BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER… SMART WAYS TO GET MORE LEADS
Want better quality leads, more often?
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So you’re a sales person or business owner who wants to increase their sales? By now, you have probably realised that you need to generate leads. But not just any leads – the kind of leads that will actually help increase your sales.
In today’s world of inbound marketing, cold calls (and cold leads) are not the most effective way to land sales. In many cases, they simply end up annoying prospective leads rather than attracting them. What you need are good quality, keen to connect leads. The kind of lead encouraged by an inbound approach.
Not all leads are created equal…
A lead is anyone who has interacted with your business or brand, expressing an interest in your services or products. This individual is in a very different position to a cold call prospect who has never heard of your business before.
Let’s break it down: leads can be segmented into the following categories:
PROSPECTS
Identified people / organisations that have experienced a cursory touchpoint with your brand, including adverts and search.
LEADS
Someone that has interacted with your brand, usually at first visit, a phone call or has identified interest in particular solutions.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
A lead that by virtue of their position, industry, or any set of specific parameters matches an ideal prospect for sales outreach.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
A lead that has been vetted by a salesperson to be both sales ready and mapped to potential products / services.
From ideal buyers to leads to loyal customers, every individual who interacts with your business can be placed somewhere along the sales funnel, and they need to be handled differently depending on what stage of the funnel they are engaged in. Once a lead completes certain actions, they move down the funnel, becoming marketing or sales qualified leads.
Leads near the top of the funnel needing a lot of nurturing to close while leads near the bottom of the funnel are closer to conversion. Defining leads to this extent may seem like a bit of hack but if you pay attention to the importance of sales enablement (and you definitely should), it’s worth it.
Finding the right leads for your business brings us to the process of lead generation – how do we get those leads we need and want. Lead generation is often seen as the job of Marketing, while lead nurturing is that of Sales, though the two do cross over (as the roles in any good marriage should).
Looking for sales-focused lead generation ideas? Here are some great starting points:
Create buyer personas
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional, generalized representation of an ideal customer based on market research and real data about existing clients. Buyer personas enable you to attract the most valuable leads by understanding their challenges, goals, and demographic traits.
Generally three personas are sufficient to get you going. Try out this free HubSpot tool for creating buyer personas: quickly and easily: https://www.hubspot.com/make-my-persona
2. Set a monthly lead goal
We’re sure you’ve heard it before but it’s true - setting goals is essential to ensuring success. And, not just any goals - they should be SMART goals…Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound. When it comes to leads, it’s important to assign a value to your leads - the overall goal for sales is to increase revenue so by taking that total revenue goal for the month and determining what percentage of it will come from leads, you will be able to establish your SMART monthly lead goal. You will be surprised at easy it is to generate those leads (if your revenue goal is also SMART!).
3. Build a leads system
It is key to know who your leads are and where they sit in your sales pipeline. The simplest way to do this is to develop a matrix consisting of four positions: Good fit / Poor fit / Ready / Unready. This matrix will empower you to first qualify your leads and then further build your system of knowing what touch-points to have with the leads in those different positions.
This system must always ensure that every touchpoint has a purpose and value is added. Building a leads system will allow for a consistent and accurate way to access the effectiveness of the planned touch-points. The result? No more guessing games about where your leads are at because you are in the driver’s seat!
4. Develop a lead nurturing plan
Sometimes a lead who you thought was ready wasn’t but is still a good fit (easily seen in the matrix you built), so nurture them until they are ready instead of throwing all your resources at new leads! Nurturing includes developing regular touch-points that are meaningful and value adding to the lead - this means developing a great relationship even before they buy so that when they do buy, they become so much more than a once-off customer.
5. Talk to your current clients
Feedback is the breakfast of champion salespeople! Treat your current clients well and you will strengthen your sales system and create an opportunity for referrals from those that have experienced your products and services first hand.
There you have it - five supercharged generation tips for you to improve sales and hit your revenue goals!
WANT TO GENERATE BETTER LEADS AND SALES?
Inbound lead generation is part of a marketing approach to sales that places the customer’s experience at the centre of the buying process. Not only is inbound marketing cost-effective and agile, it’s powerful and creative and it translates into meaningful interaction with customers.
And that’s why we love it! Our mission? Harness the power of digital marketing strategies and tools to design and execute inbound campaigns that will empower sales with your key buyers.
Better leads = better sales = increased profits. Simple but smart! Just tell us about your business goals and we’ll help you get there.
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