want to have a way to capture their interest level (like having them go to a special page on your website and entering a promotional code so you know they came from your direct mail piece), and some way of following up in the future. Give them some valuable information, invite them to a free class or workshop, have them stop by for a free sample, or join a contest or giveaway. Encourage them to leave their comments, to call you if they have questions. In short, start to build a relationship with them.

In this example, you’ll find that lead generation can become even more effective when you combine various methods. Most businesses would benefit from some combination of direct mail and another lead generation strategy.

9) Coopetition

Coopetition is a term coined to define a mix of “cooperation” and “competition”.

This concept refers to the idea that you can partner with your competitors to increase your leads and sales. There are various ways to accomplish this, but one approach might look like this: You have customers in your database who have not bought from you, or who have expressed interest in products you don’t carry- but your competitor does. Your competitor may have similar names in his database. In a coopetitive arrangement, you both agree to share the names of customers which would benefit the other business, and, in an ethical, appropriate manner, you begin to market to these prospects that your competitor could not convert.

So you cooperate to trade names, and then serve your own business by marketing directly to those people. Another way to apply this concept is to partner or link with a firm that works with a similar group- but not exactly the same. For instance, let’s say that you sell products/service to companies under $25million in sales- you might partner with a firm that works with companies over $25million in sales. You each agree to share appropriate leads- you would send all $25m- customers to them, and they would send all $25m+ customers to you. This means, essentially, that you each work together (cooperate) to build your own businesses (compete).
Coopetition is different from a joint venture (discussed below), because coopetition really encourages you to run your business for yourself and you won’t necessarily share the profits. Again, there are many other ways to use this strategy, but coopetition can be very powerful when used intentionally and thoughtfully.


10) Joint Ventures

Joint venturing is another way to team up with other businesses. In this model, you team up with another business which offers products that are geared to your target market. For example, a joint venture might be created between a company selling vitamins and one selling fitness equipment (based on the supposition that people who buy vitamins also exercise). Customers who purchase fitness equipment might be given a coupon for a free bottle of vitamins- or people who buy a particular brand of nutritional supplement (let’s say for joint pain) might be given a discount coupon for a piece of fitness equipment that relieves joint pain and/or strengthens your joints.

What separates a joint venture from coopetition is that, in a joint venture, people are partnering together and there is some compensation traded for the arrangement. In a coopetitive agreement, this might not be the case. A coopetitive agreement is, often, a “trade in kind”- I give you one name, you give me one name. A joint venture, however, is more of a partnership- where the participants split or share the profits resulting from the joint venture. An affiliate program might be another type of joint venture arrangement- affiliates sell for you, and you each share the profits. In essence, you have created a type of “joint venture” to sell the product.

Joint ventures are powerful because they use the concept of multiplication- when two people come together, each bringing their networks and spheres of influence, the synergy that is created can generate exponential growth for both partners.

Joint ventures are a great way to get out in front of a related, but separate, group and showcase your products and offerings. By joint venturing with another company, you are leveraging your marketing efforts and will be gaining more possible customers with much less effort. Some skilled joint venturers will create 3, 4, 5 way links- where each partner links to the 4 others. Again, joint ventures can be great lead generation strategies and their scope is limited only by your own creativity.


So then, this is a list of 10 very effective lead generation strategies for your business. If you want to build your business quickly, implement and follow through on as many strategies as you can. Get out there and happy leading!

If you want more tips like this go to http://www.comprehensivecoachingu.com/swsk/selling-without-selling-kit.htm.

Yours in Living an EXTRAordinary Life,
Terri Levine
http://www.comprehensivecoachingu.com
http://www.terrilevine.com
http://www.coachinstitute.com/