12 Lead Generation Tips for Local Service-Based Businesses
Are you looking for leads for your local service-based business? Get 12 easy lead generation tips to help your local business thrive.
12 ways local service-based businesses can generate leads to boost sales and increase customer retention.
Starting a business is no easy feat and maintaining it is even harder. Making sure your business stays relevant and adapts with the times is key. This means generating new leads, finding new customers, and encouraging repeat business.
Service-based businesses can be even trickier to generate leads for and to keep them coming. The product offered is not a tangible item that you can quickly order online and ship off for delivery. However, there are several lead generation tips that you can follow to help build you audience and revenue.
To give you a better idea, look at our top 12 tips for generating leads for your local service-based business.
1. Find Your Target Audience
The very first thing any business needs in order to generate leads is a target audience. This will allow you to reach and sell your service to your ideal customer.
Establish your target audience by conducting market research and coming up with a clear idea of what your ideal customer persona is. Figure out where they are, who they are, and what they like to do. Then, look at how your service can offer a solution to a problem they may face.
Knowing this information will go a long way towards helping you generate targeted leads and come up with a comprehensive marketing plan.
2. Carve Out A Sales Funnel
With an established target audience, you can easily create a sales funnel. Once you know who you’re targeting, you’ll be able to develop a plan for collecting their contact information.
The first part of this process involves funneling all potential customers to a landing page or form that encourages them to share their information. Gifts and discount codes act as great incentives for this.
3. Create A Database
A database of information relating to your potential customers is vital for generating leads. Make sure you create one that’s easy to use, as this will give you quick, easy access to your target audience.
4. Choose Your Methods Of Promotion Wisely
An integral part of generating leads is a promotional plan that will help get your services in front of your target audience. You can achieve this through a number of methods. However, you should use your marketing plan to identify the methods best suited for your business.
Some ideas to consider include an optimized website, social media channels, a blog, industry events, demos, and pay per click (PPC) advertising.
5. Build Relationships Through Email Newsletters
Having a database is all well and good, but you need to not only make contact with all of those leads, but cultivate relationships with them as well.
Email newsletters are a great way to convert leads to sales and sales to repeat customers. By sending out newsletters, you can create consistent communication with your prospective clients. You’ll forge a connection, and you’ll be foremost in their minds when thinking of your services.
6. Leverage Social Media
Social media is one of the greatest tools that businesses have access to in this day and age. Service-based businesses can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok as a means of demonstrating what they offer. This is also a fantastic means of connecting with targeted audiences and starting conversations. In the long term, a sizable percentage of these conversations are likely to lead to converted sales.
As you’re focusing on local traffic, you can target your content to be locally relevant. You can encourage conversation in the community to forge a stronger bond and create a lasting impression. By getting people talking, they’re more likely to recommend you by word of mouth to others in the area.
7. Learn About Your Competitors
There isn’t any shame in checking out your competitors. Making sure you know what they’re up to is an integral part of staying relevant in your industry.
Have a look at their social media channels, see what they’re posting about, and what kind of lead magnets they’re using to attract new customers. This will give you a better understanding of their strategies, which will help you adapt yours accordingly. Often, local trends crop up, and seeing how your competitors adjust and entice new clients can be key to improving your lead generation too.
8. Start Networking
Networking is good for every business, but it’s especially great for service-based businesses. Go to events that will allow for networking and make connections with other businesses. This is a great way to potentially sell your service to corporate clients, as well as have them refer your business to their existing audience.
9. Show Them What You Have To Offer
Most consumers trust the reviews they read about online just as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends and family. To boost lead generation, use client testimonials and existing audiences you’ve established as leverage.
The more detail you have, the better. If the clients provide detailed testimonials, such as their customer experience, what the service was like, and your level of professionalism on offer, it will make a world of difference.
10. Respond To Online Comments
Think of every online comment relating to your business as a direct means of communication between you and your target audience. Respond to every comment, question, and concern on these public platforms. This will allow prospective clients to see that your business has open channels of communication, and will likely generate some leads in return.
11. Use Local Influencers
Influencers have become a major marketing trend. You can use this to your advantage by teaming up with a locally based influencer who has a similar target audience. Influencers add a personal touch when reviewing your service, which can quickly boost your potential leads.
They combine the appeal of word-of-mouth advertising and customer reviews in one, so they’re an excellent marketing tool and will stir up interest in your product.
12. Make Sure Your SEO Targets Your Location
As a local service-based business, your SEO strategy needs to focus on attracting customers in your region. To generate local leads, you need to have locally based content. You can make use of tools such as Google Business to boost your site’s ranking and highlight your location. You can also create content that focuses on local events or happenings.
You need to target your keywords to your location, and your About and other pages should clearly state where you’re based. The higher you rank on search engine pages, the better your chances are of attracting potential leads.
Keep the Momentum Going
Generating leads for a local service-based business should form part of your ongoing sales process. When done right, it will pay off.
When it comes to lead generation tips, your key takeaways to remember are to connect, engage, and build relationships with those in close proximity to your business. When you’re doing this successfully, your lead generation should continue to improve all the time.
