Lead Generation

Many business owners get excited to start a marketing program with the hopes of generating high-ticket sales. What they don’t realize is that it takes more than just being ready with the advertising budget – you have to be prepared and brief all parties who will be involved in this campaign. Without the proper infrastructure in place, you may be wasting your time and advertising budget if you don’t have the right processes established prior to the start of your lead generation campaign. We’ve seen too many business owners go down this road – super excited to kickstart a lead generation campaign but they lack the foundational sales structure to close the lead. Here’s what you’ll need to do before the lead generation campaign launches: Have a team meeting and brief your sales team or customer service representatives (team members answering the phone) on this new marketing initiative Ensure they have a full understanding of the campaign objectives and how to answer to/follow up on these leads Establish some type of “source of truth” documentation via your customer relationship management (CRM) software or a spreadsheet to track each lead that comes in and the quality of them Set up a recurring monthly meeting to check in and hold your marketing and sales team accountable Depending on your industry, leads will generally be delivered from a marketing provider in one of two ways: form submission (An inquiry for a quote, request for an e-book download, webinar opt-in, etc) or a live phone call. Typically when phone numbers are present, more leads will tend to call directly as it’s easier to talk to someone live rather than submit a form and wait for someone to respond. Now, let’s dive into the 9 practices you MUST have in place for high-ticket lead generation: 1. Sales Team Must Be Ready and Available. Always have a company representative who knows how to sell available to answer the phone throughout operating business hours (or hours the lead generation campaign is active). Ensure that they are fully trained and have the script memorized without sounding like a robot. 2. Collect Contact Information Upfront. Capture caller’s name, phone number, and email early on in the call to follow up. This is also helpful in case the call gets dropped and allows the sales team to address the lead professionally. 3. Form Submissions Should Be Followed Up Within 1 Hour Timespan. The key here is: the sooner, the better. The fact that your lead submitted a form if they also had an option to call you shows that your lead doesn’t need an urgent response but may also be comparison shopping for quotes the same way across your competitors. Be quick to respond via a phone call and showcase your value. Put some checks and balances in place to ensure that your sales team is not just ignoring these form submissions as they could be equally, if not more valuable, then phone call leads. If the form submission leads don’t answer, leave a voicemail and follow up at a later time if you don’t hear from them. 4. Ensure Your Wait Times Are Reasonable. There’s been an increasing trend toward customer expectations of service that is fast, if not instantaneous. Simple and obvious tip: don’t make your leads wait too long. Here’s a quick rule of thumb: any wait time over 2 minutes is unreasonable. 5. Clear Your Voicemail Box. Get in the habit of checking the voicemail box often in case a call goes to voicemail and a lead cannot leave a message to be followed up with. Check for any missed calls and be sure to follow up with any that came through while sales team was potentially unavailable. 6. Follow Up! It takes an average of 10 touchpoints with a brand before a potential buyer converts into a customer. Most sales teams give up after 3-5 touchpoints (WAY TOO SOON!) but know that depending on your typical sales cycle, you will want to reconsider your follow-up strategy. Depending on how high-end your service is, the lead will need time to touch base with other decisionmakers before pulling the trigger. What does this mean? Your customers likely won’t be ready to pull the trigger on first contact. Be sure to button up your follow up strategy – there’s a right and wrong way to go about this. Engage via calls and an email schedule to stay on top of mind. 7. Listen to Your Phone Calls. If your marketing provider records the phone calls for you, use the calls as a training mechanism to help your sales team improve. What could they have done better to explain the value and close the lead? Maybe they could improve on cross-selling or having a solid understanding of the service they’re selling – the only way to know is to listen 8. Incentivize Your Team. This makes a big difference – if your representatives are not being incentivized with commissions or bonuses to engage, follow up, and close the leads, it’s a lot easier for leads to “slip through the cracks” and be forgotten 9. Measurement and Accountability System. Invest in a CRM (customer relationship management) software to keep track of all the leads your marketing team is generating. If you’re not quite at the point of using a CRM – use a simple spreadsheet to record your leads and their stage in the funnel. The key is to have a single source of truth to monitor leads in the funnel to keep your sales team accountable and show the marketing team what their efforts are contributing to. Are you ready to generate leads for your business? If you can answer “YES!” with full confidence to the following questions, you are ready to invest in a lead generation marketing campaign and have a higher likelihood of success: Do you have dedicated customer service representatives or sales representatives with a process in place to follow up with leads in a timely manner? Do you have

