For any start-up, the hardest thing about starting and growing their business is finding clients or obtaining prospects. And, this acquisition can get difficult if your marketing budget is limited. Just having a great product or service is not enough, it’s important for prospects to find you or your store. To find and attract potential customers, you have to step up your efforts, you need to work on your lead generation strategies. In this article, you will understand how to get customers for your start-up.
What Is A Target Audience?
The target audience in marketing refers to those people who are most likely to be interested in the products or services of a business. The most common demographics that businesses look at when arriving at their target audience include location, gender, age, income, qualification, marital status, etc. There is no audience that is the same for all companies – the target audience for each business differs. Discovering your target audience in itself is an activity that you need to carry out by conducting plenty of research. The research could involve, for example, finding out the requirements or pain points addressed by your product, analyzing your competitors, gathering behavioral insights of your existing customers, etc.
It is highly unlikely that any business will have just one set of user persona as its target audience – the more your will research, the more you will discover! And, those businesses that sell more than a single product or service, will certainly have multiple target audiences. Understanding target audience insights can enable a business to effectively customize its digital as well as traditional marketing campaigns.
What Is Lead Generation?
When people show interest in your business by taking some action, they are then also comfortable in sharing their contact details. The campaign or initiative introduced by a business that attracts an action is called the lead generation strategy. A lead is one who shows interest in your brand that is expressed by some of their actions And a lead generation strategy is implemented by marketers to attract interested prospects and convert them into leads.
A lead could demonstrate their interest in your business in different ways, for example, by attending your webinar, or downloading a free guide offered by you, signing up for your newsletter, and so on. Leads that have s engaged with your business website mean that they have given you permission to contact and interact with them – they can be safely considered now to be part of your sales funnel! There are different lead generation strategies by which a start-up can find its customers. In the following section, we will see how a start-up can find its customers using effective lead generation strategies.
Effective Lead Generation Strategies For Start-Ups To Find Their Customers
A lead generation process involves the filling of your sales funnels with those people who have shown interest in your business. This process that induces someone to give their permission to contact them, or to re-market them is your lead generation tactic. Let’s discuss ahead some of the most effective lead generation strategies for a start-up that can fill their sales funnel with prospects or potential customers.
Create Opt-in Opportunities
To begin with, an opt-in is consent given by web surfers by filling up a form displayed by business websites. It acknowledges interest by the visitor in the product or service and authorizes the business to contact them with further information. Webinars, free statistical or financial reports, free e-books, and live demos are some of the ways in which you can induce visitors. Don’t stop with just one or two opt-ins, you may further convert your blog posts into an opt-in page by giving away PDF formats, worksheets, or resource guides.
Create Perfect Landing Pages
A landing page in digital marketing consists of a standalone web page. It is specifically created for a marketing campaign. It is this web page that a visitor lands on after they click a link in the email they receive or click ads on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. If your Pay Per Click (PPC) ad is related to an offer or specific product, directing visitors to your main website can be confusing. That’s the main reason why a separate page, called the landing page is designed keeping in mind the particular journey. This technique which is very much needed, if implemented well can help to guide visitors straight to their destination.
Create Referral Schemes
A start-up can grow its business further by retaining its existing customers, engaging and interacting with them, and then implementing a customer referral program. There are most likely to be existing customers or people you know who like your product or service. And, asking these customers for references by introducing a referral scheme can be a great idea. Word-of-mouth advertising cannot be done away with and is still a force to be reckoned with. Referral schemes can be a great source for any start-up strong to generate their leads.
Initiate Content Marketing
You may have a great product or service, but if not marketed properly, how will you have customers? Content holds the key, and should never be ignored – it can enable you to showcase or highlight your product or service. A blog, a Facebook page, or other social media channels are great channels to communicate and share content with your audience. These channels should form the backbone of your start-up – remember, leads generated via content marketing can be gainful as it comes from a qualified source.
Re-market
It’s believed that more than 90 percent of visitors will leave your landing page without getting converted. Re-marketing your efforts can help turn abandoners into leads! It should be noted that re-marketing by pushing yourself in front of your audience again, can enable you to amplify the effect of all other start-up campaigns – be it content marketing, or social media marketing, etc. Re-marketing can also be referred to as re-targeting. It involves the serving of targeted ads to an audience who has already visited or has taken some action. To cite an example, if a user has abandoned a cart without purchasing, using the re-marketing approach, when the same product is displayed to the user again –who knows, it could very well work this time – and it does work!
Using Ready Databases
For any start-up company, the need of the hour is obtaining qualified leads – the ones that can move effortlessly in their sales cycle. However, the problem with many start-ups is that due to a lack of knowledge of the lead generation process, they fail to prepare the data list that is so necessary for their digital marketing team to run various campaigns to grow sales. In such a scenario, buying a readily available database or email list or phone list from a reputed data provider can be a good option. Such databases are usually verified and accurate – it can enable your marketers to successfully execute their digital marketing strategies along with giving a smooth experience.
Role Of Database Marketing Companies
For any start-up, reaching their ideal customers is vital for their sales growth since they cannot afford to waste time. Most start-ups do not understand the importance of databases that are a collection of organized information that is easily accessible, manageable, and can be updated. Databases reflect sales transactions, inventory, and customer profiles. And, a start-up without a centralized database cannot think of tracking its business activities. Therefore, it’s essential to know the role of database marketing companies in making your business stronger.
There are several database marketing companies that can help you in implementing an effective database marketing strategy – the prominent among them have features that enable personalization and help in the measurement of your marketing campaigns – it includes segmentation, lead scoring, email builder & broadcast, and tracking, and enhanced inbox delivery. Some of the top database marketing companies and tools that can play an important role in launching your database marketing campaigns successfully include; Marketo, Hubspot, Adestra, and Oracle Eloqua.
- Marketo is an automation platform that delivers just the sales-ready leads to the sales teams.
- HubSpot is a popular CRM solution that’s totally free and has three hubs – Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service.
- Adestra is built to support large marketing broadcasts and is an email and data management platform.
- Oracle Eloqua is a B2B automation platform that is used to store consumer and prospect information.
As seen so far, database marketing enables marketers to generate relevant messages to existing customers and prospects. Several benefits are associated with database marketing – it allows customer segmentation, prioritizes valuable accounts, predicts customer behavior, enables us to gather feedback, keeps your brand relevant, and helps in customer retention. When done the right way, database marketing can indeed be an effective way to grow your business. But, for any database marketing, you require a robust database or data lists – generating in-house is time-consuming and unaffordable especially for a start-up. A readily available database obtained from a reputed data provider can get you started immediately – and, that’s what a start-up company expects to do.