Unlimited Amount of Leads for Your Business

Do you know where your leads for your business come from?

• Most business owners would choose “advertising” as an answer. Or word of mouth. Or referrals. Or direct mail campaigns. This may seem true, but it’s not really accurate.
• Your customers come from leads that have been turned into sales. Each customer goes through a two-step process before they arrive with their wallets open. They have been converted from a member of a target market, to a lead, then to a customer.
• So, would it not stand to reason then, that when you advertise or send any marketing material out to your target market, that you’re not really trying to generate customers? That instead, you’re trying to generate leads.
• When you look at your marketing campaign from this perspective, the idea of generating leads as compared to customers seems a lot less daunting. The pressure of closing sales is no longer placed on advertisements or brochures.
• From this perspective, the general purpose of your advertising and marketing efforts is then to generate leads from qualified customers. Seems easy enough, doesn’t it?

 Where Are Your Leads Coming From?

Continued from Part 1

Get More Leads from Your Existing Strategies.

Generating Leads for Your Business doesn’t necessarily mean diving in and implementing an expensive array of new marketing strategies. Marketing and customer outreach for the purpose of lead generation can be inexpensive, and bring a high return on investment.

You are likely already implementing many of these strategies. With a little tweaking or refinement, you can easily double your leads, and ensure they are more qualified.

Here are some popular ways to generate quality leads:

Identify your ideal customers

Who are your ideal customers? What is their age, sex, income, location and purchase motivation? Where do they live? How do they spend their money? Be as specific as possible.

Once you have identified who your ideal customers are, you can begin to determine how you can go about reaching them. Will you mail to households or apartment buildings? Families or retirees? Direct mail lists are available for purchase from a wide range of companies and can be segregated into a variety of demographic and sociographic categories.

Chet Holmes, author of The Ultimate Sales Machine recommends that you should develop a “Dream 100” list of your ideal clients. These would be your most profitable clients who are a great fit for your business. Not only is your advertising cheaper with only 100 clients to pursue, but you are also able to focus on fewer prospects more until you win them as clients.

Direct Mail to Your Ideal Customers

Direct mail is now back in favor. It is one of the fastest and most effective ways to generate leads that will build your business. It’s a simple strategy – in fact, you’re probably already reaching out to potential clients through direct mail letters with enticing offers.

The secret to doubling your results is to craft your direct mail campaigns specifically for a highly targeted audience of your ideal customers.

Your ideal customers are the people who will buy most of your products or services. They are the customers who will buy from you over and over again and refer your business to their friends. They are a group of 20% of your clients who make up 80% of your revenue.

Craft a special offer to Your Ideal Customers

Create an offer that’s too good to refuse – not for your entire target market, but for your ideal customer. How can you cater to their unique needs and wants? What will be irresistible for them?

For example, if you operate a furniture store, your target market is a broad range of people. However, if you are targeting young families, your offer will be much different than the one you may craft for empty-nesters.

Court Ideal Customers for Their Business

Get business. Don’t stop at a single mail-out. Sometimes people will throw your letter away two or three times before they are motivated to act. Treat your direct mail campaign like a courtship, and understand that it will happen over time.

First send a letter introducing yourself, and your irresistible offer. Then follow up on a monthly basis with additional letters, newsletters, offers, or flyers. Repetition and reinforcement of your presence are how your customer will go from saying, “who is this company” to “I buy from this company.”

Advertise for Lead Generation

Statistics show that nearly 50% of all purchase decisions are motivated by advertising. It can also be a relatively cost-effective way of generating leads.

We’ve already discussed the importance of ensuring your advertisements are purpose-focused. The general purpose of most advertisements is to increase sales – which starts with leads. However, ads that are created solely for lead generation – that is, to get the customers to pick up the phone or walk in the store – are a category of their own.

Lead Generation Ads: An Almost Unbelievable Offer

Lead generation ads are simply designed and create a sense of curiosity or mystery. Often, they feature an almost unbelievable offer. Their purpose is not to convince the customer to buy but to contact the business for more information.

As always, when you are targeting your ideal audience, you’ll need to ensure that your ads are placed prominently in publications that your audience reads. This doesn’t mean you have to fork over the cash for expensive display ads. Inexpensive advertising in e-mail newsletters, classifieds, and the yellow pages are very effective for lead generation.

Here are some tips for lead generation advertising:

Leverage Low-cost Advertising

Place ads in the yellow pages, classifieds section, e-mail newsletters, and online. If your target audience is technology savvy, consider new forms of advertising like Facebook and Google Adwords.

Spark curiosity

Don’t give them all the information they need to make a decision. Ask them to contact you for the full story, or the complete details of the seemingly outrageous offer.

Grab them with a killer headline

Like all advertising, a compelling headline is essential. Focus on the greatest benefits to the customer, or feature an unbelievable offer.

Referrals and Strategic Partners

A referral system is one of the most profitable systems you can create in your business. The beauty is once it’s set up, it often runs itself.

Customers that come to you through referrals are often your “ideal customers.” They are already trusting and willing to buy. This is one of the most cost-effective methods of generating new business and is often the most profitable. These referral clients will buy more, faster, and refer further business to your company.

Referrals naturally happen without much effort for reputable businesses, but with a proactive referral strategy, you’ll certainly double or triple your referrals. Sometimes, you just need to ask!

Here are some easy strategies you can begin to implement today:

Referral incentives

Give your customers a reason to refer business to you. Reward them with discounts, gifts, or a free service in exchange for a successful referral.

Referral program

Offer new customers a free product or service to get them in the door. Then, at the end of the transaction, give them three more ‘coupons’ for the same free product or service that they can give to their friends. Do the same with their friends. This ongoing program will bring you more business than you can imagine.

Strategic Partner Relationships

Forge alliances with non-competitive companies who target your ideal customers. Create cross-promotion and cross-referral direct mail campaigns that benefit both businesses.

Lead Management Systems

Once your lead generation strategies are in place, you’ll also need a system to manage incoming inquiries. You’ll need to ensure you receive enough information from each lead to follow up on at a later date. You’ll also need to create a system to organize that information, and track the lead as it is converted into a sale.

Gathering Information from Your Leads

Here is a list of information you should gather from your leads. This list can be customized to the needs of your business, and the type of information you can realistically request from your potential customers.

• Company Name
• Name of Contact
• Alternate Contact Person
• Mailing Address
• Phone Number
• Fax Number
• Cell Phone
• Email Address
• Website Address
• Product of Interest
• Other Competitors Engaged

Lead Management Methods:

Once you have gathered information from your lead, you’ll need a system to organize their information and keep a detailed contact history.

The simplest way to do this is with a database program, but you can also use a variety of hard copy methods.

Electronic Database Programs

• High level of organization available
• Unlimited space for notes and record-keeping
• Data-entry required
• Examples include: Microsoft® Outlook and Excel, Maximizer
• Customer Relationship Management Software

Customer Relationship Management Systems

There are a ton of CRM’s available for you to manage your leads. These range from free for Hubspot to a few hundred dollars for Sales Force.

• Hubspot
• Sales Force
• Pipedrive
• Zoho

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