Local lead generation is one of the most sought after services by businesses. It refers to targeting companies in a certain city or region. For example, you might want to target:
- plumbers in North London
- real estate agents in Dubai
- dentists in Dallas
Different local businesses have various needs for the type of lead generation services which can help them grow effectively.
But not all niches value this service the same. There are some factors that determine the best niche suited for local lead generation. Some of them include the market size, potential growth, ticket-size for each closed lead, and the types of services provided.
Accordingly, you can choose one that you’re most comfortable dealing with as a local lead generation service provider.
What is local lead generation?
Local lead generation is a business process designed around developing and nurturing relationships with prospective customers in the local area with the objective of identifying, attracting and ultimately converting these customers into sales.
The key point to note here is that it’s based within a specific geographical area shared by small to medium-sized local businesses. As such, the marketing strategies used for local lead generation should primarily focus on connecting local customers with nearby product and service providers to maximize ROI.
Why offer local lead generation?
The key idea of local lead generation is to ensure they can be easily confined to specific geographical area. This would allow you to offer solutions that are very unique to the target market.
Benefits of offering local lead generation services:
- Less competition
- Better access to local organizations such as Chamber of Commerce and business networks
- Easy to identify potential customers
- Better local knowledge of what works and what doesn’t
- Easy to connect and build relationships with clients.
Which industries require lead generation services?
If an industry has local businesses that can benefit from leads brought to them from online searches, they are likely to need lead generation services.
Some of the most attractive lead generation niches have a few characteristics in common:
- Population size: There’s a large pool of potential end consumers generating high search traffic volume through Google or similar search engines.
- Average spend: The average spend from each end consumer is large (high ticket) justifying the need to spend money on acquiring new leads.
- Conversion rate: Higher chances of closing businesses with high sales values.
- Seasonality: There’s continuous demand for services and are not seasonal. For instance, local businesses offering snow plowing services are very seasonal and may not be the best niche to serve.
Some of the questions and factors that need to be addressed when choosing an industry to provide lead generation services include:
- Margins: Are the margins of underlying services provided by the local business high enough to compensate lead generation specialists?
- Customer retention: Will the customer return for the product/service if they’re happy with company? How likely are they to be loyal to the local business?
- Services offered: Do they represent a wide variety of essential services that almost everyone needs at some point in their life?
- Price sensitivity: Is the end consumer price sensitive, i.e. what’s their willingness to pay?
- Upfront costs: Is there any upfront cost for the end consumer? If there aren’t any, the conversion rates tend to be higher.
Depending on the answers above, one could determine if these industries (or niches) are worth pursuing in terms of offering local lead generation services. The next section looks at some examples that are in high need for such services.
Choosing the best niches for local lead generation
The table below outlines my own analysis of the different niches that are popular to offer local lead generation services. They are analyzed based on the factors explained above.
| Niche | Market Size & Growth (%) | Average spend | Competition | Continuous Demand | Margins | Services offered | Price sensitivity |
| Landscaping | $105bn, 5.1% growth | Medium | High | Depends on services offered | High | Wide | Low |
| Legal advisors | $750bn, 4.9% growth | High | Medium-High | Yes | High | Narrow | Low |
| Tradesmen | $1,294bn, 3% growth | Depends on services offered | Low | Yes | Medium | Wide | Medium |
| Homeservices/Remodeling | $345bn, 4.1% growth | High | Low | Yes | High | Narrow | Medium |
| Educators | $1,100bn, 4.8% growth | Medium | High | Yes | Medium | Wide | Medium |
| Dentists | $160bn, 2.4% growth | High | Depends on locality | Yes | High | Narrow | Low |
| Financial planners | $59.2bn, 4% growth | High | High | Yes | High | Narrow | Low |
| Real estate | $203bn, 3.4% growth | High | High | Yes | High | Wide | Low |
| Automotive Dealers | $38.1bn, 4.3% growth | Medium-High | High | Yes | High | Wide | Low |
| Chiropractors | $19.5bn, 4.5% growth | High | Medium | Yes | High | Narrow | High |
1. Landscaping
Landscaping is a great niche to work on because it’s expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 5.1% in the US across the period 2022 – 2027.
According to a Mordor Intelligence report, “newer households in the United States are increasingly inclining towards gardening and lawn care activities under landscape maintenance.”
This makes a great case for working with landscaping businesses who are going to have continuous demand for landscaping services. Most services offered are less seasonal except for more obvious ones such as snow removal.
The competition may be tight however, so it’s important that your lead generation efforts help companies rank in the top three in the Google Maps Pack to get traffic.
