The Best Lead Generation Companies for Small Businesses and How to Get Small business leads

Lead generation can be one of the toughest challenges for any small business. You may have a killer product or service, a passionate sales team, and all the right ideas, but establishing a sustainable sales funnel with consistent, qualified leads is easier said than done. In order to achieve business growth, every small business needs a stand-out lead generation campaign providing a constant stream of potential customers.

Fortunately, you're not alone. Other businesses have been where you are now, and have managed to increase sales and reach great heights. With serious dedication you can sharpen your lead generation instincts and gain a deep understanding of lead generation principles.  

There have also never been more external lead generation agencies better placed to help your small business reach potential customers and increase sales than there are today.

Here, we'll outline some valuable tips and tricks for small business lead generation, as well as offering our opinion on five of the best lead generation companies on the market.

Lead generation for small businesses

Lead generation is, in theory, simple: it's the process of finding new customers and potential clients, developing an effective messaging strategy, and securing more sales. This is what's meant by 'generating leads.'

But lead generation isn't the same for every business. Many large companies can afford to promote growth through sales outsourcing, where they get highly focussed, professional market research and lead generation from an expensive lead generation company.

And the larger the company, the less they have to concern themselves with lead generation; the Coca Colas and Apples of the world aren't scratching around for new customers. It's safe to say their customer loyalty is pretty secure.

But they weren't always Coca Cola and Apple - before they were the giants we know today, they too were small businesses looking to grab every potential customer with clever marketing efforts and a great sales process.

For small business, the challenges are clear. You want to:

• Save money wherever possible
• You want to work with the best lead generation company within your budget.
• Know what you're signing up for
• You can't afford to waste time and money 'testing out' different approaches. You want focussed professionals who understand your buyer persona and value proposition from the get-go and aren't going to mess you around.
• Get high quality leads as soon as possible
• With overheads and salaries to take care of, you can't afford to wait months for business leads to start converting into more sales.
• Streamline your sales process with custom lead generation
• In short: you need a lead generation campaign (be that from an internal sales team or a dedicated lead generation company) that'll understand your unique small business, its existing customer base and its pain points, and work within your framework.

No tall order then, eh? Don't worry; we're going to break down several lead generation and marketing strategies and some of the best lead generation companies that can help you reach your target audience, build a base of loyal customers, and achieve your business goals.
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What lead generation methods can your small business sales team implement?

There are several scalable lead generation principles that any business can implement to increase sales. Let's evaluate some (in no particular order):

1. Leverage social media platforms
2. Small businesses often make the mistake of making a page on a social media platform and simply using it as a place to post the occasional update.
3. But with today's algorithms, the quality of your content, how much you interact with your customers, and how well-linked your social media accounts are all play key roles in promoting your online presence.
4. Outward demonstrations of value and excellent customer service are pivotal components of a a good marketing strategy - and key to building an engaged customer base.
5. Optimize your Google Business ProfileThis is particularly important for small businesses, as many of your best customers will be local to your business. You want a Google Business Profile that exudes character and professionalism and will encourage customers to use your product or service.As a general rule, you should aim to include:
   • All relevant, up-to-date contact information
   • Accurate operating hours
   • A well-written and engaging description
   • High-resolution photos
   • Great customer feedback
   • A link to your website
6. Invest in email marketing
7. Email marketing remains the most popular way to reach a target audience and drive sales. It's relatively quick and cheap, and can be achieved in bulk.
8. However, you need to get it right; people can spot spam a mile away and won't give your email the time of day unless it offers something of genuine value in a way that expresses genuine interest in them. So getting your email campaigns right - with good design and perfect messaging - is absolutely essential.

What can lead generation agencies do for small businesses?

Implementing a comprehensive multi-channel lead generation strategy and getting qualified leads can be a challenge for a small business, for obvious reasons: principally, it takes time and money.

One option to streamline the process is to buy leads from a lead generation database. An extensive database will give you relevant contact information at which to target your campaigns and could cost your anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month.

The problem with this approach is that it's limited; it simply provides you with contact information, but doesn't necessarily help you increase sales or develop a serious lead generation or marketing strategy. What's more, most databases go bad every year, so the information you buy won't be 100% accurate.

A lead generation agency, however, will provide a much deeper service. They will work personally with you to establish your buyer persona and target market, analyze metrics with proprietary technology, and may even develop a multi-channel lead generation strategy specifically designed to reach your target audience, increase sales, and build loyal customers.

The best lead generation companies for small businesses

1. Leadium
   • Leadium is a founder-led lead generation agency offering expert top-of-funnel sales opportunities. We use dedicated in-house teams across five service pillars to achieve maximum sales growth: Strategy, Data Sourcing, GTM Messaging, Enterprise Technology Stack, and Sales Development. While many lead generation companies offer only email marketing and third party, automized tools, Leadium prides itself on the breadth of its expertise and the personal nature of its business; we specialize in increasing sales through focussed email campaigns, expert cold calling, LinkedIn B2B outreach, and a unique strategy of targeted corporate gifting. And at one of the most affordable prices on the market, Leadium is hands-down one of the best, most comprehensive lead generation agencies with which to scale your small business and streamline your sales processes.

1. HubSpot
   • HubSpot offers comprehensive lead gen solutions for small businesses, including CRM, email marketing, and content creation tools. Their third party tools increase sales activities and maximize ROI for your small business.
2. Leadpages
   • As the name suggests, Leadpages specializes in increasing sales through highly customized, highly optimized landing pages for your online store. While they won't provide comprehensive social media, email, or cold calling solutions, they market themselves as a stress-free search engine optimization service that'll help your small business drive sales.
3. SharpSpring
   • SharpSpring provides small businesses with an extensive suite of marketing automation tools, including lead scoring, email marketing, and CRM system integration.
4. OptinMonster
   • OptinMonster will help your small business increase sales through targeted website pop-ups, forms, and behavior-based triggers. Like Leadpages, OptinMonster helps small businesses generate more leads with 'low effort' third party tools, but doesn't offer the same range of in-depth multi-channel engagement as Leadium.

Choosing the right lead generation company and reaching your sales targets

Ultimately, which lead generation company you should choose depends on what you want to achieve and the amount of resources you have to play with. If you have trained sales teams looking to incorporate new AI tools into their marketing efforts, then a simple third-party tool could work for you.

But if you're a small business looking to build a comprehensive lead generation strategy in order to reach paying customers, increase sales with an optimized sales funnel, and reduce pain points with a fully-developed program, working with a larger-focus lead generation agency like Leadium could be your key to business success.

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