For a professional, networking is probably one of the most important factors. “Networking”, everyone knows it, but how well you do it; is the point. Networking plays a special role when it’s job-hunting time. Bad networking is a situation when you associate networking with being all pushy and bearing. And, some people tend to hide away from networking because they don’t want to be labelled, as some sociopath. What we are going to learn is how to be good at networking, and connect to more and more good people.
You have to learn that networking is an ongoing process, which requires persistence, patience, attention, goodwill, and networking skills. Incorporating the skill of networking can get you great opportunities and build relationships that will last a lifetime. In this article, we will talk about some tips that can help you be good at networking. So. let’s get started.
The best way to explain this: Networking is a two-way street, where getting to connect to people by knowing them better, can be a great opportunity where they might be able to help you and how you can help them in return. A professional networking event is a great opportunity to present yourself, make new connections, and even find yourself a new job of your interest.
7 Tips for Networking
Good Listener
This point is the most favourite because being a good listener is such a turn on to every person saying his/her point. Good networking results when you know how well you can listen and learn, and faster you’ll establish a valuable relationship. A good networker has two ears and one mouth and should use them proportionately. Listen to people’s needs and concerns and find opportunities to help them.
Follow Up Or Not
When you offer opportunities, whether it’s a piece of information, a special contact, or a qualified business referral, to someone who consistently fails to follow up, then you have to realize that you have to stop wasting your time with the person. One respondent said that when it comes to networking, “The fortune lies in the follow-up” and that many people just “Don’t follow up anymore.”
7 Secret Tips to master Networking
Be Yourself
Before diving into any tactical strategies, you have to learn that there is a pandemic hustling around the globe, which is clearly seen in behaviours. When everyone is trying to become someone who they think everyone will like, be yourself. Because, people enjoy talking to others, not spam advertisements or built-up personas.
Set Realistic Expectations
If you really want to shine, prepare to fail a lot and then rebound with double energy. Before talking to someone, realize that the person you are trying to connect with has some purpose. People cannot help you if you don’t really know what you want. These are the worst type of networkers — the people who only ask general questions without much substance. Come with a specific, concise question and you’ll find people are 10 times more likely to help you out.
Leverage Social Media
Whether it’s marketing or networking, avoiding social media is such a backlash. Ensure that your online profile is always up-to-date. Recruiters often use social media platforms to probe potential candidates, and even to check out your skills and experience.
It’s an effective way to get to know important and reasonable contacts. Seek out like-minded or key contacts you would like to know better within your LinkedIn profile. Hit a conversation with them, and try setting up a meaningful meeting. When you have the opportunity to meet them in person, it will be easier to refer to the previous communications with them. Ensure that your online profile is always up-to-date. Recruiters often use social media platforms to probe potential candidates, and even to check out your skills and experience.
Respond To Others’ Challenges
There’s no better way to establish a business relationship than to contribute to the solution of your new contact’s pressing problem. When someone is facing a challenge, then just help them with something of value that addresses their issue.
Be Approachable
It’s a fact that people easily forget what you said and what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. So, when you’re approachable, people feel comfortable; and when they feel comfortable, new, and effective bonds are born. That’s why effective networking always starts with approachability.
Skills That You Should Have for Networking
Communication
Communication is the act of exchanging information from one person to another. It involves speaking and empathizing with others to correctly receive the message that the other person is sending and responding accordingly. While networking, communication is essential in order to develop and maintain relationships with others.
Active Listener
Another important networking skill is active listening. To get people excited about your business and what you’re sharing with them, you need to listen to and understand their needs. Active listening involves maintaining eye contact, nodding your head to show you understand what they’re saying, and responding appropriately. Active listening also ensures you’re able to ask the right questions to keep a conversation moving forward.
Social Skills
These are the verbal and non-verbal skills that you use to interact with others. They include not only words but also body language, gestures, and personal appearance. It also includes friendliness, which conveys honesty and kindness. That, in turn, can create trust and understanding, which can build a strong foundation for a new relationship when you’re networking.
Public Speaking Skills
Public speaking skills can help you be more comfortable if you find yourself talking to a group of people, particularly at a networking event. Even when you’re just speaking with another person, one-on-one, public speaking skills can help you improve the way you articulate, helping the person you’re speaking with better understand you.
Non-verbal Communication
Nonverbal communication is extremely important for networking. It’s important to be aware of your own body language and any messages you may be sending to the person with whom you’re speaking. It’s also beneficial to be able to read the body language of the person with whom you’re speaking. This can tell you if you need to change the way you’re expressing your message or modify something else in your communication style.
Interpersonal Skills
These are often referred to as “people skills” and they impact the way you communicate and interact with others. They include a variety of skills, but particularly skills like attitude, communicating, and listening.
Empathy
Empathy refers to the ability to feel what another person is feeling. Empathy skills are very important for networking, as they make others feel that you understand and can relate to their emotions and experiences.
Positivity
A positive attitude is another important networking skill, as others are drawn to those with a friendly, positive demeanour. Positivity can help you develop a strong rapport with others quickly and, in general, help you to be more instantly likeable and memorable.
Humour
Humour is humanizing and helps people come together on common ground. When used appropriately, humour can draw people to you and eliminate tension, putting people immediately at ease. People with humour also tend to be more approachable.
Focus
Focus is also an important networking skill, as it enables you to give the person with whom you’re speaking your full attention. It will help you be an active listener and allow you to better establish a genuine connection.
FAQs
How can a business network be effective?
10 Effective Business Networking Tips:
Choose the right venues. Not every group of people will be right for you.
The article is contributed by Anupama Soni-Founder of Open Door Communications.
Face-to-face networking is on pause, relationship building is not. My love for stories makes me a natural net worker. I thrive on people’s energy and this is one thing that keeps me going. I love my daily interactions with my colleagues, clients and peers and you can imagine how difficult it is to go through my day in its absence. Do you find yourself struggling in this prolonged isolation like I did? Luckily, I found that it doesn’t have to be difficult at all. If you’re a people’s person or in a people-facing business/profession, here are a few things I’ve discovered that may hopefully help you too.
