Knowing how to generate leads is the first step to engaging prospects to educate them about your products and services. While there are well-known methods like content marketing, web site forms and A/B testing, here are five ways you may not have considered:
- Referral Program - There's nothing like having happy clients (both current and past) to give what amounts to an unsolicited testimonial to other prospects about how you solved their problem. When you get recommendations and referrals, this is a sure sign your reputation is building positively within your business community. This is also free advertising, which can generate large amounts of revenue provided you can guide the majority of prospects through the buyer's journey to become a client. Your job is to make it easy for your clients to make a referral. Match the method to what makes sense in your business.
- Conferences - Either speaking, or sponsoring a booth/exhibit at conferences can be a great way to get in front of a lot of highly qualified prospects in a short amount of time. If you decide to use this route, you'll need to be prepared to spend anywhere from a few thousand to several thousand dollars to participate. Don’t make the mistake of treating a conference/presentation as an isolated event. Ensure that you have a proper communications plan wrapped around the event. Weigh the upfront cost against the number and quality of prospects you can nurture from attending these events. If you're a speaker, you not only get people who are pre-qualified because they're interested in what you're talking about, you also burnish your credentials as a subject matter expert and thought leader in your industry.
- Online Press Releases - for getting visibility in front of thousands of viewers, investing in carefully crafted, optimized press releases can possibly generate leads and projects. Do some keyword research to find a phrase or two that's used a lot in your industry. Create a press release about an event, a new hiring at the executive level, or announce new products and services. Many news media outlets will pick up your media release and post it on their site, which can increase the number of visitors to your web site. Be sure your product and service pages are well-written to answer all of the prospect's questions. Consider building a unique landing page and directing the press release traffic to a special offer on your site to get prospects into your buying journey.
- Free Audits - can you do a quick 15 or 30 minute review, analysis or audit for prospects? By uncovering something they may not have been aware of, along with some recommendations to address the problem, you could easily win sales. If nothing else, they become more aware of your expertise and may engage you later, or even recommend your business to others.
- Networking - there's still nothing like making a face to face connection with prospects. While this is a labor-intensive effort, talking directly with other networkers can often lead to follow up opportunities both immediately after the event and several months later.
For any of these lead generation methods, make sure your marketing automation software and CRM are properly set up to accept the qualified leads and start the tracking process through the purchase cycle.
If you're not sure you capture and analyze your marketing efforts properly, call us at 571-606-3106. We can help you develop lead scoring to make sure the most qualified prospects are moved to sales for immediate assistance. Check out our Services page to see what else Measured Results Marketing can do for your sales and marketing programs.
Image courtesy of www.kingfishmedia.com