2. Legal advisors
Legal leads is a niche that encompasses the entire range of legal fields from traffic law to family, criminal, intellectual property law and health care. There are also many sub-niches that you can choose to specialize in a certain field within a specific geographic market.
In the US, there’s a high volume of litigation cases that take place per month and many lawyers who are waiting to serve them. As such, it’s just a matter of providing the lawyers the right marketing strategy to acquire clients who will in turn pay a large sum of money for qualified, successful leads.
3. Tradesmen
Though tradesmen and construction by itself is a large niche, you can easily narrow down to serve sub-groups too such as plumbers, electricians, roofers etc. The market size for each of them can be significantly large which gives you room to attract a sizable portion of local businesses.
The beauty of serving this niche is that there is going to be continous demand for these services from homeowners and commercial buildings which makes it attractive for businesses to employ local lead generations strategies.
Additionally, the average spend from homeowners are likely to be high making it a stronger case for serving this niche.
4. Home Services/Remodelling
Home services and remodeling businesses are in continuous need to reach their ideal potential customers. Their end customers, usually homeowners, are often looking to improve their home or sell it. With the highly competitive nature of the market, it is difficult to find candidates who will truly provide the services they need.
Contractors are always on the hunt for qualified leads that convert and niche lead generation is an ideal solution to connect them with the right clients. As such, investing in local lead generation is essential for contractors of every type to make sure they have the leads they need to convert.
5. Educators/Academic Institutions
Education and career training online are on the rise especially after the pandemic. But more so because of the flexibility these modes provide. It’s easier for many people to attend online classes because they work full-time, have a family, or are simply not inclined to travel far from home.
Yet, a number of people still prefer to take courses at brick-and-mortar schools. One reason is because of their flexibility in handing out grants and financing based on geography.
Local marketers should pay attention to this trend because local lead generation for educational institutions can be extremely profitable. Graduates tend to garner jobs that can support the school in turn, enhancing their revenue stream and long-term program stability.
6. Dentists
There are specific criteria that leads for dentists need to meet and therefore, they are always looking for highly qualified ones. One of the biggest advantages of targeting dentists is that the customers are more willing to spend money fixing their teeth. They are seen as more essential compared to cosmetic surgery.
Also, given the long term nature of the cosmetic dentistry procedures, insurance companies are far more likely to cover procedures and clients are more likely to pay what they owe.
All of this makes a great case for dentists to pay a high amount to acquire well qualified leads. It must also be noted that the market size of dentists is forecasted to grow at 6.4% annually (compounded) which is a strong positive indicator.
7. Financial Planners
This is an attractive niche to work in because almost every adult needs help with securing their financial future and very few have the means or capacity to do it on their own.
The market size for these services are continuously growing and more individuals are seeing the benefits of working with financial planners. They also operate a very lucrative business model where the end consumers are willing to pay a hefty amount once the financial objectives are achieved.
As such, financial planners would be willing to spend large sums to acquire these qualified leads.
8. Real Estate
When it comes to mortgage leads and real estate finance businesses, organizations of all sizes need solid local leads for new business. And by “solid leads,” we mean pre-qualified prospects who have the credit and money to do business.
The marketing process for these businesses is no different than other types of companies. In fact, those in this industry are more successful when they use niche marketing firms since smaller financial institutions are less likely to succeed with finding the right leads on their own with limited resources.
As such, using local niche marketing agencies makes sense for smaller organizations. It will put them in a position to compete better with services to a well targeted audience. They are likely to be motivated home and property buyers that have lived in the area long enough to fully understand the market.
9. Auto Dealerships
The target market for this niche are auto dealerships who would can provide a good reach to those willing to purchase a vehicle. There are a wide range of sub-niches that an agency can choose as well.
Additionally, auto dealerships are in continuous need for unique local marketing packages that offer enough marketing mileage to meet specific sales and marketing targets.
There are more dealerships that keep opening up and the market size will only continue to grow as increased mobility is trending.
10. Chiropractors
Did you know that approximately 160 million people in the United States are suffering from chronic pain? And over 75% of patients use search engines to find treatment centers and physicians.
If patients are looking for treatment centers and physicians, they will usually use internet search engines to find them. Medical practices that rely on a strong online presence can see an increase of search engine traffic.
As such, choosing chiropractors as a niche for local lead generation could be a great idea.
Final thoughts
This analysis should hopefully give you an idea on which niche you should initially consider. However, if you’re not seeing anything that resonates with you, you can always choose one that may see fit in your local area. You could also go through a list of local niches to spark any ideas.
What I was hoping to give you was a framework to analyze any niche on your own. Afterall, you need to be comfortable with the niche that you decide to work on.