Dear Client, Prospective Clients, and Colleagues, Lead generation is my bread and butter core offering. I’ve been doing it for SMBs and large enterprise Global Fortune 500 clients over the last decade at agencies and corporate settings. The most commonly asked question I’ve come across from prospective clients during discovery calls is: Do You Guarantee Results? I know there are hundreds and even thousands of agencies out there that guarantee results and will even go so far as to say they will work for free after a certain amount of time if you don’t get any. Really, work for free? The reality of the matter is that most companies who end up working with agencies that guarantee results end up distraught and disappointed in the outcome. Why? Because these “fly-by-night” agencies or consultants over promised and couldn’t deliver. It’s disappointing to see prospective clients end up in the wrong hands and taken advantaged of by agencies that couldn’t fulfill their guarantee. Being one that stands by integrity as a core value of my business, I believe in under promising and over delivering. I am not here to meet a sales quota, I am not here to take your money and run, I am here to serve you, my client, with my expertise and do my absolute best to generate performance. Of course, this all comes at the cost of my time, my resources, and my experience – all of which are things I VALUE, which is why I do not operate off of a pay-per-lead model. To put it very bluntly, I don’t guarantee results, but I guarantee insights. I don’t mean to sound negative or pessimistic in any way, but if and when we work together, there’s a chance that results may not be there – for whatever reason. There are so many external factors that could play into the success of your campaign that cannot be controlled by any lead generation expert (ie: search demand, state of the economy, current events,  industry seasonality, ad platform updates, cost per click inflation, etc). As a boutique agency owner, I do my best to educate myself and my team on all of these external factors to prepare for our first 90-day journey together at the launch of your campaign. Prior to even accepting any client, I do my due diligence and research on demand in the marketplace to make sure there is a good fit so we’re all set up for success. My knowledge and expertise in Google, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram give me a strong foundation for campaign set up and all tech related skillsets to perform the task, however, understanding this is not enough to have a successful campaign. There are 3 key elements to be set up for success: Technical Knowledge (20%)– Understanding the Ad Platforms best practices, knowing what settings to use for the best results, how to optimize, best campaign structure, landing page expertise. Understanding Your Customer (40%) – Understanding your customer persona(s), demographic profiles (location, gender, HHI, industry), their need states, how they search, what triggers them Understanding Your Business (40%) –What are your pain points? What is your core offering and how do you want to position it? I come in from the very beginning with a minimum of the technical knowledge buttoned up, so you have 20% of the equation set up for success. Unless I have worked in your industry before, then I will need to learn about your target persona and understand your business. This is not something that happens overnight. Just like it may have taken you months or years to “figure it out” in your business and industry, it will require a learning curve on my end to understand how to best position you in the market. The last 2 key elements are acquired during the first 90 day campaign with us working together with your consistent feedback. If, for any reason, your campaign performance is not generating results by the end of our first 90-day campaign, you will have insights into why. In fact, it shouldn’t surprise you at the 90 day mark as we will be working closely together to ensure all possible levers are pulled in order to get that best performance possible. Should the results not be up to your standards, I would understand and we can pivot in another direction. Call it a risk to be doing business with marketers but it’s likely that you took many risks to get to where you are now. With high risks come high rewards although rewards are not guaranteed. This is a bit of a unique blog for me to write as I’m not used to being so forward and blunt about “the downside” of what could happen. It wouldn’t be a fail as long as we learn from it and pivot in another direction with a new strategy. I am just being as honest and realistic as possible – as you deserve that from any marketing partner you decide to work with. Warm Regards, Michelle level28medialevel28media.com