Have you built a great business? Good for you!
But let’s forget about your product for a minute. While your product is obviously important, it still doesn’t matter if you are unable to generate leads for your business.
After all, how will people love your product without even discovering it?
So, here’s the deal: people with more and more leads and prospects have an edge over their competitors.
Online or offline – everywhere there are people, you can find new prospects and potential leads for your business. The only important thing is for you to know who is your buyer and narrow the audience you are turning to.
Here we help you with 25 places – both online and offline, where you can find new prospects and leads for your business.
1. Twitter
Twitter has over 320 million users across the globe.
Apart from this, roughly 200-billion tweets are posted each year. This clearly indicated that Twitter is thriving and has a huge potential to tap in.
But, are all of the subscribers on Twitter relevant to you? Absolutely not!
It’s up to you to figure out the people and tweets that are most relevant to your business.
You can easily narrow down your search using Twitter’s advanced search queries.
Just go to the advanced search menu.
After this, you will be redirected to an “Advanced Search” form. Here you have to relevant keywords and other information to laser-target the audience in your niche.
Apart from the Twitter advanced search, you must also follow companies in the same vertical as yours to keep track of every latest information about your prospects and leads.
Related: How to find Leads and Prospects on Twitter
2. Linkedin
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn is solely for professional people. In simple words, it is easily the best social network for business.
LinkedIn has a lot to offer when it comes to generating leads and prospects.
For starters, you can try out LinkedIn Advanced Search to discover your target audience.
It will help you connect with your target leads and prospects at free of cost.
You should also gain experience by joining Linkedin groups in your niche. However, make sure to be an active member by consistency engaging with the audience in the comment section, and by posting your own content in these groups.
Also, you can check out the paid advertising by LinkedIn for more targeted lead generation.
3. Facebook
Although it is more and more user-friendly than business-friendly, Facebook could find you prospects through its many groups and paid ads.
Facebook Ads can be used to target your niche audience specifically. Once you initiate your Facebook Ad campaign, your advertisements will begin to appear in your prospects’ timeline.
You can also use retargeting ads to lure in the audience that abandoned your website after browsing for some time. If you keep reminding them of your product, they are likely to give your product another try.
Here’s a retargeted ad by J.Crew, appearing in people’s timeline who visited their website:
It is worthy to note how J.Crew is incentivizing their prospects to visit again and make the final purchase using a 40% discount code.
So, add an incentive along with retargets ads to generate leads on Facebook.
Related: 20 Ways To Use LinkedIn To Grow Your Business
4. Google
Google is one of the most popular platforms for lead generation.
We doubt there is anyone considering themselves a professional marketer, who doesn’t know the importance of Google. Knowing how to search for the right use of operators does miracles in finding new prospects.
From leveraging Google keywords to Google Adwords, there are so many lead generation tools by Google that can help you in your quest.
While Google Adwords help you automatically get discovered by your target audience, Google keywords planner tool will help you stay at the top of your SEO strategy.
Related: 5 Easy Ways To Find Leads Using Google
5. Pinterest
Pinterest is similar to Facebook in the importance of businesses. However, just like Facebook, it has its own importance when it comes to generating leads and prospects.
It is also worthy to note that Pinterest is a female-centric platform. Out of over 200 millions of its active monthly users, nearly half (45 percent) of all women online are Pinterest users—compared to only 17 percent of online men.
Secondly, Pinterest is highly popular amid millennials with a considerably high annual household income.
Now you know the audience that you can target on Pinterest. To use Pinterest up to its potential best sign up to their business account and ramp up your Pinterest SEO. Its features such as sharing content as well as searching for tags is not to be ignored.
6. Slack
Slack is basically a communication tool. However, if leveraged correctly, it can help you generate massive leads and prospects. You can actually use it as a hub where you invite influencers and people in your niche and share your content with them and vice versa. If they like your content, they will share it with their respective followers.
Apart from this, Slack can be used as a communication tool for the whole company. It makes it easy for the supervisors to keep track of the task their subordinates are performing. Slack also has multipe inbuilt bots that can perform various tasks for you like keeping reminders.
7. Events & Trade Shows
All sorts of gatherings, especially related to your industry, are the perfect place to establish new connections and pitch what you are selling.
You can engage with your leads and prospects on a one-to-one basis, and even get them to fill out the registration forms.
Pro Tip: At such evens, the key is to be specific. You wouldn’t want to pester them with unnecessary questions. Also, try to put every information you acquire about your leads and prospects into writing immediately.
8. Event lists
You don’t fancy socializing? Well, we can understand. Not everyone is a fan of hobnobbing.
Here’s a piece of good news for you: you don’t have to visit an event physically to discover new leads and prospects. You can easily find new prospects in the guest lists of events, instead of going there.
Use official guest lists, social network RSVPs, etc. Research the “I’m going” people and connect with them virtually on social media platforms or by sending them an email.
9. CityLocal Pro
CityLocal Pro is a popular business listing directory with a lot of visitors. Here, business owners can register and claim their businesses for free, providing an opportunity to get noticed and generate leads. Extra bounties can be obtained by using their premium services. The best part is that they continue to develop optimal solutions for their users – both business owners and searchers.
