Small businesses often rely on pumping a lot of money into ads, flyers, and other outreach strategies to attract customers. But predictably converting those prospects into leads after you’ve invested marketing dollars into them is where the challenge is.
Having no dedicated marketing department and fewer resources is the major roadblock here. But in this article, we’ll show you how to overcome that with a virtual receptionist. It’s more cost-effective than you imagine.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the process of nurturing and advancing a person’s interest in your product or service. When you take someone from not knowing about or having little interest in your product or service to full-on interest, that person is a lead. And having their contact info and other details is vital for turning them into a customer.
You can get leads (and their info) when they indicate their interest by filling out a signup form, calling your business with buying intent or engaging with your sales funnel (visiting your website and downloading a resource).
Generating leads like this takes a significant chunk of your customer acquisition cost (CAC). Besides building awareness of the brand, most marketing budgets revolve around generating leads and sending them to the sales team.
Small businesses may not have the luxury of this sales process and often encounter some challenges.
Common Issues Small Businesses Face With Lead Generation
1. Weak marketing strategy
Most small businesses don’t have the defined job roles and processes to run effective sales processes. One person or fewer than 3 people handling this can be overwhelming. Because of this, there might not be a clear pathway to stimulate interest in the company’s products and services.
2. Insufficient resources
A small business, by definition, doesn’t have a lot of resources at its disposal. That means limited money, limited time, and limited staff. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to have one person dedicated to lead generation. The best most can hope for is the admin head having enough time to run this as one of their daily tasks.
3. Targeting the wrong prospects
Not having a defined marketing strategy can lead to taking wrong turns, especially with the prospects you target. You can spend a lot of money on ads, content marketing, and outreach programs but if you’re targeting the wrong audience, that’s money down the drain. Besides a solid strategy, businesses need time to get to know their ideal customer.
4. Competition
If you’re in a competitive niche, such as legal counsels, tax accountants, fitness instructors, or home service companies, lead generation can be a hassle. You might have to cut costs and offer insane discounts to get people attracted to your product or service. One way to beat the competition is to put more boots on the ground and get your lead generation in auto mode.
Thankfully, there are opportunities in these four challenges where a virtual receptionist can help you. You can combat these challenges with live receptionist services and optimize your processes to generate leads for your small business at the fraction of the cost.
How a Virtual Receptionist Can Help With Those Challenges
Virtual receptionists sound like virtual assistants, but they’re different. While virtual assistants definitely help with lead generation, virtual receptionists have defined services that you can leverage for a structured small business lead generation strategy.
These services include outbound calling, appointment scheduling, customer intake, and more. You can use a combination of these to power lead generation. Here’s how:
1. Top-level customer support
Always answering your lead’s call is a big plus to your business. Being open and receptive always smooths the way down the sales funnel. And it’s an excellent way to show right from the start that you value your customers, which closes the window for your competitors to become viable alternatives.
A virtual receptionist service offers an inbound call answering service that you can use to build and nurture a relationship with leads and respond to customers with answers you’ve scripted. Virtual receptionists are always next to the phone, with a smile, and a warm experience for callers.
2. Professionalism and great first impression
Virtual receptionists are trained experts. With charming customer relations etiquette, something only big businesses could afford, they can represent your business in a way that wins you the admiration and respect of prospects.
3. Cost-effective addition to your workforce
If you were to hire a receptionist to help with lead generation and other tasks, you’ll spend several thousand dollars. Not to mention the office space, payroll taxes, allowances, training costs, etc. You can get a virtual receptionist for a fraction of that and they’ll perform just as well, if not better. You use their services as you need, not at a flat salary.
4. No more missed business calls
Missed calls most often mean missed opportunities, and another expensive lead out of your funnel. With so many competitors striving hard to meet their needs, customers know they’re the hot cake and won’t wait for you to call back.
Keep a virtual receptionist next to your phone during business hours. They can respond to those queries and take down information to convert those leads to customers.
5. Extra focus to run an exceptional business
Yes, business calls can be a distraction. Although this is a distraction that means people are interested in paying you money, it can pull you away from doing a great job on other tasks. If answering inbound calls is no longer your responsibility, you can free up your mind to focus on core business and win faster.
6. Lead generation on auto-pilot
If your business will benefit from consistent leads on demand, you can work with a virtual receptionist firm to reach out to a list of contacts with outbound calling. This will help you keep your calendar booked with high-quality meetings. That way, you can focus on closing deals and doing great work.
Do I Need a Virtual Receptionist for My Business?
Small businesses can seal the leak in their sales funnel by using virtual receptionists. Not only does that fix the limited resources problem as a cost-effective way to add job functions to your company, but it also opens up opportunities for higher profitability.
If this sounds great for your business, Contact us and get a 7-day free trial of Lakes Virtual Receptionist services.