Make goodwill calls not sales calls
The collective pain has also raised the empathy bar, every communication you do today will have an impact. Let me use a personal example here to show you what I mean. I have a taken a Home Loan and I pay monthly EMIs towards it. A while ago I got a call from one of the company executive who thanked me for making payments on time and also mentioned that the interest rate I pay to their company is on the higher side compared to some other banks. She suggested, I should consider enquiring in the market for a better rate for myself at my convenience. Pleasantly surprised, I asked her if her company and superiors are aware of this call and suggestion, to which she said it was their management’s idea to educate their clients. Now it is a different matter if I transfer my loan to another bank at a later stage or not, but I do not think I will forget this gesture.
Use LinkedIn well
I can’t stress this enough. We must all update it thoroughly. I recently saw a very nicely formatted ad by a client that said “We are building enviable LinkedIn for our clients”. I thought it was a smart idea and since I am a communication expert and I found I had some spare time on hand these days, I decided to do it for myself. I can’t really put down in figures but I have seen a spike in new contacts, and I even managed to get a new project for the company solely by networking here.
Jump onto the Webinar bandwagon
I know the whole world is tired of hearing about webinars, FB and Insta Lives but there is no right or wrong in this time. It will help you connect with your customers and lots of relevant people. Some you will continue to stay in touch with long after! Trust me on this and thank me later. I have a buzzing new entrepreneur group and some are slowly becoming a part of my social group too. Not only that, I’m learning new things as well. For example, we partnered with a company in the NFT space, learning how it works and educating the media and people through various activities have been fun and the Metaverse world is really the future.
Approach new contacts
We often find our comfort in people we know even if we have brilliant bunch of contacts waiting to be approached, that in my opinion is the biggest networking mistake people make. We wouldn’t be exposed to new, will not have out of the box ideas and continue to get validation of our own thoughts if we sit in our comfort circle, drastically limiting our leanings. If you genuinely admire someones work, reach-out to them with a thoughtful note and ask for the advice if you are seeking one, most people are receptive! Let the silent not dampen the spirit.
There is nothing wrong or right here, we all are learning and people are more open to new ways of communication, so use it.
Go beyond business and build a close network
There is no right or wrong way to build a close network. Start with a large group, pay attention and proceed with care, and like they say – you will find your niche. I was a member of over eight WhatsApp social groups (people took permission before adding me) and I observed long enough to see the ones that made sense to me. I continued with only two. One has to be clear of the purpose a group will serve. My friend introduced me to a women’s networking group when I initially started my business. I joined hesitantly because I was wary of catfights and silent wars. This group however has changed my perception; women in this group are extremely helpful, laud you on your success, lift your spirit up and are forever ready for celebration.
My Instagram was strictly for my pictures and my thoughts. I have a slightly wry sense of humor and I am very mindful of that especially in the workplace but, since Instagram is my space, I experimented and to my surprise I have people coming and appreciating my stories and saying how they wait for new posts from me. It has become my happy place. I have observed how my personality has evolved and I no longer feel that I need validation.
So, while you do some of these don’t get lost in the virtual world. Divide your time sensibly. Get that sunshine and exercise. Use free platforms, be responsible, pay attention and proceed with care. Happy Networking!
A new year means a fresh start. Although this common expression isn’t totally accurate, the end of the year indeed urges us to reflect on what worked and what didn’t in order to make objectives for the coming year.
You’ve probably observed that nothing happens if you don’t do anything. Take significant action, put in the effort to get the outcomes you desire, and things will begin to happen. You must put forth the effort to get the desired results. There’s no getting around it.
The new year is an opportunity to rewrite the rules and quit settling for less in your business. It’s an opportunity to cast a new strategic vision than in the past, resulting in more success and progress in your business and your life.
So, if you’re still unsure about the year 2023, here are a few things to consider so that you may boss up and have a fantastic 2023.
Things to Consider in 2023 to make it a Successful Year
Tips to help you make 2022 your most successful year
Approach Mentors and Coaches
Planning and coaching are a successful mix for achieving your objectives in the new year. All entrepreneurs want mentors who can advise them and provide them with the necessary skills to succeed. If you don’t have folks like this yet, start looking this year; if you do, make an effort to maintain regular and meaningful touch with them.
Remember that a mentor can help you with everything from providing you sound advice to connecting you with industry insiders. A good real estate coach will work with you or your team to identify strengths, develop a strategic strategy, and overcome obstacles while staying on course. You’ll get the help you need to keep on track and reach your full potential.
Take Care of Yourself
If you’ve only recently launched your business, you’ve most likely overworked yourself. Try to improve your food and sleeping habits, as well as exercise and meditate every day in the coming year. Keep in mind that your health has an impact on your performance and that ignoring it can lead to long-term physical and emotional suffering. It’s no secret that many small-business owners work long hours. But how can you operate a company effectively if you’re exhausted and worn out? You, your organisation, and your personal life are all at risk of burnout. You must be in good mental, physical, and emotional health. Make sure you’re running your business in a healthy manner. We all have different limitations to how much we can work and different ways of dealing with stress.
Trying to jam far too much into the year is among the easiest methods to have a bad year. Setting ten realistic goals for a year and achieving all of them is much better than setting 20 goals, busting a gut all year and only achieving half of them.
But on the flip side, you don’t want to be overly cautious either. A year is a long time, and it’s perfectly possible to achieve many of your hopes, dreams and ambitions in that time.
List the strategies you will implement to reach your goals. To make this easier, break down these steps into small tasks and give deadlines for each one. By making the tasks smaller, they become less daunting and more achievable. And by giving yourself deadlines for each task, you make the action steps easier to organise.
Even the most seasoned entrepreneurs have been rocked by the economic crisis’s entrepreneurial tribulations. You may be doubting everything in your professional and personal lives, including your ability to lead effectively.
