Would you like to generate leads through your business blog? Successful owners of SMEs in Africa are continuously looking to expand their customer base and grow their businesses.
Business growth is a long-term and challenging process, though. The good news is that you can actualize your goals quicker by having access to a stream of sales leads.
Lead generation in marketing is the act of gaining actionable customer interest for your business’s output. It involves getting interested or potential customers, also called leads, to share their contact information with you. It is the marketing process of stimulating and capturing the interest of your target audience in a product or service to develop a sales pipeline.
Lead generation typically involves a customer providing you with their contact information for follow-up regarding your business’s products or services. It is a vital secret of successful SMEs in Africa because it allows businesses to nurture prospective customers until they’re ready to buy
Generating leads from a business blog
In other words, the lead generation process is the first step in moving customers through the buying process. Once you have the contact information, you can take the lead through the various buying stages. For instance, from awareness to interest to consideration, and finally, conversion.
Thus, part of finding new business leads involves structuring a marketing experience that makes it easy for customers to engage with your company. That been said, here are five great ways you can generate leads for your SME through your business blog:
Identify Your Target Audience
The first step of lead generation is identifying your target audience. The reason for this is simple: you can’t reach or sell to your ideal customer if you don’t know who that is. You must have a good understanding of your audience and what their pain points are. Creating good content that solves these pain points will pay your business because it will get your visitors to trust you enough to share their information.
So it’s essential to research your audience and come up with a clear picture of who they are and where they live. You also need to know what they like to do, how much money they make, their lifestyle and personality, etc. If you don’t already have one, you should also create a wholesome marketing plan as part of this step.
Creation of Valuable Lead Magnets
Offering free tools on your business blog is a great way to generate sales leads for SMEs in Africa. These tools are called lead magnets. Lead magnets are pieces of downloadable content that provide value to the audience in exchange for their information. The closer your lead magnets are to the contents of your blog post, the better. Your conversion rates will be higher because this is the topic your reader is interested in.
If you go into a post thinking only about generating leads, you’re doing it wrong. Think about your prospects and what they need. What type of problem does your product or service solve? Can you offer a free tool that will help users without eliminating the need to purchase from your business eventually? Imagine the questions they’re asking.
Find a pain point for your target audience that needs a deep dive to discuss thoroughly. Ideally, this will be a topic that requires several thousand words to cover appropriately at the least. Then create an excellent piece of content that addresses the issue and provides actionable advice on fixing it.
Format it all into an ebook, request an email address to access the download link, and add them to your list. If you hit the mark, then they will trust you. And when next they need something, they’ll know to turn to you.
Offer Your Audience Exclusive Content
Offer your audience free ways to improve their business but hold a little something back for those willing to give a little extra for more information. This means providing value in your routine blog posts, and at the same time, going in-depth with exclusive content.
The key to doing this right is providing value in your regular business blog posts. However, going even further in-depth with your exclusive content. For example, if you have an e-commerce website, you could offer your blog readers a chance to buy products at a discounted rate.
For example, you could ask readers to sign up for a webinar, listen to a podcast, or even join your online community. Or, while executing your email marketing plan, you could give discounts to those that subscribe to your business newsletter.
So if you’ve built your list of email subscribers, consider putting together a special offer. A special discount or limited time offer can effectively turn a passive bystander into your next paying customer.
Utilization of Search Engines To Generate Sales Leads
When your target audience searches for your product or services online, make sure they can easily find you. You must learn how to generate sales leads for your SME in Africa by tapping into SEO and SEM for your business blog.
Start by doing keyword research to determine what phrases your target audience searches for before purchasing your product or service. You can use tools like SEMrush or the Google Ads Keyword Planner to find search data. Once you’ve identified the right keywords, optimize your page content.
Using an SEO company can also be a great way to generate consistent leads if you’re willing to invest. Not every agency delivers the same results, though, so it’s essential to do your thorough research before committing.
Always Include A Call to Action (CTA)
If you end your post without any invitation to something, you are doing it wrong, even if it’s to leave a comment. You need to get your visitors to do something like download, sign up, click, read another post, install software, or subscribe.
Having a compelling CTA can help increase your company’s revenue while also expanding your customer base. Strategic calls-to-action (CTAs) can help you guide your visitors through the buying journey and directly impact your conversion rates. A compelling CTA will do wonders at drawing visitors’ attention, piquing their interest, and eloquently guiding them through the signup process.
A high-quality blog post without a compelling CTA is a lead lost. They’re already on your site. They’re already interested and engaged with you and your brand. So give them more. You could add a call-to-action button in the middle of your blog post so visitors who read 50% of your post will see a CTA. Just by doing this, your visit-to-lead conversion rate will significantly improve.
Conclusion
As a business owner or marketing executive at your company, make it a point to subscribe to industry publications and even competitor blogs. With the right topic, targeting, and call to action, your business blog can start generating leads for you. A better alignment of your blog topic paired with a CTA will only result in an even higher conversion rate.
All these will help you keep a finger on the pulse of your competition and open up opportunities to be helpful. Also, whenever you notice that readers have left several blog comments on a post that haven’t been answered, offer your insights in response. You’ll be amazed at how your extra attentiveness would go.