All businesses focus on sales, it is less common for a company to have formal strategy for generating leads. And giving a new sales person the Yellow Pages is not a lead generation strategy…For many companies lead generation is a very random event that happens by good luck rather than any sort of management.What is your lead conversion rate? How many leads convert into sales? How many leads are needed to achieve the sales target?
What is the cost of a lead? Have you budgeted for lead generation? What are you prepared to spend to generate leads? In the beginning of the process it is not easy to analyse the cost per lead but once you set up a formal process it is easy to measure.
Target Markets Clearly identifying your target markets has a major affect on the outcome of your lead generation and marketing activities. What are your best target markets for new leads? Think outside the square! Getting this right is the foundation of your marketing and sales activities.
What is the lead process? The bigger and more complex the buying decision, the more steps needed from lead to a serious prospect. Every promotion will need its own strategy and actions e.g. website enquiry – qualifying phone call -send information – follow up phone call, initial fact finding meeting – demonstration – - proposal- further follow up … and sale. The lead process has to be set as a process, not a random activity.
Sales vs Lead Generation It is important to know where Lead Generation stops and Sales starts. This depends on the nature of the product or service, and how ‘warm’ and ‘pre-educated’ the prospect needs to be before a sales person takes over. With Sales CRM systems you can record and measure outcomes at each step. Excel spreadsheets work well too for less complex businesses. You can then see where and why you lost a sale and improve this part of the process. Leads just “slipping away’ is often insidious and can appear happen ‘invisibly’ e.g The quote that didn’t convert to a sale the client bought somewhere else. With a good sales process, you can find out why they bought somewhere else. Forming and keeping a relationship is vital in the sales process especially in the longer term and this sort of follow up can create a good impression.
Measuring Marketing Activity There are many and various marketing options. Once chosen the marketing activity needs to be measured e.g follow up activity, response, sale. Setting up a marketing matrix showing dates, response, leads enables you to refine the cost per lead and eventally you will be able to see the cost per sale for any marketing activity. Analysing results makes it is easy to decide your next marketing activity.
Who is doing what? Once a lead generation/sales process has been documented people need to be allocated tasks and managed so that the plan becomes a reality. Done diligently, the leakage stops and the results start to flow
Get the creative juices flowing People love to focus on the creative first but actually you don’t get pudding until you have eaten the main course! With a good strategy, the right creative is obvious. For example one of my clients wanted to set up an social media campaign but simple analysis showed them the bulk of their customers were rarely online – they were always on mobile. We ran an SMS campaign instead. The other common situation we find is companies who want to rev up their online marketing but have not done the basics with their existing clients as far as their database hygiene.Good marketing creative with the wrong strategy/poor logistics can never work.
Keep Reviewing the Process The plan is not made and then put in a drawer. Constant review of the outcome and sometimes the objectives is important. Some campaigns need time to land and for small companies there is a tendency to want instant results. The key point is to track outcomes and keep reviewing, and assessing if a change in direction is needed to get you back on course
Let The Connector help you. Your existing staff may not have time or skill to solely focus on Lead Generation. We can set up the process, do a campaign, set up a CRM and make it a reality.
