Every business owners main concern is how to go about generating high-quality leads. It impacts each of your business’ goals and it is vital for both building your business and maintaining its long-term growth. To consistently attract, nurture, and convert leads, you need to know what you are doing. And given the growing complexity of the lead generation process, how can you be sure your approach is engaging as many leads and prospects as you really want it to?
Finding New Leads
Finding new ways to increase lead generation is the challenge many companies face. Any system you develop to address your marketing goals must embrace the full use of all available channels.
Maybe you should consider this: What percentage of your company’s leads come from the following sources?
- Direct Mail
- Trade Shows
- Email Marketing
- Telemarketing
- Blogs
- Social Media
- Traditional Advertising
Are you making the most of all these available sources? Pick out the bottom 2/3 sources and see if any improvements can be made, focussing on the best sources is not always the best idea.
Building a lead generation approach around multiple sources will engage your leads and prospective clients across multiple channels. Using a variety of approaches of both strong Inbound and Outbound marketing strategies will keep your pipeline full for months.
Existing Clients
Are you making full use of the contacts you already have? It’s much easier to sell something to your existing customers than it is to sell to a brand-new one.
When you’ve already sold something to someone, the relationship is already there and you’ve built up a level of trust with them.
This doesn’t mean that they’ll automatically become repeat customers. If you’ve stopped working together for a period of time just let them know that you’re still around and available – no need to be pushy they’ve already bought from you before, just a simple ‘we’ve got something we thought you might be interested in’ is enough.
There are 3 important things to remember when dealing with existing clients:
- Get personal – you’ve worked together before, so try to build on that relationship.
- Remain present – your customers are so busy thinking about their own business that they may have forgotten you exist. Keep in touch with them.
- Be proactive – ask questions about your previous sale, if you show you care about the product/service you’re delivering you might be closer to the next sale than you think.
Lead generation is much more than simply collecting names and contact information, making phone calls, and sending out generic marketing e-mails. Generating and nurturing leads is equal parts strategic thinking, creative prowess, sales savvy, and a bit of plain old-fashioned know how.
