Estimated read time: 8 minutes

Our team has compiled a guide to organic lead generation for small businesses. We’ll cover:

• 4 strategies to organically generate leads
• Investment requirement and ROI potential for each strategy
• Recommendations for where to begin based on your business situation

4 Strategies to Organically Generate Leads

In marketing, you must make a trade-off between speed, ROI potential, and upfront investment. Some marketing strategies begin generating leads quickly, but the ROI potential is low and the upfront investment is high. Other marketing strategies take time to garner more leads, but the ROI potential is higher.

Traditionally, organic methods of lead generation take a longer amount of time to begin generating a large quantity of leads and sales, but they have a high ROI potential. Upfront investment varies by strategy, but generally the higher the upfront investment, the higher the ROI potential. 

Source

Strategy #1: Thought Leadership SEO

Thought leadership SEO (search engine optimization), operates under the premise that for the vast majority of small businesses, there are between 50 and 200 keywords that, if ranked on Google, will deliver enough leads and sales to sustain and grow the business with a high marketing ROI.  

Traditionally, SEO refers to a technical SEO or content marketing approach. Technical SEO involves working on the website to ensure there are no broken URLs, slow loading times, updating meta tags and titles, and, in general, any website corrections that improve the user experience and the search engine’s ability to index the website. Content marketing entails publishing content that does not present your business as a thought leader in your industry, and in many cases the content is unrelated. 

In thought leadership SEO, we target keywords based on the commercial value. We focus on keywords that would be reasonably searched by someone in the market for your services and narrow down those keywords by search volume and the ability of your website to displace the current rankings. 

On our keyword map, our current targeted keywords are tracked and ranked based on their commercial value. Below, we’ve included a screenshot of part of our keyword map.

To learn more about thought leadership SEO, click here for our complete guide.

Strategy #2: Social Media

Perhaps the newest organic marketing strategy on the list, social media represents the lowest barrier to entry for organic marketing for small businesses. Social media marketing, on the organic side (excluding paid Meta ads or other paid social media ads), is the art of crafting content that entertains users and puts eyeballs on your brand. 

Once you have an audience, your business can use the platform to sell their products or services. One strategy to build your audience is creating viral short-form content as you may see on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. 

Many small businesses find lots of success with simple videos of their packaging process for shipments or quick segments giving advice about their topic of expertise. Other small businesses send products to influencers for review on their social media pages in hopes that the post will drive leads and sales. 

While this is not our primary topic of expertise, we thought it beneficial to include social media in our list due to the success many businesses are achieving. However, social media also takes the most time (generally) for a high ROI. More on that below.

Strategy #3: Referrals and Affiliates

Our third strategy is perhaps the best form of marketing any small business could implement. Referrals are the number one way consumers choose which business to visit. A recommendation from a trusted friend or family member speaks volumes. On the other hand, affiliate marketing involves promotion from other companies serving your desired customers. 

For referrals, your primary focus should be providing an excellent product or service, and then reminding customers of how happy they were working with you. This can be done through checking in with the customer during the lifecycle of the service or product use in addition to regular check-ins to ensure satisfaction over the following months and sometimes years. Doing this helps you remain top of mind and ensures customers will refer you to friends and family. 

Affiliate marketing is a common form of marketing with poor execution by many people. Affiliate marketing, in some cases, does not work if you are only asking people to sell your product in exchange for a commission. If your brand is not so established where you can acquire affiliates, you may consider offer to include a sample of your product or special offer for their customers who may also be in need of your product or service. Now, your business has provided genuine value to a whole new set of people, many of whom will in turn become your customers.

Strategy #4: Email Marketing

On our website, we discuss “traffic you own” religiously. The reason owned traffic benefits the small business lies in the repeat contact value. The average person will need seven exposures to your main marketing message before they will become a customer. With an email list, this goal can be achieved quickly and cost-effectively. 

In order to generate a list, first pull together old customers, active leads, and any other list of opted-in emails you may possess. Then, organically generate more emails for your email list leveraging existing web and foot traffic with a website request information form, lead magnet, or other promotion such as a giveaway or coupon where an email is required for entry. 

Begin by sending value-based emails educating them on the issues your product or service solves, then selectively send invitations to purchase your product or continue the conversation to become a customer. Repeated, positive exposure to your brand will increase your revenue.

Investment Requirement and ROI Potential for Each Strategy

In the table below, we’ve broken down the upfront investment requirement required to begin each strategy, followed by the amount of time needed to break even, and finally the ROI potential for each strategy. 

Breakdown of Upfront Investment

• Thought Leadership SEO: $3,000-$7,000 per month is what a reputable agency that dedicates the resources required for maximum returns for small businesses will charge. Price will vary slightly based on the size of the business and the scale of the campaign. 
• Social Media: Social media will require labor hours and potentially camera equipment and editing software to produce valuable content. A small business may also require a post-scheduling and management system. We’ve estimated the cost for a small business to truly lean into social media to be minimal in the case of simple posts to $1,000 per month for higher quality content. 
• Referrals and Affiliates: The upfront investment for these involves improving customer service and processes involving maintaining content with customers. If you are pursuing an affiliate strategy, this cost can vary widely depending on how much of your product you bundle with your affiliate. Expect to budget $500 per month to begin this strategy.
• Email Marketing: $200-$2,000 per month will sustain a basic CRM/email-sending software and cover any activities you use to generate emails. This method borders on inorganic depending on how it is executed, and budgets can become much higher if you choose to pursue a paid campaign. 

Recommendations for Where to Begin Based on Your Business Situation

Below, we break down several situations a small business may be in and give a recommendation for launching an organic marketing campaign.

Situation #1:

If your business is thriving, we recommend a combination of all four of the above strategies. Referrals will be the simplest to begin, followed by a comprehensive email marketing strategy for your list of old customers and leads. Leverage your current foot traffic or web traffic to grow your email list, and begin posting on social media to build a presence over the next 12 months. Finally, implement a thought leadership SEO strategy to improve your website conversions and generate vast quantities of new leads for your business. 

Situation #2:

If your business is doing well, but you would like to increase your capacity, we recommend a thought leadership SEO strategy coupled with an email marketing strategy. Thought leadership SEO can generate up to $1.5 million in extra revenue over the two years following its implementation, and up to $3-$5 million the year after that. This extra website traffic can be funneled to your email marketing campaign, which will help boost your results from SEO even further. 

Situation #3:

If your business cannot afford a significant cash outlay, we recommend a referral and affiliate strategy. Ideally, you find a few businesses that serve the same market and ideal customers, and then you offer to include a sample or offer to try your product or service with orders they receive from their customers. Now, you have added value to their business and promoted your own. 

Next Steps

At Focus Digital, we specialize in helping companies implement thought leadership SEO strategies with email marketing as a backend means of increasing lead conversion rates. If you would like to learn more, feel free to send us a message on the Contact Us page.