Best Lead Generation Tools for Small Businesses
Introduction
Small companies do not need the same array of software as an entire large company sales force; rather, what they typically need is something that is straightforward, cheap, and fast to install. Here is a detailed list of what works best for small businesses.
CRM: The Non-Negotiable Foundation
Before anything else, a small business will first require a place to keep records of its leads and any activities done to follow up on them. Hubspot offers a free tier of its CRM solution, which provides functionality for lead tracking, simple pipeline stages, and email logging, and can grow into paying versions as needed. Another option is Pipedrive, which offers the same features but has a better pipeline design.
Key Benefits
- Lead tracking that is centralized
- Pipeline management
- Organizing contacts
- Easily scales with your business
Website Forms and Landing Pages
For companies who do not have any developers on staff, there are options such as Leadpages or Unbounce which will allow you to create and test lead capture pages without much effort. There are many different website builders (Squarespace, Wix, WordPress with a page builder plug-in) that offer decent form/landing page capabilities built right into them.
Advantages
- Easy page creation
- Optimized lead capturing
- A/B Testing available
- No coding knowledge needed
Email Marketing and Nurture
While Mailchimp is a great choice and affordable one at that for basic automated sequences for nurturing leads for small businesses, ActiveCampaign is slightly better and more expensive for when the business grows to require more advanced automation based on behaviors.
Benefits
- Automated Email Campaigns
- Lead Nurturing
- Automation based on actions
- Budget-friendly communications
Local SEO and Google Business Profile Tools
Google Business Profile Optimization is the most cost-effective source of leads for a local service business since it’s free and the first item that customers look into when searching for a service. BrightLocal can be used to manage the listings and reviews in case of multiple locations.
Why They Matter
- Boosting local SEO
- Generating leads
- Managing listings
- Getting positive reviews from clients
Chatbots and Live Chat
Affordable chat solutions such as Tangram and Tidio along with many others enable small businesses to capture and qualify their website visitors instantly without requiring a support staff, sometimes at a much reduced cost than that of enterprise chat solutions such as Drift and Intercom.
Key Benefits
- Instant engagement by visitors
- Lead qualification is automated
- Faster response times
- Cost-effective customer support
Social Media Scheduling and Management
Using Buffer and Later can help you achieve cost-effective consistency on social media platforms as a genuine lead generation source for small businesses, especially those that are consumer-facing and local businesses.
Advantages
- Post in advance
- Consistency is maintained
- Time-saving
- Audience engagement
Call Tracking
For companies that generate many sales leads via the telephone (home services, legal, medical), a solution such as CallRail makes it possible to know where a specific call came from, something that would be impossible to know without one.
Benefits
- Track phone lead sources
- Measure marketing effectiveness
- Make better campaign decisions
- Spend money on the right ads
Outbound and Prospecting Tools
The product provides a genuinely valuable free plan for small companies beginning their outbound prospecting campaigns by combining contacts with sequence capability but without the expensive prices of enterprise solutions like ZoomInfo.
Key Features
- Contact database
- Prospecting tools
- Basic outreach automation
- Affordable pricing
Review Management
As reviews play a large role in converting leads to customers for local and small businesses, services that automatically request a review once the task/job is done (many CRM systems already have this built-in functionality) will help generate more reviews.
Why It’s Important
- Customer reviews
- Enhance online reputation
- Improve local search visibility
- Gain customer trust
How to Prioritize Spend on a Small Budget
With a tight budget, the best first move for most small businesses is:
- Free/low-cost CRM to have all leads tracked
- Optimized Google Business Profile (free, and usually the most converting local channel)
- Either landing page/form tool if current site isn’t set up to capture leads
- Email nurturing if there are enough leads to start doing it
Other tools like chatbots, call tracking, and outbound prospecting platforms would be good to add when there is a reason for that specific channel/bottleneck.
Common Mistakes Small Businesses Make with Lead Gen Tools
- Purchasing enterprise-level tools when the volume hasn’t justified the cost
- Bypassing a CRM altogether and using Excel sheets or email for lead tracking, which gets difficult as volume increases
- Overlooking inexpensive and highly effective methods (Google Business Profile, reviews) while investing in expensive ones
- Picking tools that do not integrate with one another, leading to extra effort that a small team cannot handle
Bottom Line
Small firms will most likely see the highest payback from using a lean stack, effective CRM, properly managed Google My Business listing, and basic tools for lead capture and nurturing, instead of developing an expensive infrastructure suited for enterprise sales reps. Additional specialized tools should be purchased only if it is apparent that they are necessary for overcoming a specific limitation.