5 High-Impact Lead Generation Strategies for Local Businesses

December 9, 2020 | 7 min read

Local businesses are against it. As Amazon dominates e-commerce and Walmart dominates the arena. Many local businesses are fighting for competition. An effective strategy for generating local leads can help you completely. While other digital marketing strategies keep in touch with the world, these strategies are more targeted and they allow your business to reach the exact market.

The five simplest, most effective and cheapest local business strategies are:

1. Use targeted Facebook ads
2. Create a local lead magnet
3. Run a local race or gift
4. Create a translated landing page
5. Go offline

1. Use targeted Facebook ads

With 2.41 billion users and unique targeting capabilities, Facebook is the best way for local business owners to find their people.

For example, let's say you've opened a new dance studio in Seattle. Let us know that it's close to Valentine's Day. Facebook ads will allow you to specifically target men in relationships in the Seattle area. Your message may sound like "Valentine's Day is approaching". Get her the best gift of all time!

You need to start attracting prospective students to complete these classes.

The main Facebook ads appear here.

There are two ways to create a list of Facebook potential customers:

1. Run an ad for the purpose of "converting" and anyone who clicks on the landing page of your site, where they submit their contact information using the form.
2. Run Facebook ads.

What is the main Facebook ad again?

Step 1: The potential customer scrolls through the Facebook news feed. They see your ad for dancing on Valentine's Day gifts and click on their call to action.

Step 2: The ad opens the form directly in the news feed. A potential purchase fills in their contact information. 

Step 3: Lead sends your information. This information is automatically sent to a pre-created CRM.

For example, what could be the main Facebook ad on Facebook Ad Manager for Seattle Salsa:

The best part is that the main Facebook ads work: WordStream found that Facebook ads convert people, which is 19.77% more effective than those Facebook ads that direct people to the main page.

Key tip: If you don't want to export manually, a leading Facebook ad is more effective. Instead, automatically add new leads to your Facebook ads to connect to your CRM.

2. Create a localized lead magnet

Creating a lead magnet - an incentive to market their contact information - is one of the main ways to build potential leads. The challenge is that if you rely on hell cuisine, your local business in Singapore does not need customers. 

So creating a common master magnet that attracts everyone is not a good use of your time. Instead, create a master magnet that specifically attracts your target market to your local area.

Some local lead magnet ideas include:

1. Complete property planning guide in your country
2. Complete guide to buying / selling / buying a house / apartment
3. A complete guide to buying a used car
4. Car preparation for winter.
5. Perfect trip / vacation / hen party / romantic travel guide.

The size of this lead magnet is up to you. These can be webinars, email videos or just e-books in PDF format.

Here are a few localized lead magnet ideas:

Using video via email is an effective way to generate leads. To do this, you need to talk to your developer to create something that pauses (or refuses to play) the video until potential customer information is sent.

3. Perform a local contest or giveaway

Perhaps the most likely way to generate local leads is to run an award winning competition in your area. Competitions are similar to lead magnets in that they provide a reason to provide contact information to a potential customer. However, in this case, it gives them a chance to get the prize they want.

However, holding a local contest or a free gift is one best practice that makes a big difference. Let's say you buy a gym. If you create a contest that gives you a trip to Barbados or $ 1,000 in cash, you will get thousands of potential purchases. Everyone wants a trip to Barbados or $ 1,000.

Remember that a potential customer who becomes a customer is not eligible to receive more than 100 leads. Like social media followers or blog subscribers. The number of potential purchases is a matter of pride. By giving rewards that are directly related to your business, you may get fewer potential purchases, but those potential purchases will be valuable to your business.

The local contest page is simple but effective. Some things to consider and includes the following local races!

• Countdown timer. The countdown time gives the campaign urgency. This has been shown to increase conversions by 332%. They work great in competitions because it's real. Your race will end at the end of the week, and if people don't participate, they won't be able to win.
• Name. The front, middle and top name indicate what you can win. Keep the price at the top.
• Cash prize. The value of the dollar helps participants understand what they can win if the value of your prize is not naturally understood. This usually happens when you leave a product or service.
• Farm fields. This contest does not require more than one name and email address. In general the best practice is not to ask for more information than you need to communicate with potential customers. More form fields correspond to lower conversion rates on a potential purchases page.
• Call to action button. Make sure it is high contrast and attractive to participate in this contest where there is no confusion as to where to click.
• No external links. This contest page is an effective landing page. As such, it is optimized for single conversion goals. This means that there are no links outside of this page that distract your visitors from this goal.

Don't know what to give? Some local ideas for the competition prize are:

1. Date night package especially valuable if you work with another local business.
2. Winter car package
3. Home attic package
4. Family photo session
5. Changing holiday themes
6. Fitness classes and fitness equipment
7. Product gift
8. Spa treatment before the wedding

You can see that social networking reaches your local competition or gift by adding sharing buttons that inspire customers to share their promotions with their network for more chances to win.

4. Create a localized landing page

If you're targeting multiple local markets or you have local affiliates, create a landing page for local areas to generate local leads.

For example, let's say you run a large Michigan business. You may have a head office in Detroit, but another office in Lansing and another in Grand Rapids.

Here are two things:

1. While focusing on local SEO, you want to show up when someone other than Lansing and Detroit writes Google's Grand Rapids Personal Injury Lawyer.
2. Create a campaign that targets these areas and you can use Facebook ads for this purpose, then send it to a specific landing page for your region and your colleagues or attorneys.

For example, the Cactus Club the Canadian Fine Food Chain page has been translated here. If Cactus Club were to show local Google ads, they'd better convert search engines if they referred people to the nearest affiliate rather than the public website.

For more information about Google's local advertising program, see the Google Local Services Ads Final Guide.

5. Go offline

It can be difficult for digital marketers to remember to look out their window. When it comes to marketing strategies, we have a superiority complex, and practical work with people is often overlooked in favor of a second A / B test. However, conferences and fairs can be a great way to build quality leads and relationships for local businesses.

To get started, here are some tips for building an offline leads list:

1. Choose a good fair or conference. It's suitable and you want to get a positive return on your visit as well as time to spend. We recommend choosing one or two as a test and then going from there if the business investment stops. For a comprehensive list of commercial offers by industry.
2. Select KPIs that indicate success. Are you particularly focused on attracting potential customers? Or are you looking for wholesale providers, employees, product reviews, etc.?
3. Bigger is not always better. Given the local competition mentioned above, it is better to hold a much targeted fair or conference as most of them are especially for local companies. Find your target customer or customers and go there.
4. Give the product Remember that this record is about local lead generation. Unless you get the cards or potential customers / sellers provide important information, you can spend your time and money. Provide incentives such as merchandise or discounts for contact information.
5. Follow along. Connecting to online leads is easier than connecting to manually generated leads. Before you open the door to an exhibition, create an automated email thread that encourages new leads to reach your business goal. For more information on local event and conference marketing.

Go and get those local leads!

So there you have it: five key powerful lead generation strategies you can start using today.

Repeat:

1. Use targeted Facebook ads to reach your local area
2. Create a local key magnet that is specifically tailored to your target market
3. Make a local contest or a free gift that will delight people
4. Create a local landing page for your brand affiliates
5. Go offline to generate face-to-face local leads

Sometimes it seems that the digital marketing strategy only applies to global cloud computing companies in Silicon Valley.

But they don't.

Your local business can succeed with these strategies, such as taking a mother-in-law from a Manhattan skyscraper.

Then start!