One of the most challenging problems that entrepreneurs face is being a good leader. Gathering support when morale is down, creating an environment that fosters creativity, delegating work, and thinking outside the box, and never losing sight of where you want your firm to go are all instances of this. With so many different leadership styles to select from, the leadership style you choose will have an influence on the culture and ability of your business to thrive. Communication has been a hot issue in recent months, and it will continue to be one of every leader’s most important tools in the next year. You’ll be shocked how far you can go with good leadership.
Learn New Skills
The finest leaders are noted for their ability to learn quickly. If you prepare yourself to advance in your career, anyone can succeed. You can never have enough information or abilities, and even if you do, you must continue to hone them in order to manage a successful business.
Entrepreneurship is all about putting in long hours. If you’ve struggled to meet your objectives, you’ve probably heard someone tell you that you need to work more. It’s not about working longer hours but rather about working smarter. Make it your goal to eliminate the major sources of distraction and concentrate more on your duties. Create a work plan that allows you to be more productive while also lowering your stress level.
Consider how you can incorporate a tried-and-true technique into your new strategy. Make a list of the habits and strategies that helped you stay on track and utilise them to help you achieve future goals. Reflecting on what has worked in the past might help you remember what you’re capable of. This is a fantastic approach to boost your self-esteem and motivate you to move on.
Breaking down your high-level goals into detailed to-do lists for each day will help you keep focused on the things that will make a real difference to your blog and will actually assist you in getting to where you want to be by the end of 2022. It’ll also keep you from becoming side-tracked by things that seem like a wonderful idea but won’t help you achieve your ultimate goals.
Start Networking
Whether it’s a new partner for a future project or a new consumer, networking is a terrific approach to developing business leads. It’s also a good way to keep up with the latest developments in your field.
Joining a business organisation is a fantastic way to meet and network with like-minded people. These organisations offer a variety of advantages. Aside from networking and relationships, these sorts of entrepreneurial groups may provide invaluable exposure, guidance, and mentoring.
An entrepreneur may assist you in determining what you’re doing incorrectly and how to develop and expand your company.
A successful entrepreneur is one who never stops learning. Make it a point to gain new skills, maintain your education, and engage in memory and concentration-boosting activities. Look for hobbies that pique your interest while also allowing you to network and improve your leadership skills. Similarly, make time for rest and enough sleep on a daily basis. Sleep is actually one of the most effective productivity aids available. You work more effectively, are more motivated, and get more good work done when your mind and body are rejuvenated. All of this will help you make 2022 your finest and most successful year ever!
FAQs
How to make 2022 your most successful year?
Here are some of the things to consider to make 2022 your most successful year in business:
Approach Mentors and Coaches
Take Care of Yourself
Set Realistic Goals
Better your Leadership Skills
Learn New Skills
Work Smarter
Start Networking
How to achieve goals for 2022?
Here are few things to consider to achieve goals:
Set realistic goals.
Make strategies to reach your goals.
Break down the steps into small tasks and give deadlines for each.
Generating leads and achieving consumer interest is not an easy task. According to some studies, if you generate more leads, but have an average product – you still win. This shows the importance of the best lead generation strategies for startups. 85% of expert marketers believe that generating sales leads is the most important element of the marketing arsenal.
However, only 42% of business owners have a proper plan or ways to generate leads online. Even though there are different ways to generate leads, not every marketer is clear about how to generate leads and startups need it the most. Since many people don’t know how to generate leads in sales, we have come up with 100 proven best lead generation methods and strategies for startups that every business owner and marketer must know.
Leads are potential customers who show interest in your products or services. Lead Generation is the process of attracting people from your target group to express interest in your products or services. So how to generate sales leads for your business? Leads can be generated from both online and offline sources.
There is no single method that will help you to generate sales leads. However, by using a combination of relevant methods and the best lead generation strategies for startups, you can surely ace the lead generation game.
Lead Generation Strategies
Talking about lead generation, there are mainly two types of lead generation strategies that businesses follow –
Inbound Lead Generation
Outbound Lead Generation
Inbound Lead Generation is one of the effective ways to generate leads for your business as visitors are brought to the company’s website or social media page, and then converted into leads. To attract customers or generate sales leads to a business’ website/social media page, marketers can opt for content marketing, social media marketing or search engine marketing.
Through Inbound Lead Generation strategy, companies target those customers who are already actively searching online for the products or services in which the company deals. Inbound Lead Generation is known to be one of the best lead generation strategies for startups as it holds good when you deal in products or services which have a high volume of online searches, and your brand has well established itself online.
How to generate leads for local businesses using inbound lead generation? Let’s check an example of inbound lead generation to answer that, So for example you are planning to buy an air conditioner and are Googling about ‘best air conditioners’. You found a nice article on ‘the best air conditioners to buy in 2020’. You read the article liked a particular AC and clicked on a particular link given to know more about that AC, which lead to a company’s website. Now on reaching the company’s website they prompt you to fill in your details to know more about offers. Once you fill the form, you are now a lead for the company.
The other lead generation strategy you can use is Outbound Lead Generation. Outbound Lead Generation is a lead generation process when you are blindly pushing business-related communication/messages to a target audience, irrespective of whether those persons are interested in your company/ the products your company deals in or not. Mass e-mail, cold calling, display advertising etc are some generating sales leads ideas and techniques used for outbound lead generation.
‘Outbound Lead Generation’ is the best way to get b2b leads and is also good to use when the products or services in which a company deal has very low online search volume, or a company is very new and has not established itself online.
The Lead Generation Process is not just about acquiring leads and generating b2b leads. From attracting potential customers to converting them into paying and satisfied customers there are several steps involved in the lead generation process. Generally, we can put the lead generation process into 6 steps mentioned below-
Step 1– Attracting your target audience through various ways to generate sales leads like content marketing, social media marketing, advertisements, banners, seminars, webinars etc.
Step 2 – The second step is when a potential customer expresses some interest to know about your product/services and communicates with your business by either filling any inquiry form, clicking on any CTA, through email or by calling the support team
Step 3 – This step is about qualifying the leads. This is how you generate sales leads for your business. Qualifying leads means evaluating whether a particular lead has the potential to convert into a paying customer or not. If a businessman or marketer do not qualify a lead, chances are that he may end up wasting time on a lead who is not capable enough to buy his product or service.
