I think the single biggest weakness of most businesses is not having a systematic lead generation system.
The second biggest weakness is only have one lead generation system.
The most common lead generation system is word of mouth marketing. They rely on their friends or relatives to send them leads. While this is a very cost effective form of generating leads it is very haphazard and never seems to produce when you need it the most.
What are some lead generation techniques?
- Word of mouth marketing
- Networking
- Door to door
- Cold calling
- Referrals
- Classified advertising
- Pay per click ads
- Banner ads
- Endorsed mailing
- Endorsed emailing
- Newsletter sponsorship
The list goes on.
How do you start a lead generation system?
- Pick one of the ideas from the list above or one of the dozens of other techniques. Let’s pick Google Adwords (pay per click)
- Create a plan. Let’s pick the right keywords (find at least 200), create a landing page or more than one (a landing page is more likely to convert a new visitor than sending them to the home page), capture their name and email address, automatically send them weekly responses, every 5th issue urge them to contact you for one offer or another.
- Test and track the performance. Once you’ve begun the implementation, track how well it is working. How much money do you have to spend per person that joins your list? Which ethical bribe converts more than the others? What percentage of your list contacts you or gives you more contact information like their phone number? How many of those does it take to close a sale? Test each element of the process, track the results and continually look for ways to improve each step of the way.
- Add more lead generation systems.
If you think of your marketing program as a roof supported by Roman columns. Your roof is much stronger if you have more than one column. Your lead generation capabilities will be much stronger if you have more than one lead generation system working at the same time. That way if one of them slows down, your business will continue to operate.