Whether you are a local service provider looking for immediate customers or a business aiming to expand nationally, finding the right way to generate new leads can make or break your success. While Google still serves as the backbone for many strategies, it’s just a starting point. Determining the best services for your business often requires a nuanced understanding of your goals, industry, and current market stage.
That means you need to stop simply throwing money at ads and figure out a data-driven strategy to grow revenue based on demand. To help you with this process, we’re here to explore which lead-generation services are right for your business.
Phase 1: Capturing Existing Demand
For many businesses, especially local service industries like plumbing or repair services, the first step is capitalizing on customers already actively searching for your services. This is often referred to as demand capture.
The Role of Google Paid Search
Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads are a valuable resource for enabling businesses to target high-intent users who are already searching for services or products. For example, someone urgently searching for the term “emergency plumber near me” is ready to convert into a paying customer. Google Ads allows you to position your business as the immediate solution.
However, getting the most out of this platform requires careful analysis. Tracking metrics like Search Impression Share and Click Share helps you understand where you stand in the competitive landscape. Are you showing up when customers type in key phrases? If your ads are appearing but not converting, factors like cost per conversion (CPC) and conversion rates on your landing page provide critical clues on where to improve.
Optimizing Demand Capture
To improve profitability in PPC campaigns, your landing page and website experience are just as vital as ad performance. A poorly optimized website could result in high click costs and low ROI because of poor Quality Scores on Google Ads.
That’s why it’s essential that you make sure your landing pages are tailored to top-performing keywords and align with user intent. To continue with our plumbing example, these services might need dedicated pages for “water heater repair” or “faucet installation.” Regardless of the service being offered, each page should provide clear calls to action, easily accessible contact options (like a visible phone number in the header), and fast load times.
Keyword strategy also plays a pivotal role. You’ll want to cover the essential service- or product-focused keywords, but don’t overlook long-tail keywords, which can target more specific customer intents. Blogging and other forms of organic content help strengthen your positioning for these niche phrases over time.
For local businesses, you should also leverage Local Service Ads and optimize your Google My Business profile. Positive reviews and accurate business details can enhance visibility in local map searches.
Phase 2: Generating New Demand
Once you’ve captured most of the existing demand through PPC or branded search strategies, the next logical step is growing your reach. This is particularly important when your performance metrics plateau or your campaigns comfortably cover your current demand.
Unlike demand capture, generating new demand involves creating awareness among potential customers who aren’t actively looking for your services but may need them in the near future.
Demand Generation Platforms
Unlike Google Search, platforms like Meta (Facebook/Instagram), YouTube, and Connected TV (CTV) focus more on reaching audiences through discovery. Ads on these platforms are tailored to generate interest, often through engaging visuals or emotionally driven campaigns.
For example, a local roofing service could use a YouTube ad highlighting common problems with aging roofs and offering free inspections. Meanwhile, a fashion brand might use Instagram to showcase its latest collection and drive engagement.
The challenge here is crafting content that creates a compelling reason for customers to click. Humor, exclusivity, perceived scarcity, or even subtle FOMO (fear of missing out) can significantly boost campaign performance, but like most things, these elements work best in moderation.
Going Beyond Paid Ads
Expanding into demand generation also requires exploring other avenues. A cohesive SEO strategy improves organic rankings and brings “free” traffic to your site over time. Unlike landing-page optimization, ongoing SEO efforts enable you to compete for broader, nonbranded terms your audience searches for during their research phase.
Email marketing plays a crucial role here, too. It keeps current customers engaged and encourages repeat business. Communication flows, such as welcome emails and regular newsletters, allow you to nurture leads while maintaining brand loyalty.
For B2B companies, platforms like LinkedIn serve as a powerful tool for targeted messaging and lead generation through professional networks. Promoting case studies or white papers often proves effective with these audiences.
Choosing Expansion Channels
With so many options, deciding where to focus your resources depends on your current data and analytics. Are you seeing diminishing returns with your current paid channels? If so, investing in demand generation may be the solution. However, if demand capture still has optimization opportunities to pursue, revisit your metrics first.
Tools like Microsoft Ads can help further diversify your paid search efforts. It might not offer the reach of Google, but lower competition can mean better CPC performance. At the very least, it’s something worth considering, as many companies simply overlook it.
Finding the Right Mix
Choosing the right lead generation strategy for your business isn’t just about blindly adopting every service available; it’s about identifying your business’s unique needs and applying what works best for it. A good starting point is to estimate your budget to comfortably cover both branded and relevant nonbranded keywords in PPC campaigns. If you’re struggling to see profitability in campaigns, the focus should shift to improving metrics like CPC or conversion rates before attempting to expand into new platforms.
For local lead generation, clearly defining a plateau can often be simpler since trends in search volume tend to be more stable. For national businesses or B2B companies, the decision-making process is more complex due to fluctuating market conditions and competitive landscapes.
Whether your goal is to generate more leads for your small business or to scale a national ecommerce operation, starting with PPC and letting data guide your next steps ensures smart resource allocation. If this sounds like something that’s beyond your company’s current capabilities, Logical Position can help. We offer a variety of pay-per-click management services, so you can count on us to put together a strategy that helps your business get back on track. Tell us your goals, and we’ll craft a custom strategy that gets real results.