Step 4- After qualifying the lead, now we arrive at the customer engagement stage. In order to get free leads, businesses need to maintain positive communication with qualified leads, in terms of keeping them posted about new products, services, offers etc so as to help the prospective customers make an informed decision about purchasing the goods or services.
Step 5 – Through customer engagement, the business now brings the qualified lead to a stage where he purchases a product or service, and thus the lead gets converted to a paying customer. Many lead generation startups follow this method.
Step 6 – Once the lead is converted to a customer, a company should now take feedback from the customer and ensure customer satisfaction. And this is how you can generate sales leads for your business.
Add a Call to Action (CTA) in Your E-mail Signature
An email signature is one of the best ways to generate leads online is just a bunch of texts. Using of Call-To-Action strategy in an email signature can help to generate leads for your business and get free leads. It is always a good strategy and the best way to get b2b leads.
Put a Hello Bar on Your Website
Hello Bar is among the best way to get leads as it is a service for websites that lets you design messages for the visitors coming to your website. This will be the first thing which will attract visitors. The fact that random things cannot be written and posted on it makes it one of the ways to generate leads. It is important to take care of many things while creating a Hello Bar, and once thoughtfully created, Hello Bar can be among great ways to generate leads.
Host Webinars on Other Related Platform
Collaborating and posting webinars on other’s websites can have a fabulous effect on the business. This is the answer to how to generate sales leads for your business. Sponsoring and hosting webinars on own website can generate the required amount of buzz for the company is one of the great ways to generate leads online. It is, in fact, one of the modern steps of the lead generation process.
Pay with a Tweet
‘Pay with a Tweet’ is a company that provides the best lead generation strategies for startups and amazing tools to generate more attention to the business. People refer to their friends, family, and colleagues and they get benefits which can be in terms of discount coupons, free samples, etc. This is a great way to generate leads for your business as everything is handled by the company and you decide what is benefits are needed to be given to the customers.
Sign up form above the fold
Using the fold strategy for the website’s sign up form is much better as people will remember to sign up to the website. This is one of the main methods of how to get more leads. Above the fold is that part of the screen, which you can see without scrolling. This is one of the few lead generation strategies that will lead to more sign-ups and thus more lead generation and eventually, more sales.
Share Plugins on Thank You Page
A Thank You page is the page that visitors, customers or leads see after they fill and submit a form provided on a landing page or website; or after they make a purchase on the website. Many people ask how to generate leads online for free and this is one of the successful ways to get leads for your business.
Thank you page might be the last thing the visitor sees, but this is the stage when either the visitor have faith in the business or he starts hating it. But, if they are happy with the service they are more likely to share your website if they see a share button at the end.
Adding Share Plugins on the Thank You Page is great way for lead generation
Giving your visitor a free PDF of your post will grab their attention offline and is a popular way of generating sales leads. How to get leads for your business? Whenever a lead will read your downloaded content, they will be reminded of your website. This way, you are in their head even they are offline.
Free E-books
Offering free e-books by taking e-mail ids is the best way to generate leads. As per a study conducted in 2017 in North America, 65% of b2b businesses in North America uses e-book as an integral part of their content marketing strategy. Giving free e-books is also the topmost generating sales leads ideas will add some value to the life of your visitors, they will come to your website again and you will get free leads.
Free Online Courses
You can offer a free online course to your visitors against their contact details. This will not only add value to their life, but they will also spread positive word of mouth about your business, which will help you generate more leads. We find many edtech companies offering free trial classes, or some free courses to attract new customers and generate business leads.
Online courses as drip campaign
Creating online courses with drip marketing is the best way to get leads that will eventually increase your sales.
Periodic Newsletters
Letting people subscribe to your periodic newsletter will increase your email collection, advertise your website and in generating sales leads ideas.
Consider Adding a ‘Follower’ or ‘Like’ Calculators
If your site has a good number of followers, You can add a “visitor” calculator, “like” calculator or “follower” calculator to show how grown-up your website is, many lead generation startups you this method to get more leads. This is among the best ways to generate leads as it will increase the credibility of your website. You can find free and paid tools online which will help you design these visitor/ follower counters and generate sales leads.
Surveys and Tools
Many lead generation startups use websites like Typeform or SurveyMonkey to include surveys and other related tools to your website. So how to generate leads for it companies? After receiving the contact information from a website visitor, you can request him to fill up the survey form as well, which will help you understand your lead better. However, the survey forms should not be very long and the questions should not be too intruding.
Create and Share High-value Content on Your Social Media Pages
Create quality content and share them on your social media handles. The quality depends on the research you did for that content and how much time it can save for others if they directly see your content instead of searching it online.
Join Social Media Communities
Join some active social media communities and learn from those people as it is one of the most effective ways to generate leads for your business. In the process, talk about your business and promote it there.
Taking Feedback from those visiting your website or social media page is also a good way of lead generation
How to generate leads for local businesses? You can generate leads by using Quora, which is an amazing platform to build and grow your online business. It is one of the tried and tested ways to generate leads online, you simply have to answer questions on Quora which are related to your niche and also talk about the advantages people can get through your service.
Reddit Threads
Reddit is also an amazing platform to market your website and generate leads for your business. Once you join the Reddit community, you can post links, texts, images etc related to your business on Reddit and make people notice your business. This option is an answer to questions like “How to generate leads online?”, “How to generate sales leads for your business?”, “How to generate sales?”, etc.
LinkedIn Conversations
Connect with the people who you think can be your potential customers. Use LinkedIn messages to generate leads for your B2B business by targeting the right person. This is one of the best lead generation strategies for startups as you can create a good LinkedIn connection list.
Speaking at Events
Another great way to get free leads is to personally attend some business events and talk about your company. Public events are a great way to spread awareness about your business.
Collaborations with Co-working Spaces
Get registered for some good co-working places and try communicating and then collaborating with other people. Such collaborations will let you connect to a large number of people, who may be your prospective customers making it another best way to get b2b leads.
