Capturing the correct type of attention from the right kind of audience can be tricky. The annoying phone calls and endless emails spamming our inboxes won't always garner the attention that you want for your business. But how else are you supposed to generate leads?

A lead, of course, is a person who generates interest in a company's product or service. Capturing the attention of customers is just lead generation, and lead generation does not have to be invasive nor obnoxious.

The first step in generating leads is knowing which leads are worth pursuing. In other words, understanding the audience you are catering to or the customer base you are trying to sell too. There are many ways you can segment the market; demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and so on, it depends on the sort of industry you are in, the way your own business is organized, and how large your customer base is. And often, you need to split your market base into multiple different segments.

But understanding your audience isn't just about segmentation, it's also about understanding your product and whom it caters too. You can advertise, cold call, send out emails, to the general public without discriminating to whom you are sending information out to, but by doing so you are wasting resources and time on people who are not potential leads or customers in any way, and by doing so you might even annoy the public to a degree where they have a negative view of your company.

That's why you need to know your customer base. So, who are these people whom you want to capture the attention of?

One way of doing this is by creating compelling content that isn't direct advertising for your product — in other words, blogging. Videos, articles, slideshows, and webinars are all great ways to capture new leads and gain trust. A person might be interested in a periphery angle of your industry, for example you make granola bars, publishing content on the best places to go hiking would capture the attention of people who eat granola bars, even if at the moment they weren't researching granola bars. But they would become familiar with your name without you having to use any blatant advertising. Or another example if you are selling smartwatches that track your health. Creating a webinar where a third-party specialist comes in to talk about the most nutritious diet and exercise plans would generate many leads from people who care about their health, therefore, would be interested in your product without you interrupting their lives.

Creating surveys and quizzes are another non-interruptive way to capture people's attention. Many people are unsure about what exactly they need, or what exactly their problems are. Surveys have become an excellent tool for consumers to understand their own needs, and for sellers to check out which leads are worth pursuing. Quizzes are fun for people to take and shed light on their problems. By creating a survey for all those unsure of what they are looking for in your industry, it's a quick way to find possible leads and build trust. It's also an excellent method to gauge potential interest automatically. At the end of the survey, you can add a checkbox that permits you to send them marketing material if they checked off enough points in your survey.

Email campaigns, unlike answering unknown phone calls, people check their emails, and might even be hesitant to unsubscribe if they see that they are getting generous offers. The great thing about email campaigns is how flexible they are and how much control you have over the process. Whether it just be a newsletter to inform customers, sending out surveys for information, or even promotional events to garner new interest and excitement. Email campaigns are a great way to exert creativity and control over lead generation.

With that same train of thought, SMS campaigns can be just as good. While emails have more space for creativity, more people check their phones, and text messages are less invasive and can be much more fun than phone calls. Send out surveys, quizzes, promotional items, or even games. Another great use of SMS in business is as reminders for events and appointments.

Connect with a community. In the end, while word of mouth isn't the most controllable way to spread the message about your services, it's the one other people trust the most. Become part of communities by building connections based on trust with active members of communities. With their endorsement, more people will be willing to try your service and even post reviews and endorsements through social media.

Another way to connect to people is through social media. This goes back to having interesting content, but social media has a secondary aspect of accessibility. More people comment on social media posts and complain about products through their social media. It's also easier to grab people's attention with a 280-character tweet than a thousand-word article.

Capturing the attention of your audience is essential. Sometimes it's necessary to go a unique and crazy route such Elon Musk by sending out a Tesla into space. No amount of advertising will garner as much attention as that stunt did. On the other hand, such actions can also bring considerable blowback, and often it's better to take a tried and true approach with a twist. The best way to capture the attention of your audience and generate leads is by knowing and understanding them. Are they young gen-z and millennials who are likely to be watching YouTube testimonials and scrolling through Instagram, or maybe older baby boomers who rely more on word of mouth and might find you through an article or cable ad? Are they tech experts who need a third-party expert to come in and talk about the industry and product, or maybe a laid-back group who want the cheapest product and will be more interested in promotions? The best way to capture the attention of your audience is to place the product where they are already looking.