Generating quality leads is one of the most important aspects needed in order to ensure that your business’s local lead generation gets boosted. This, in turn, serves as a catalyst for the growth of the business in terms of revenue. Being able to generate more leads can be difficult for any local business if the methods are not applied correctly and if there is no plan in place. This is why investing in a local lead generation campaign is far more important than you may initially realize.

The market has shifted, and it is truly a challenge to find better ways to generate leads as potential customers. Many businesses have tried traditional marketing methods to target audiences, like newspaper ads and yellow pages, which used to work in the past but are simply not as effective today. In this guide, we will talk about how you can break the cycle of lost potential leads using local lead generation.

What Is Local Lead Generation?

A lead is an individual who has shown interest in a firm’s products or services. Local marketing is the marketing of a business to local customers. This can be done through traditional means such as television, radio, print, and billboard ads. It may also include more modern forms of marketing like social media and mobile apps. However, local marketing also includes various methods that are hyper-targeted to a smaller geographic area in an attempt to grab their attention.

Generating leads can be the most important aspect of any business or organization, but in order to get a lead, you must first have a local marketing plan in place. This means you will have to understand the local market and be able to achieve relevancy with your potential clients and customers.

Online lead generation is definitely not a new concept. The internet has given thousands of businesses a much-needed boost to their online and offline marketing campaigns, resulting in the development of numerous online lead-generation strategies.

Local lead generation is a powerful way for small businesses to reach customers in their area, and it’s an important part of the business growth process. In this short guide, we’ll show you what local lead generation is, why businesses need it, and how to use it—with practical steps you can take today to start generating leads, as well as indicating the major pitfalls businesses can fall into.

What Are the Common Local Lead Generation Pitfalls?

When generating local leads, each business faces a unique set of challenges regarding the availability of sales-ready leads and the ability to find them. The common mistakes below will deepen your understanding of lead generation, help identify where you should pay particular attention to prospect cultivation and conversion, and provide insight into ways in which you can reduce the cost of generating local sales leads.

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when it comes to generating leads is not clearly defining their target audience. If you want to generate more leads, make sure that you’re targeting people who will actually be interested in what you have to offer—otherwise, all of your efforts will be wasted.

If you’re not generating leads at the rate you’d like, it’s time to take a look at your strategy. Here are some of the most common local lead generation mistakes companies make:

Not following up enough

A successful sale often requires several follow-ups with leads. The more leads you follow up with, the greater your chances of converting them into customers. It’s really hard to convince a prospect to say yes within the first contact, but it gets significantly easier once they’ve learned more about you and your product. Exactly how many times you should follow up depends on what kind of lead it is.

Lead generation and lead nurturing are both important components of inbound marketing and sales strategies. The idea behind lead generation is to collect new prospects’ contact information so you can market to them later on. While lead nurturing involves maintaining relationships with these contacts over time through email marketing and other content channels.

To succeed in either of these processes, you need to be able to follow up with leads—ideally multiple times—to avoid losing out on potential customers. According to recent research, it has been found that only 2% of sales happen during the first point of contact with a new lead. 

Follow-ups provide a chance for sales reps to build that trust and convince buyers to move forward. You see, prospects are more likely to become customers when they feel as if you and your company are invested in helping them with their problems. And that’s not something that you can project from an initial conversation or email. It’s your follow-up efforts that really make it clear that you care about the prospect’s needs and wants because the follow-up is when you take the time necessary to do just that: listen, ask follow-up questions, and address their concerns.

Going for the sale too soon

The biggest local lead generation mistake is going for the sale too early. Business-to-business (B2B) sales are more like a marathon than a sprint, so you need to be patient and strategic. It’s a waste of time (and potential sales) if you cut off your list of people at the bottom without connecting with them first.

In any sales funnel, “leads” are the stage at which a prospect becomes more aware of your company. Leads are aware of your company or product, and have initial contact with you. At this point in the sales cycle, your objective is to make an impression without being too overwhelming and qualify them as either having an interest in your product or not.

Lacking personalization

Personalized content is the future of marketing. In a world where customers have more control than ever, businesses must provide more personalization to gain their attention and convert them into leads and clients. From social media ads to emails, there are endless possibilities for creating more dynamic content that speaks directly to the customer’s wants and needs.

The world has become a much more data-driven place, and marketers are using this information to create and scale personalized marketing campaigns. Online sales have grown, not only because of better targeting but also because there is more online content available than ever before. People are looking for all kinds of products and services, and they need specific info to make the right decisions.

Today, business owners are spending more time than ever trying to increase their marketing return on investment (ROI). One of the fastest and most efficient ways to do this is by using a highly-targeted approach with personalization.

Not reaching out to enough leads

The harm caused by not reaching out to enough leads is immeasurable. If you have a small budget and only three cities available, you need to be smart about your time and efforts. You could start with one city and work on it until you get traction. Once you have some positive results, then you can expand into other cities and continue growing your business there.

Not having a clearly defined buyer persona for each target market segment is another common mistake local businesses make when creating their lead generation strategy. A clear picture of who your ideal customer profile is will help you focus on finding them in the first place, which will make your campaign more efficient than if every prospect were treated equally without considering their particular needs or preferences.