10. Email lists
A good quality email list can be massively lucrative. In fact, with a quality email list in place, it gets easier to get more leads and prospects.
All you have to do is to use your existing data to hunt down a bigger audience.
How, you’d ask?
It’s simple. You already know what traits your niche audience has. Now you have to use paid advertising platforms to target a larger audience with the same profile as your existing audience. Make sure that your main target should be the type of audience that brings the most profit to your business.
11. Magazine Subscription Lists
If you get your hands on such lists, they could turn out to be quite useful. First and foremost, these lists are always reliable because you can exactly know who has subscribed to what type of magazine.
It can actually tell you a lot about the prospects. Say, for instance, if you are marketing food for dogs, then people who have subscribed to a dog’s related magazine will be more inclined to buy your product. It is easy to tell that people who are interested enough to buy a magazine on that subject will have no qualms about buying your product.
12. Referrals
Don’t underestimate social contacts.
People are more likely to consider your product if their friends, co-workers, acquaintances, or family recommends them to.
You can also offer incentives in the form of discount coupons, freebies and more in return for productive referrals.
Apart from your existing customers, you can also ask your own friends, and colleagues to refer your services to the people they know.
13. Lead Generation Software Tools
Prospect and lead generation software tools have an edge over other places and methods — they are completely automated which saves plenty of time.
Most of these lead generation tools offer an easy way to find new prospects for your business – including all the data about them that you need – names, phone numbers, social media accounts and so on. Some of these tools even allow the users to directly export the leads and other details in the integrated CRM software.
14. Local industry meetings
Quite often some companies organize meeting for people in their industry. Sharing experience is great, but there you can find new leads and prospects too. However, it is important that you map out lead generation goal prior to attending the industry meeting.
You are likely to get better leads and prospects if you well prepared beforehand to increase awareness about how your product can help them out.
15. Online LiveChat
People love to talk about what they want. LiveChat gives them a perfect option to get their point through. Now it’s up to you to take notice and listen to what they have to say. LiveChat helps you to get closer to the audience without any hindrances in between.
According to statistics, 42% of customers prefer live chat compared to just 23% for email, and 16% for social media or forums.
In today’s fast-paced world, you can’t expect your leads and protects to wait for hours for your response. LiveChat allows you to respond faster. And the faster you respond, the more leads and prospects you generate.
16. Business Cards
Sometimes, instead of finding the prospects, they will find you. This brings us to the pre-internet era when business cards were most prevalent. That said, they still haven’t lost their potential.
The point of having a business card is that it should have some value. From its coloring to the content, everything should wholly resonate with your brand.
However, you have to think beyond the regular content like name, email address, and phone number. It isn’t going to cut out for you. Your business card should contain a valuable offer. For instance, if you are a professional marketer, your business card can include something like, say “quick marketing checklist”.
Also, pay attention to the business cards everyone gives you and try to make the most of that information.
17. YouTube
YouTube is grossly underused when it comes to lead generation despite the massive potential the platform has. People actually forget that more than just a video hosting platform, YouTube is a search engine in its own right.
The best part about YouTube is that your content remains there for a way longer time than any other social media platform.
And let’s face it, people prefer to watch visual content over reading tons of boring text.
With the fastest internet in the world, 80% of daily Internet users say they would rather watch a video than read a blog article.
So build a YouTube channel and start posting informative videos to attract your niche audience. Don’t forget to analyze the comments and messages of your viewers. And don’t just analyze them, make sure that you regularly respond to the comments.
You can also browse what your competitors are doing on YouTube and assess their comment section.
18. Discussion Forums On The Internet
Although internet forums are slowly fading away, there is still potential in them, especially in those, based on something very specific. Something you are probably selling. So, the chances are you are probably missing out on something valuable if you are avoiding them.
However, these internet forums can be inundated with irrelevant stuff. Therefore, you have to be extra careful to narrow down your search.
Use the search option and type in keywords that are relevant to your business, and mingle with the threads that are genuinely valuable. Also, the key is to actually participate in these forums rather than just being a mute spectator.
19. Newsletters
Newsletters can prove to be highly imperative if you want to place your brand in the front. For starters, offer a freebie or other attractive offer for people to sign up for your newsletter.
Now, once they subscribe to your newsletter, entice them to take further action. Make sure that your newsletter has a clear goal. For instance, some businesses use newsletters to grab eyeballs back to their website, while some people use them to introduce a new product.
You can find valuable and qualified leads using newsletters as the email newsletter readers normally spend 80% more time on the site.
Also, track the type of audience subscribing to your newsletters and analyze the results on a certain period and get what you can from it.
20. Tumblr
Not many businesses see Tumblr as a place where they can generate leads and prospects. It definitely isn’t a place where you can develop a serious business. That said, it still is a potential channel where one can find people in need of their product.
Have a look at this infographic that tells you a lot about Tumblr’s demographic:
This clearly shows that the patrons of Tumblr are young, hip and educated. Therefore, you have to create a Tumblr blog that the Tumblr audience responds to.