Search Leads through Web Portals
Use portals like Angellist to find likewise people who are easy to convince and become your investor or even customer. This is among popular lead generation strategies as there are many other portals, so find those who are relevant for your business and start connecting.
Pre-product Polls
Use polls to identify the need for the new product you want to launch in the market, making it the top generating sales leads ideas. It is better to provide what customers want instead of providing what you want them to buy.
Taking opinion from customers before launching the product is a great way to generate leads
Advertise the offers and discount on the new product before launching it, this is a good lead generation method. Announcing pre-launch offers can create a buzz about the product even before it is launched. Many real estate companies roll out pre-launch offers to generate sales leads.
Bundled Product Offers
Offer the relevant products in a bundle and give a little discount on them. This is an old yet effective ways to generate leads.
A/B Testing Everything
A/B testing is to compare two of your web pages and analyzing which one performs better and for what reason. A/B testing is one of the best effective ways to generate leads for your business. Then you can use the data to improvise the overall website. A/B testing is not only for websites but you can also use it in real-life by analyzing what people are buying more and then focusing on the same.
Crisp, digest-able, short video content
Short videos are great for marketing as they don’t eat a lot of viewer’s time and great way to generate more leads. According to Hubspot, today 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. While according to Insivia, Mobile video consumption increases by 100% every year.
Community-based Discount Coupons
Community-based coupons are great to target the same kind of people. There is a strong possibility that most people will like the product. It is one of the best ways to get free leads, as there are many popular communities across various social media platforms. Just search for them, connect to them and let them know about your business and generate leads for your business.
Live Chatbots
Live chatbots are the next things that will help to create leads. You can also choose to live chat with customers through your phone.
Referral Campaigns
Referral campaigns are to generate leads as they let old users bring new ones and earn from the same. This is one of the best lead generation strategies for startups.
Many people get confused with how to generate sales leads for your business, but one of the easiest ways is by updating your profile to grab people’s attention. For instance, you change the theme colour of your social media profiles. However, many times, this strategy backstabs. So, consult with strategists before making any big change.
Slide Shares
Presenting Slideshares can tell more than even advertisements, for some people. It is the best way to get b2b leads, as you can generate leads from potential customers or even investors by using SlideShare. Slides can generate many leads if you are into the B2B business.
Medium Blogs with CTAs
Just like answering on Quora, you can create a blog on Medium and use a Call-To-Action strategy while promoting your company to generate more leads.
Self-managed Community Building
Create a self-managed community that can fund itself. Then use that community to advertise your product. You can also fund them and generate some advertising leads.
Testimonial-driven Product Promos
Many lead generation startups use this method to collect some testimonial proofs about your product from your existing customers, and then show it on your website. If you have a B2B business, ask your clients to also share about their company so that new clients can check their growth.
Early Stage Feedback
How to generate leads online for free? One way is by adding some feedback funnels to your website and ask for feedback at an early stage.
Focus on Long-Tail Keywords to Generate Qualified Lead
Figure out what works for you, short tail keywords or longer ones. Short keywords generally have high competition. On the other hand, Long-tail keywords are easier to be ranked on.
Re-targeting
Re-targeting your visitors can generate more leads as you will be in front of your visitors most of the time with this strategy.
Lead Forensics is a B2B lead generation tool. It is the best way to get B2B leads as the company offers many tools for various uses. You can use the Lead Forensic tools to analyze the visitors and target them accordingly.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn has many tools that will help you generate sales leads. One of its tools is LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is a CRM tool. Use this LinkedIn’s CRM tool to build a relationship with your customers. It is one of the easy ways on how to get sales leads for free.
Use Growbots
Growbots is a company that provides a tool for B2B businesses and helps in getting outbound leads. Through Growbots one can reach hundreds of potential customers in no time. This is yet another effective way to generate leads for your business.
Hunter for Lead Generation
Use Hunter’s extension to find new emails which will help you in email marketing and is used by lead generation startups. You just have to visit any company’s website and click on Hunter’s extension.
Share Infographics
Become a guest writer for another website and share your infographics with the people on their platform. This is a cool way to get your business noticed.
Guest Blogging
One of the best ways to generate leads is by becoming a guest writer for blogs and share your experience and some valuable information. By writing guest blogs, you can reach out to a large number of people who are associated with those sites you are blogging for.
Social Interviews
Become socially active and attend interviews to tell people about your product.
Facebook Live Q&As
Go live on Facebook once in a while. It is a great way to interact with your customers.
Twitter Chats
Use Twitter’s chat feature to generate leads from your followers on Twitter. It is among the popular lead generation methods, as through Twitter chats, you can understand your customers better and can also let them know more about your products and services.
Unbounce is a company that produces landing pages for websites to get free leads. You can use Unbounce to create a landing page and test them to optimize the website, making it one of the ways to generate leads online. As reported by wsiworld.com in 2018, around 68% of B2B businesses use a landing page for generating leads.
Google Form-based Questionnaires
Create a Google form to ask questions from people and analyze their choice.
Searching Public Tweets
Search for public tweets with particular hashtags related to your company, and reach out to those who are talking about you.
Lead Generation by Joining Facebook Groups
Post in Facebook groups and let people know about you. Make it viral content so that everyone shares it. This will give you a boost in public leadership help you generate more leads.
Encourage Your Customers to Post Your Content in Their Facebook Groups
Ask other people to post your content in their Facebook groups. You can also offer some incentives for doing so.
Ask Customers to Post About Your Products on Their Whatsapp Groups
Ask and encourage your customers, friends and family to send your post to their WhatsApp groups. You can pay commission on the basis of leads generated or sales made.
Get Others Tweet About You
Ask people to tweet about your product to get offers and discounts. Many big brands follow this strategy.
You can comment about your product or website and insert a link in the blogs’ comment section and generate b2b leads. Make sure the blog is relevant to your product. People research a lot before investing in any tool or service for their company. So, they read as many blogs as they can. Hence, if you have a service-based B2B company, commenting on those kinds of blogs will attract your target audience and might convert you into a customer.