Local Lead Generation Tools and Channels

Local lead generation is the process of finding and converting customers into leads. It’s a key component in any business’s growth, but it can be difficult to learn how to do it right.

The first step to local lead generation is understanding your target audience. You want to be able to identify the people who are most likely to buy from you and develop a strategy for reaching them.

Next, you need to decide on a channel or channels through which you’ll reach those potential customers. There are many different ways for businesses to generate leads, but some are more effective than others at targeting specific demographics.

Another thing to understand about local lead generation is that it’s a two-way street. Your business can’t thrive without local customers—but equally, your customers can’t thrive without your products or services either. So if you want to generate leads for your business, then you should also be thinking about how your business can help other people succeed as well.

This approach can help you build stronger long-term relationships with customers (and potential clients), which will ultimately pay off for everyone involved. Local businesses want to know that they’re dealing with a company that cares about their success as much as they do—so make sure that’s clear from the beginning!

Think small when it comes to marketing budgets.

Local businesses tend to have smaller marketing budgets than larger corporations—which means there may not be much room left over after paying for product development and other operational costs.

Wingmate

As a service-driven business, you want to spend more time serving your clients and less time managing rigid software. Wingmate is a major lead capture app. Simple but powerful solutions to help service-driven businesses dominate their competition, retain their customers and grow smarter, Wingmate is one of the best ways to capture leads in the local market for service-based businesses.

Local lead generation is a time-consuming task, but Wingmate makes it simple to capture the right intelligence and follow up with your team. Our award-winning platform brings all your lead capture notes together in one smart tool that is accessible to every member of your organization.

Growing your business and keeping up with customer demands is hard work—and it doesn’t get easier by yourself. Wingmate is a tool that improves service, selling and revenue for service-driven companies. The platform enables your team to track new opportunities and intel at any moment in their day to improve service and sales.

Google Ads

When marketing to a local audience, being able to target people based on their interests—not just where they are located—is incredibly important. Google wants to make it as easy as possible for businesses to reach their consumers directly—and provides them with plenty of digital tools for doing so.

Google Ads provides marketers with an option for local lead generation where the ads that are triggered are in front of the people who would be your potential customers, i.e., local leads. 

Local lead generation is an important part of any business management strategy. These days, many customers search online before making a purchase. By learning how to use services like Google Ads, you can ensure that your company appears at the top of search results when potential customers use terms related to your product or service. 

Facebook ads

Facebook lead ads are one of the greatest social media advertising options available for businesses to collect contact information from people. When you use Facebook lead ads, then you’re able to upload this data into your owned lead management system so that you can nurture and convert these leads into customers. Learn how to connect with this audience and turn them into customers.

Facebook lead ads are an excellent way to generate leads for your business. They’re very affordable and give you the ability to target a large audience of potential customers that meet your demographic criteria. The best part is, with Facebook lead ads, you don’t need a massive email list to make it work. If you’ve been searching for the perfect way to build your database of clients and keep them coming back time and time again, then Facebook lead ads are exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Local SEO

Visibility has a big impact on a business’s success. Local lead generation is about attracting visitors who are more likely to turn into paying customers. Here are the top search engine optimization strategies for local businesses to get more customers from search engines.

SEO can produce high-intent leads that result in real business inquiries and conversions. SEO is a low-cost and high-return-on investment method for generating most of your local leads. Local businesses can build brand awareness, gain more exposure in search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase sales through content marketing.

Cold calling

Cold calling is considered one of the oldest and most reliable ways for managed service providers (MSPs) to generate local leads. It’s clear that sales reps who use this method consistently have better chances of making the first sale and getting in touch with prospects sooner than their competition. So, it pays to consider adding cold calling to your MSP sales plan.

Sales studies show that with just 18 dials, getting through to the decision-makers is possible. But in fact, it pays off handsomely. As entrepreneurs keep getting busier, prospects prefer approaches that are less intrusive and personal than cold calling turned out to be.

If you don’t have many marketing resources or time to get around to cold calling prospects yourself, you can outsource this task to telemarketing services.

Cold emailing

Cold emailing is a great way of prospecting business. It can be used to connect with prospective customers, provide them with information about your company and generate leads for your sales team.

Local lead generation is a great way for digital agencies to diversify their services and provide an additional revenue stream. The key to success is choosing the perfect clients for your offering and then putting in place a well-orchestrated program that generates a steady flow of leads over time.

Direct mailing

One of the most effective channels for generating leads is direct mail. It’s still a reliable source of inbound sales leads, and with the right strategy and execution can help your business stand out from competitors by offering something new, different and exclusive to prospects.

As a business, it’s important to ensure you have the right marketing mix or a mix of different marketing channels working for you. Direct mail has a number of advantages that make it an effective channel for generating leads, including direct targeting, high-quality leads and greater personalization in your approach.

Local meetups/conferences/peer groups

The most effective way to generate, qualify and nurture your local leads is by getting out of the office and interacting with potential customers face-to-face. Local lead generation is about building relationships and being present in your local community. 

Attending conferences and joining peer groups are often the fastest ways to learn about the latest trends in sales and marketing. The community is constantly contributing and sharing throughout its channels. These include meetups, emails and posted blog articles. But with the sheer size of these communities, it can be difficult to find out what you’re looking for sometimes.