Generating consumer interest in your company’s products and services is key to increasing your sales. Lead generation focuses on creating, nurturing and monitoring prospects’ interest in what you have to offer so that your sales team can approach them for conversion. With limited time and budget available, business training experts will tell you that you need to be smart about the way you approach it.

The Smart Approach to Lead Generation

• Know your ideal customer, inside and out. This should be a given. But a surprising number of companies have never defined their target audience, or have lost sight of it as their businesses have grown. Building, maintaining, and refining consumer personas is critical if you want to attract highly-qualified leads to your company.

• Determine the best methods for reaching your ideal customer. Once you know your ideal consumer, you should be able to tell the best options for reaching that person. Reaching a B2B customer in your industry takes a very different approach that trying to gain the attention of a 18-year-old kid about ready to go off to college.

• Build your company’s reputation. Even with the explosion of online and automated marketing, people still want to trust the companies with which they do business. Your company needs to garner customer praise and address any negatives as quickly as possible. Your reputation can generate customers or drive them away.

• Make your existing customers part of your sales effort. If one of your customers recommends your company to a friend, family member, or business acquaintance, you have just received the highest level lead possible. A personal recommendation from a trusted individual carries far more weight than an anonymous online testimonial or a positive review from an industry magazine.

• Monitor all lead generation efforts. Most companies do not have an unlimited budget for lead generation or any other marketing effort. Before you deploy any lead generation campaign, make sure you have clear goals and a way to monitor it. That way you can measure just how successful things are and make adjustments as needed.

Successful lead generation begins with knowing who you should be talking to, how to talk with them, and giving them a reason to consider your company. Business training experts will tell you that building an effective, smart lead generation system takes time. But it is a worthy investment.