Use Instagram for Lead Generation
Post beautiful photos about your products, write a nice bio and make the most of Instagram for your business and this way you can get leads for your business. Read our article on ‘How to use Instagram for Business‘.
Free Demo and Trials
Let people access the demo or trial version of your product for free, this is the main part of any lead generation business model. Once your target audience gets a taste of your product/services the probability of conversion rises.
Facebook Events for Lead Generation
Find relevant Facebook events to attend, and leverage them to promote your business.
Product Hunt Launches
Product Hunt is a platform where users can share, find new products and generating leads. You can launch your product on Product Hunt and get yourself noticed by investors and other people.
Free Explainer Videos
Create and provide free explainer videos about your product to all the visitors. This will help them understand your products and services better.
Guest Podcasting
Invite people to create the podcast with you as it also is one of the upcoming lead generation strategies. This way, you will have more people who will listen to your podcast, thus you will achieve a higher engagement rate.
Keep an Eye on the Competitor’s Twitter Support Handle
Keep an eye on competitor’s Twitter support handle. You can generate many leads from there.
Keeping an Eye on Your Competitors Twitter Support Handle Helps You in Lead Generation
How to generate leads online for free? Try to get in touch with the followers of your competitors. You know they use your competitor’s product which means they are already your potential buyers. All you have to do is to make them try your product.
Try to scrape out the data from internet directories. Scraping can take a long time but is the best way to get leads. So, start doing it before starting your campaign. Read more on Web Scraping.
Reply to Other’s E-mail Campaigns
Reply to emails received from other people’s email campaigns.
Attending Meetups
Attend meetups held in your city or another city to meet and pitch your product to the target audience and investors. Meetups are a great place for lead generation if you are into the B2B business as they will help you generate business leads.
Check Other’s Twitter Lists
Use people’s Twitter list to find potential buyers.
Micro-Influencer Marketing
Micro-influencers are the people who have a decent fan following. Generally, the people with followers count between 1k to 50k are known as Micro-influencers. Approach micro-influencers to promote your products and the best way to get b2b leads. If you hire good and relatable influencers, it will definitely be going to generate a lot of leads for you. Read more on Micro-influencer marketing.
Get Your Business Featured in a Magazine
Get your business featured in magazines by attracting their attention towards your company. Contact the reporters if you received any achievement. You can also crack a deal with the magazine to get yourself featured.
SumoMe based CRO
Use SumoMe plugin for your website for conversion rate optimization (CRO) as it is best lead generation strategies for startups. SumoMe is a complete suite of marketing tools that will help you grow both traffic and conversions and automate your site growth.
Heavy-content FAQs
Provide a FAQ section on your website with your contact info and generate business leads. Because this clears most of the doubts of your visitors.
Publish a Chrome Extension
Create and publish your own chrome extension. Chrome extensions are one of the best generating sales leads ideas as they help to get into people’s devices and diversify your reach.
Content Re-purposing
Repurpose your old content with new data and post it on several platforms and is a good way to generate leads online. You can even give the old content a new form. For instance, if you have a research-based old article published on your blog, then you can convert it into an infographic and post it on social media.
Skype Interviews with Industry Leaders
Take an appointment and interview the leaders of your industry on Skype. Then you can post the interview video on social media platforms.
LinkedIn InMails Outreach
InMails is another LinkedIn’s product that is another way to generate sales leads. It lets you send direct messages to people you are not connected with on LinkedIn.
‘Feel Bad’ Pop-Ups
Use the “feel bad” strategy in pop-ups to get more subscribers. However, not all web visitors may like it so be careful about using this strategy.
Use of ‘feel bad’ pop-ups on websites can instigate more people to sign up.
Gift discount coupons to all the people who subscribed to your email list.
The Commitment Checkbox
Include a commitment checkbox on your website to make it easy to subscribe to your users.
Use of Commitment Checkbox in Website to generate leads
Removing Landing Page Navigation
Remove the landing page navigation to speed up the process and save the time of your visitors.
Create a Competitor Comparison Page
Create a page comparing your product with that of your biggest competitor. This way people will be able to make a better choice.
Branded Gifts
Give small gifts to your customers and brand them with your company’s logo. It is one of the effective ways to generate leads for your business as gifts are always a good way to spread positive word of mouth about your business.
Arranging Free How-to Webinars
Provide free webinars focusing on relevant “how-to”s and proving guides to the activities related to your product. Webinars have always been an important part of the lead generation process as it is the best way to get b2b leads.
Offering Incentives to Inactive User
Give free add-ons to your inactive users to get their interest back into you.
Custom GIF Publishing and Sharing
Publish custom GIF images and share them with your customers. They capture too much attention and everybody love them.
Subscription-Based VIP Memberships
Provide VIP paid membership to your users. This will help you to focus more on your target audience.
Hashtag Monitoring for New Conversations
Monitor the hashtag related to your product, on all the social media platforms to get knowledge about the new conversations that took place. You can also keep a tab on the trends and create content accordingly. Hashtag monitoring tools are available online and is the main part of any lead generation process.
Provide ‘Click-to-Tweet’ Option
Provide a “click-to-tweet” option so that people can directly share quotes from your article to their Twitter. This way your content is likely to be shared more.
IP Address based Lead Tracking
Use the IP address based tools to track the websites traffic. Then use the data to focus on the particular customers.
Use Exit popup to remind the customer when they attempt to navigate away.
exit -intent popup for lead generation
Strong Verb-based Headlines
Create headlines that have a strong density of verbs. This is a way which many tries to get the web visitors, take more actions while on the site.
Leverage LinkedIn Publisher
Repurpose the content of your blogs on the LinkedIn publisher. This will help you attract more attention to your business.
Email ID in Social Bios
Include the email address in the bios of your social media handles, so that interested people can contact you when required.
Create Co-branded Content
Ask other brands to feature you in their content and you do the same for them or pay them for it. This way you can leverage each other’s followers.
Content Shares by Influencers Using Outreach
Ask influencers to share your content on Outreach with all customers of their customer list.
