Putting money in the bank
On one level, business is all about putting money in the bank. To do this we need to turn prospects into customers. In many businesses, a key step in this process is finding people who are looking to buy – The generation of leads. A business’s approach to lead generation can take many forms, from the grab the opportunity as it passes approach, to having a process to nurture and develop prospects in your target market. To help assess your approach, we have come up with a fun (hopefully) quiz to establish if you are a well-structured lead generation bee with a joined-up, collaborative approach to lead generation. (You can take the quiz here). Being a “lead generation bee” requires you to use all your resources in a co-ordinated & joined-up way to create a sustainable pipeline of leads (hopefully you see the link!).
BSA knows about lead generation
BSA has a good deal of experience in telemarketing; it is what we did in the 80’s and 90’s. In the short term telemarketing is great for generating leads. Ring 100 people and a few of them will probably want what you are selling (a lead) but many more may be in your market just not ready to buy right now. It is easy to ignore these and focus on the short term leads. Whilst this is fine in the short term, down the line when you need more leads, you have to start all over again. For more detail on this approach, check out this post – its a little old now, but still very relevant! A more joined up approach is to take the longer term prospects identified, and create a process to nurture and develop them through other more sustainable means. This way, as future opportunities arise, they will be easier to identify.
5 Golden Rules of Joined up Lead Generation
- Every contact is valuable – even if they have no potential, By identifying these contacts you will not waste valuable resources, and everyone else is a potential customer either now or in the future
- Use your resources appropriately – Some resources, eg sales people, are very impactful, and very expensive. Whilst others, like social media or email, are less so. You should use resources appropriately focusing more expensive ones on more immediate opportunities.
- Every communication should reinforce your brand offering. Whether it is using email and social media to help contacts understand the value you add or converting the lead, via face to face, telephone or personal email contact.
- Your process should have a method for handling prospects at every step of the sales process, from target audience with little immediate interest – right through to where do I sign… and beyond
- Any lead generation process should be sustainable and measurable – The process will take resources to sustain. To be effective, these resources need to be committed in the long term. The process also needs to be continually monitored and managed to ensure that the resource use is appropriate and is meeting the objectives of the business
Follow these 5 rules, and you are well on your way to a joined-up, sustainable process.
