The second way to grow your business - Generate more leads

The second way to grow your business is to generate more leads. Knowing the difference between a suspect, a lead, a prospect, and a customer helps determine the strategies to put in place to create leads.

A suspect is simply someone who may be in your target market but hasn't yet responded to any of your marketing.

As soon as a suspect responds to marketing in some way, they become a lead. They have some level of interest in your product. As you move into a selling phase, your leads become prospects. When you sell to them, they become customers. When they become loyal customers, they will often become advocates, attracting even more customers to your business.

SUSPECT > LEAD > PROSPECT > CUSTOMER > ADVOCATE

When it comes to generating more leads, consider:

1. Who is your target market?
2. Where are they in the highest numbers?
3. How will you reach them?
4. How will you attract them so that they move from suspect to lead?

There are hundreds of ways to generate more leads. Some will be highly relevant and others completely irrelevant to your business. Generating leads is both art and science so don't be afraid to experiment.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

1. Your website.
Is it an effective lead generation tool? Can you add content of value that future leads can download, once they've added their contact details? This is inbound marketing and for some businesses it's very effective.

2. What advertising channels do you use?
How effective is your current advertising spend? Remember that the purpose of marketing is to generate leads.

3. How powerful is your marketing collateral?
Things like your brochures, product catalogues, educational eBooks, even your branded team uniforms.

4. Do you have strong referral networks?
Do you have a referral system? Do you reward referrers?

5. Have you built strategic alliances?
These should be with other businesses who serve the same market but aren't competing with you. For example, a retail fashion store building an alliance with a beauty therapy business, or a builder working closely with an architect.

6. Are you on social media?
Where do your customers hang out? Is it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter? How can you add content of value, earning you the right to do some cheeky lead marketing?

7. Do you host any events?
For product launches, fundraisers, to educate, or simply for fun? Marketing is sometimes defined as the communication of education.

There are so many ways to generate leads. Experiment, have some fun, and always measure your campaign results.