Shared Google Doc Templates
Share some Google Doc templates with other people to connect with them better.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great way to generate more leads. It is one of the lead generation methods as influencers will share your product’s link with people.
Provide Free Excel Worksheets and Templates
Provide free Excel worksheets and their templates to your customers.
Create Lead Databases
Create lead databases to track and analyse the customer’s buying behaviour.
Free Consultation Sessions
Provide free consultation sessions to your customers and solve their problems.
Free Audits
Provide free audits to your clients. Many agencies offer free website audits, by taking e-mail ids from customers.
Conclusion
Connecting with more and more people and letting them know about your business is very necessary for making your business successful, and this article is intended to help in this very regard. “How to generate leads” is a crucial question for every business, and the methods mentioned above are some of the best ways for lead generation. If you are using some other ways to generate leads for your business, please let us know in the comments.
Leads are potential customers who show interest in your products or services. Lead Generation is the process of attracting people from your target group to express interest in your products or services.
What are the types of lead generation?
There are mainly two types of lead generation strategies that businesses follow –
Inbound Lead Generation and Outbound Lead Generation.
What is Lead Forensics?
Lead Forensics is a B2B lead generation tool.
What is Growbots?
Growbots is a company that provides a tool for B2B businesses and helps in getting outbound leads.
How do I generate Google leads?
To increase site traffic and generate more leads from Google Ads, keep tweaking your campaigns and trying new strategies.
Often big companies and celebrities are seen with their own personal brands. It’s “personal branding” and it refers mostly to establishing and promoting what you stand for. If it’s your personal brand then it has to be sure the unique combination of skills and experiences that enhances it even more. There has to be the best way to do personal branding so that your work promotes your brand.
Personal Branding is a way of establishing and promoting what you actually stand for, who you are, the values you embrace, and the way in which you express those values. Because, if it’s your personal brand then it has to be sure the unique combination of skills and experiences that enhances it even more. This type of effective branding can make you different from other professionals in your sector.
Apple challenged the world to “Think Different.” Nike encouraged people, regardless of age, gender, or physical fitness level, to “Just Do It.” Dunkin’ Donuts persuaded busy professionals that “America Runs on Dunkin’.”
If we do a quick search to observe how individuals around the world are actually using new tools to craft personal brands. And, so we can see that is what attracts countless people to their websites and big social media profiles.
Now, it’s crystal clear that the biggest tactic is to know exactly where to spend your time to get the results you’ve been chasing for.
Personal Brand
Why Personal Branding Matters?
Some people dismiss the whole process of branding themselves, as being time-consuming, or not that efficient. When it comes to building a personal brand, you have to devote time and energy to personal branding. Your personal brand should highlight your strengths, establish a reputation, build trust among employees, and communicate the unique attributes that you bring to your current industry.
“More than half of employers won’t hire potential candidates without some sort of online presence today.” – CARRIER BUILDERS
Whatever your age or professional achievements maybe, someone is always screening you online. What they observe can have major implications for your professional and well being. So, if you aren’t properly managing your online reputation, then you are actively losing out on upcoming business opportunities. Never lose out on an interview because that’s something you can control- like your personal brand.
Someone is always screening you online.
What Could A Brand Be Nowadays Like?
If someone asks you about a popular brand, then it’s obvious that you are going to say a popular brand like Apple, Samsung, or McDonald. A brand can be anything nowadays, so even as an individual, you have a personal brand.
What’s your personal brand going to be like or you have a brand that exists online and offline both, but isn’t performing that well. Fortunately, there are a lot of best tools and resources that might help you with the whole process of personal branding. While the specific unavoidable circumstances and goals vary person-to-person. But, the overall concepts and processes are still relevant to everyone.
How to build your Personal Brand?
The idea of personal branding makes most people uncomfortable due to a lot of hard-work involved both online and offline. But, if you don’t take control of your personal brand online, then you are obviously going to miss out on opportunities and let others control your narrative.
Building a personal brand might sound like a challenging task, and it is for sure, but there are incremental steps you can take to build credibility in your field. Below there are personal branding tips that are going to help you create an authentic personal brand- and catalyze your career in the process.
Best Ways To Personal Branding To Break Through A Crowded Space
1. Find Your Niche
The basic step to build a personal brand is to make it one that truly reflects your personal and professional identity. Pick something specific that you can do better than 90% of the world. Or, it can go like:
In which areas do I perform better?
What motivates me?
What characteristics others have that complimented me on?
Which role seems to drain my energy?
Which projects can I spend hours on without feeling nauseous or overwhelmed?
These questions can definitely give you a great deal of help because that’s what describes the different facets of your personality.
The niche selection process is really important! You don’t want to spend all the time and energy necessary to link your brand to a niche that’s not growing.
2. Inject Your Personality Into Your Personal Brand
Always think about what you are actually known for because the personal brand is more than the reflection of you are today. This method is what you personally bring to the table. It’s about you and ‘your ideas’ which will help you differentiate you from everyone else who is from your field.
Personal Branding Strategy
It’s good understanding your already existing skill-set and competencies but it will be best if you assess your strengths and weaknesses timely as they relate to your industry and career. By doing this, you’re going to unleash the latent skills and traits that make you unique.
3. Define Your Audience
Determining who you’re trying to reach is the crucial step. Is it an individual in particular? Recruiters? Entrepreneurs? Is it another industry thought leaders? The sooner you define your audience, the easier it will be to craft the brand.
For instance, if your goal is to reach out to recruiters, then you have to start with updating the Linkedin profile. Why? It’s so because 87% of recruiters use Linkedin to find high-quality candidates and 92% of recruiters use social media as their basis.
The design of your website should be impeccable because that’s what people go back and look at. Websites are the only one that tells everything real fast and what they notice should be unique. One thing to be noticed should be that they each have custom sites, beautiful photographs, and even their logo are eye-catching.
And for a shock why am I emphasizing the design and logo? Because according to one academic study, 94 percent of the first impressions were only based on design, and it only takes 50 milliseconds for that split-seconds actual decisions to get made.
