A quality lead generation system can help your business stay on the fast track to growth, increase monthly sales, and improve conversion percentages. An essential component of any business model, it can help you avoid those times of the year (or months) when sales may be slower due to changes in buying habits. A major goal for any business, new or established, small or large, is to continuously bring in a stream of quality prospects and having a go-to system for managing those prospects can save you tons of time and resource.

1. Create Customer Personas

Who are you targeting? Where can you find them? Which of your products/services will appeal to them? Generating leads begins with doing the research to understand who your target audience is. Zeroing in on them allows you to develop a focused marketing strategy that caters specifically to them.

It also helps you to create a sales funnel that, if developed efficiently, can making closing your leads a cinch, as opposed to one that leaves salespeople struggling with leads that weren’t really qualified.
Consider the main attributes that your ideal customers will possess.

Demographics: This includes your customers’ age, gender, income, location, ethnicity, household size, and other personal data.

Interests: This includes hobbies, personal preferences, online hangouts, sports, favorite brands, websites they visit often, and other places where you may find them online and offline.

Understanding how your target audience finds information provides an easy path to choosing the right channels to market to them.

2. Establish/Test Your Marketing Channels

Once you’ve narrowed down your target audience, its time to go to work. Your market research should provide you with the information needed to find out where your best leads are and it creates a great starting point for crafting consistent messaging that will make them take a look in your direction.

Create metrics for each marketing campaign and channel in order to see what’s working and which avenues may not be the best fit. Use Win/Lost Analysis to keep track of where the majority and your highest-converting leads are coming from. Some lead sources will have higher conversions than others, and by tracking this, you can prioritize your best lead channels.

Perform ongoing tests on your campaigns, and don’t be discouraged if one doesn’t bring in the results you expected-it’s just a part of the marketing game. If you’re a new business owner, you’ll soon learn that going off of gut instincts, as opposed to tested messaging and/or marketing channels, can lead to wasted marketing resources.

3. Streamline with Software

The days of flipping through phone books for leads or using excel to manage leads lists are pretty much over (well, for the most part). Every day there seems to be a new lead-management software on the market to help salespeople automate their lead capture and lead nurturing processes. Not only does software save you time from manual work, but it also prevents any leads from falling through the cracks. Features such as trend reports, automated responses, form builders, and mobile applications can provide you with convenience and easy data maintenance.

Regardless of how you generate leads for your business, creating and sticking to a reliable lead generation system can give your business the edge it needs to prioritize and manage your leads 24/7.