Let’s cut to the chase…

in 2018 you want to grow your business?

And as a service-based business that means connect with and growing your lead list.

So what can you do now to start seeing more results in your email list size, community or personal outreach?

Incorporating more lead generation strategies into your business.

Now, this isn’t something that changes overnight, and in fact, for long-term growth and success, I would argue that it definitely should take some time to plan and implement. It is great to get an influx of leads tomorrow but where will you be next week if the quick fix doesn’t work again?

Lead generation is a long-term game. I like long-term games, it means that you can try, learn and grow rather than just succeed or fail.

If you NEED money in your business right this moment to pay your bills the best thing you can do is supplement your small business until it is consistent enough to sustain you. And there isn’t anything wrong with that. The need for immediate money can sometimes hamper your actual ability to grow your business.

Now if you are planning for your 2018 year of growth these strategies are for you!

My favorite 5 strategies are

• Create Lead Magnet(s) that connect
• Put Calls to action all over my website
• Design my site with the user in mind
• Engage and relationship build in Facebook Groups
• Leverage the Traffic Driving Power of Pinterest

Now I’m going to go over these in detail, each one of these could be their own post but for the purpose of this article I’m going to cover some of the basics (feel free to ask follow up questions in the comments!)

Lead Magnets that Connect

Having a download on your site for people to opt-in for is a great lead generation strategy. But just any old opt-in won’t do.

You need a lead magnet that connects your solutions with your audience’s problems in a way that they can understand.

This means getting to really know your audience, doing some research, testing a few ideas, and figuring out how you can make whatever your idea is unique. Because I guarantee you that someone else out there has done 25 Email Subject Lines as a download.

But what can you do to connect with your audience? Make it unique and memorable for them.

I’ll use me as an example.

Instead of 25 Email Subject Lines which is very generic, I would test out some titles along the lines of 25 Surprising Email Subject Lines to Promote Your Services or 25 Amazing Service-based Email Subject Lines to get your dream clients opening more of your emails.

Now the idea is the same but I’ve connected my opt-in with a problem my potential clients are having. Promoting their services or getting higher open rates on their emails.

Calls To Action & my Website Strategy

Another of my favorite strategies is putting calls to action everywhere on my site.

Spoiler alert! These aren’t always opt-ins or buttons!

Say what?

Yep, I want to constantly be inspiring my audience and user to take action.

Which could mean all sorts of things like…

• commenting on a blog post
• following me on social media
• clicking on another page in the user journey
• sending me an email
• scheduling a free consultation
• reading older blog content
• sharing blog content
• etc

The list could go on and on. I like to provide a variety of ways for my users to interact with me because they may not be ready to schedule that free consultation but they want to make sure they find me again so they follow me on social media, or they may have a question that I didn’t quite answer in the blog post.

Every person is different so I really like diversifying and not relying on one basket for all my eggs.

Design my Website from the User’s Perspective

This strategy is wonderful and can help you stand out from the crowd online.

My website is most definitely about me and is supposed to showcase me. BUT I approach the design and functionality from the perspective of the people who are coming to my site.

I’ve done things like analyze if more people are mobile users or desktop users so that I can optimize that experience.

Or analyze what social media platforms are driving the most traffic and to where so that I can make the most out of that particular blog post or landing page.

When I write my content I ask myself what would my audience want to know about this particular point I’m trying to make? Especially if we’ve never interacted online before? I want to make sure I’m not glossing over important information and that I’m being clear so that people can connect.

Engage & Relationship Build

This is what makes running an online business fun for me. It’s great to want to put out content and keep updating my website with new information but when I work from home alone it’s important to find ways to grow relationships with others in the online community and genuinely engage with them.

I try to focus on being helpful and getting to know people rather than connecting with someone so that I can sell them something. Mostly because I hate when people do that to me.

And you can totally tell if someone is being genuine or just trying to make a sale, trust me. There is a better way to do it.

This doesn’t mean that I offer up my services in these communities for free. I just focus on the relationship part first and then if it comes up that there is something I can help them with I make the offer. But it’s only after I’ve gotten to know them a bit and helped them out.

Leverage Pinterest

Pinterest is another long-term lead generation strategy because the content has a longer lifecycle on this platform. That means that the work you put into it now will continue to pay off again and again.

It did take some time, in the beginning, to get my new strategy set up but now I spend about 10 minutes a day marketing on this particular platform and I continue to see more and more results.

You want to make sure that you have identified your SEO keywords so that you can go through and optimize your boards, profile, and pins with these keywords. If you need a place to start your research you can do the following:

Search on Pinterest, for example, “content marketing”

Then review the boxes that pop up underneath for additional keywords or ways to make your shorter keyword into a long-tail keyword like “content marketing tips” “content marketing social media”

Do this for different words you want to rank for. I just can’t help myself I have another example!

If you are a wedding planner you may start out with the list of words like this: weddings, brides, wedding decor, wedding centerpieces, wedding design, wedding planning, wedding coordination

Type each of these in and keep drilling down into the keywords. This will not only give you a great idea for what your Keywords should be it will also help you plan out additional content to create.