There are many different ways to generate customer leads but if you're going to get the best results from all your marketing efforts, you need to answer some basic questions:
Where Do My Customer Leads Come From?
If you receive an enquiry from a new prospective customer, you should ask and record where that lead has come from.
This can sometimes break down into different issues:
- How did the prospect become aware of you and your business?
- What prompted the customer to make contact today?
Passing the sign outside your business may have built up an unconscious brand awareness over months or years.
Searching the Internet today may have been the reason why the prospect has made contact but you got the phone call because the person recognised your brand name or business name.
That means that both the sign on the building and the Internet search have played an important role in lead generation. Without one of the other, you wouldn't be talking.
I recommend that you have a primary and secondary lead source to capture situations like this. The primary lead generation source was the Internet, the secondary source was the building sign.
What Source Of Customer Leads Converts Into Customers Best?
Getting leads is an essential step to get more customers but it's not your primary goal and therefore it's not the best way to judge the source of leads.
What matters more than quantity is quality.
There are three types of leads:
- Leads that don't match your criteria for customers - they don't understand what you sell or your prices and what they want to pay don't match.
- Qualified leads that don't convert into customers
- Leads that do convert into customers
What really matters is the third kind of customer lead although it's always useful to know why qualified leads didn't convert - read Win / Loss Analysis for more details.
A lead generation method that gives you leads that convert into customers is much better than one that just gives you leads, especially as it often takes a lot of time and money to handle a qualified lead.
Which Lead Generation Method Creates Long Term, High Value Customers?
The next refinement to looking at lead generation methods is to recognise that not all customers are equal.
In simple terms they break down into four categories:
- Single transaction, low value
- Single transaction, high value
- Multiple transactions, low value
- Multiple transactions, high value
It's worth looking at your records to see if one particular lead generation method is attracting your best customers and whether another is attracting the worst customers.
Lead Generation = Buying Customers = Buying Money
Lead generation and marketing aren't "costs to cut" but investments in the future success of your business.
You need to look at the lifetime value of customers to make a fair assessment of your lead generation techniques.
Looking at the wrong performance metrics in the wrong way will lead you to making incorrect decisions that ultimately harm your business.
If You Need To Improve Your Marketing Skills...
I recommend the training in the Profitable Growth Strategies website.
You can have 30 days marketing and business growth training for $1 and that time gives you plenty of chance to decide if you want to carry on your membership and pay the small monthly fee or cancel.
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