21. Webinars
Webinars, pretty much like offline events are full of people, talking about specific products and services. Better yet, use your Webinar to talk about something that is valuable to your target audience. Apart from this, make your webinar landing page extremely interactive and action driven.
Also, don’t forget that Webinars are not the place where you can start pitching your product directly. You need to establish some relationships with your audience to turn them into permanent customers.
Related: How To Generate Leads From Webinars
22. YELP
On Yelp everyone is looking for local business – products, services, whatever they have on their mind. So it is a great place to offer what you have to sell.
Moreover, if you correctly optimize your business page on Yelp, you are likely to enjoy an enviable position in Google search rankings. If not for Yelp, this would have never been possible without your own business website. Apart from optimizing your Yelp business listing, you must also promote it on other platforms as much as you can.
You should also focus on building maximum positive reviews on Yelp. The more positive reviews your product(s) get, the more leads and prospects will come your way.
23. SlideShare
SlideShare is, without any doubt, one of the largest content-sharing communities in the world. More and more people use it to bring their businesses to the prospect’s attention. With a great presentation, everything else is like a child’s play.
The catchphrase here is “great”. Your presentation should talk about something valuable that can be leveraged by your leads and prospects.
Make sure that you keep it simple. Present your information in a visually appealing way, that presents a laser-focused message, like this for instance:
Once you establish your authority and knowledgeable presence on SlideShare, you will start to see the influx of productive leads and prospects.
24. Quora
Quora is steadily emerging as one of the most powerful places for prospect and lead generation. It is a question & answer based platform where you can seek answers to your questions and also answer other people’s queries. Follow people in your niche audience and interact with them regularly. Answer their queries and comment on their answers with valuable insights.
Once they start noticing you, they are likely to get curious enough to check out your profile. Remember to add the link of your original website to your Quora profile so that your leads can be automatically redirected there. Make sure to keep your answers devoid of promotional undertones as it won’t bode well for your reputation on Quora.
Now, having said that, we know how difficult and time-taking it is to take out time to write valuable answers on Quora. Therefore, we suggest you repurpose your blog posts in the form of answers and add links to encourage people to read the whole post on your website blog.
25. Instagram
Businesses these days are keener to show their ‘human sides’ than ever before. Leads and prospects nowadays get more attracted to businesses that show their culture and personality rather than just the outer veneer.
This is where Instagram comes into play. People in huge numbers share their videos and images on Instagram to engage with people all over the world.
Brands as big as Microsoft are jumping the bandwagon to engage their audience.
Take this Instagram post by Microsoft for instance:
You must also use relevant hashtags to draw your target audience to your Instagram page. The best part about such posts is that people tend to share them in more capacity than regular, bland posts.
26. Reddit
Reddit is a social media platform where people primarily share popular links and information.
Engagement on Reddit is a bit different than other social media channels. Here, discussions take place in different niches called subreddits, where you can find people passionate about that specific niche.
For example, in a subreddit called http://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful people hold discussions regarding the visual representation of data.
Therefore, the key is to find the subreddits that are relevant to your business. Use the most appropriate keywords to search for the subreddits that interest you, then engage your leads and prospects by sharing your blog posts and other valuable content and information.
27. CityLocal101
When we talk about some of the best, well-reputed, and most reliable directories of the United States CityLocal101 is a must-have to consider. This directory is free for the common masses and its panel is extremely easy to use. You can find any nearby business using this directory. If you are a business owner you can enlist your business for free, get noticed, and can secure maximum leads.
They have enlisted some of the most competitive businesses, that for your ease are also sorted with respect to each state and category. This directory has enabled you to hire the best contractors from the comfort of your home. So, go ahead now, visit them, and get served by experts of the field at extremely reasonable rates.
Summing It All Up
So, these were some of the best places to generate leads and prospects for your B2B business. Finding a place is not nearly enough. You need to have a strategy in place so that you can leverage these places to their potential best.
Moreover, no matter where you are hunting your leads, the best way to do so is by engaging your audience and interacting with them on a personal level. So, try out these places to hunt down your leads and prospects.
Which place is best suited for your lead generation strategy?
I was never first on my leads and I found out it’s because my competitor is using Zuumlead. I’ve tried to beat him but it’s not possible. They only offer their service to one client per area so I’m out of luck
First on the list is Twitter and with good reason. The twitter search works pretty well for finding tweets and only somewhat well for finding accounts. But, if you need highly targeted leads and prospects, the twitter search won’t cut it. If you are like me and need to find very specific users, with a certain set of interests or job titles, you’ll want to use something more advanced: http://www.find70.com/?t=aero
Find70 allows you to search for twitter accounts using filters such as what the target follows, twitter bio, follower/friend count, location and whether or not they have contact info listed (email/ phone number), how active they are. It also let’s you define your own weighting formula for the filters too.
Thanks for posting.
Thanks for sharing your insights Pascal. I will definitely look into Find70.
Thanks for your insights Pascal.
It’s all about the data mining when you get to your source of leads. The better you can filter the better the result you’ll have.
Thanks for such valuable information.
Hi Angel, Thanks for your valuable feedback. We are glad that you liked our article.