There are some crowdsources which might help you with special tools to make logos and design. Professional designs are often what separates the ‘real’ experts from everyone else in the market.
A small piece of advice here would be that start small (in terms of funds) with a logo to establish that working relationship with a designer you like because when it comes to redesigning the website, it’s going to be worth their weight in gold.
5. Grow Your Online Presence
One of the most important aspects of personal branding is about making sure your online presence is a lot engaging to hire managers, co-workers, and employees. In the era of digitalization it’s important you realize that your story should match all platforms. Beware of separating your personal social media by adjusting the privacy settings, so that potential employees don’t stumble upon any information that could harm your opportunities of landing a job. Linkedin, Twitter, and many social media tools are of great help to define your brand if you manage these key points effectively:
Focus on key industrial skills because recruiters search for the roles they’re trying to fit in.
Quantify your accomplishments
Complete your profile with a professional photo
Highlight and build upon your industry expertise
Incorporate your personal brand in your bio and for the feed use hashtags
6. Ask For Informational Interviews
When there’s a list of companies you have always aspired to work for and leaders you admire from the industry, always consider reaching out to these professionals to ask for an informational interview. When you meet these high-profile individuals, then ask them specific questions that help you garner new insights about your field, for instance:
How do you see your industry evolving?
How did you break into the idea of industrializing your brand?
How do you stay up-to-date with the upcoming trends in the industry?
How are you going to transform your brand all over again?
Are there any trade or professional associations, I should join?
Informational Interviews like this not only adds to your knowledge but also help you to envision the ideal candidate to build a personal brand in the industry.
7. Embrace And Enhance Your Networking
It is so very important to network regularly and effectively to grow your professional circle. Connect with industry thought leaders and your peers from formal to informal networking events. Because it’s the whole of a chain, the more connections you make – the more value you provide to your interactions – the more is your personal brand is going to be recognized.
At these events, don’t be shy to fellow attendees to reschedule a meeting again for an informational interview or a casual meet. And if by chance, you weren’t able to attend the event, then just reach out via email and spark a conversation there.
First of all, there’s no such thing as a “self-made” successful person, and that too in a field like branding yourselves. They had had help from someone, somewhere, at some time in their life. You are obviously in the need of other big names from the industries to recognize your brand and ‘you as an expert’. According to a survey, 80% of CEOs in one study said they had a mentor by their side to help them early in their careers.
Even Tiger Woods, the most successful golfer of all time, has worked with a swing coach for almost his entire career. Almost all successful entrepreneurs have had mentors, to help them and they surely became the recognized experts, they are today.
In the process of becoming the recognized expert in your industry isn’t an overnight proposition to be made. It’s obviously going to take a lot of hard work and effort to reach the top. As the digital era changes transform, so does your career evolves, and as a result, your personal brand will shine like a star. You, surely, have to invest the time, money, and work to slowly break through a crowded industry.
And in the whole process, Never ever forget to reinvent your personal brand as you grow.
Personal Branding – FAQs
What is personal branding?
Personal Branding is a way of establishing and promoting what you actually stand for, who you are, the values you embrace, and the way in which you express those values.
What are the three keys to personal branding?
Authenticity Consistency Harmonic
What is the strategy for personal branding?
A personal branding strategy is a plan to take your reputation and career from relative obscurity to high visibility. It describes where you stand today and what level of visibility you want to achieve in the future.
WhatsApp Business, a sequel to the WhatsApp Messenger App /Software which incorporates basic sales, marketing, and business tools for small, medium, and large scale firms, was given a warm welcome to the world of telemarketing in recent times and has since converted from being just a simple, supplementary software to a majorly used app in itself. Here is everything you should know about the Whatsapp Business App which you may … or may not have heard of.
The WhatsApp Business has successfully introduced a virtual location for businesses as it simultaneously acts as a stall, a shop, a customer care agent, and lots more. It is important to note, though, that the self-marketing attribute leveraged to make the awareness and engagement of this App a huge success is one out of the five things you need to know about WhatsApp business which you, probably, never knew before now. Are you eager? Let’s move.
As a Virtual Service Center
Virtual Service Center
Consider this platform as your virtual service center where customers or clients would get a first-hand, top-notch kind of attention as they would at any of your physical outlets. A formal tone of communication, a remarkably reduced employment of smileys and emojis except you intend to make emphasis on appreciating a patronage or make similar reactions.
The CATALOGUE feature is your best bet for displaying your available goods to every contact on your list. You can save a considerable amount of data by uploading and re-uploading pictures and customer reviews on your status timeline.
While you may need to constantly refer your clients to your catalog to check out their preferences, it helps them to make their choices and decisions without the littlest of pressure from you, the vendor which may or may not account for an after-remorse later on.
As a Reception
The AWAY/GREETING MESSAGE is meant to make your clients comfortable chatting with you while you are away but as sweet as you would want your welcome note to be, it would be sweeter to make it as precise as possible!
This message should do three major things which are to Welcome your recipient, give a tagline about your brand and call them to state their aim of reaching you. An example could be,
‘Thank you for reaching out to the home of edibles 100% fresh from farm. Please let us know how we can help you’
As a Labelling System
The LABEL feature is a virtual assistance tool that helps you keep a track on your clients as it, the tool, classifies them on the basis of the payment status with you. This will help a great deal to identify your clients from each other even on the run whenever you fail to relate with whatever name their contacts are saved as on your device. It happens to everybody.
Labeling_StartupTalky
The labels help you to organize your customers into the following classes:
As much as we tend to keep personal records and tracks on our clients in the case of a physical outlet, this feature greatly helps in satisfying this need by employing different colors of tags which you will get used to and will be able to define at first glance overtime regardless of how confusing it may seem at the beginning of your journey on Business Whatsapp.
As a Privacy Check For Your Business
You can now have your private conversations separated from the business talks by installing both the Whatsapp Business App and the Whatsapp Messenger App on the same device but with linkage to different phone numbers. At your discretion, make the business contact public and the other private; this will help you maintain your privacy especially if you are the kind of person that would never think of joking with yours!
