Leads, prospects, or potential customers, whatever you decide to call them is fine, so long as you have enough of them coming in to keep your business strong and growing.
And because every great customer once started as a lead, leads are an important element in keeping your funnel full and your businesses future safe and secure.
Not to mention more leads almost always equates to more revenue. Which is why today, we’re talking all about how to get more leads with 3 lead generation tips, and the single most important tool in lead generation today.
Leads are the lifeblood of business, because if nobody’s reaching out to you or interested in doing business with your company you don’t really have a business at all. Which is why I’m still shocked when I hear about entrepreneurs and companies who don’t place a focus, much less a maniacal single-minded devotion and determination to acquiring new leads for their businesses.
After all, no new leads coming in means no new customers, no new revenue, no new cash flow, and no new business at all.
So, now that we’ve covered just how important new leads are to your business lets dive into 3 tips and 1 bonus lead generation tool so you can make lead generation a key component of your business moving forward.
Lead Gen Tip #1: Strategy & Systems
Like all things in marketing, your success is largely based off the underlying strategy and systems you use, not just flashy new tactics and tools.
This is why the very first step in lead generation should always be determining the foundational and core underlying strategy behind your plan.
In designing your strategy you would want to ask yourself questions like:
- Who is my ideal target market?
- What do my best customers have in common?
- What is their biggest challenge? And how could I help solve that for them?
Always keep in mind that not all leads are created equal, and by being clear about your market and intentions from the get go you’ll save you a lot of time, money, and the headaches that come from generating a pile of bad leads or no leads at all.
Lead Gen Tip #2: Consistency is Crucial
Sporadic, or random leads coming in aren’t a whole lot better than generating no leads at all.
Because without consistency it’s hard to plan and harder to scale. And scaling is a beautiful thing. This is why focusing on identifying a steady and consistent lead generation source is crucial.
Yes, there is some research, testing, and of course strategy involved, but the rewards are well worth the effort as once you uncover the perfect combination for your business you can continue to invest in it, confident in knowing that your output will always exceed your input. In other words, it takes time, but the ROI goes to those who try.
Lead Gen Tip #3: Give To Get
This last tip is where so many otherwise well intentioned lead generation strategies go terribly, terribly wrong.
You see, the best way to think about lead generation is as a value exchange. Just because no money has changed hands yet, is no excuse to devalue your prospects time, and increasingly more valuable in today’s economy, their attention.
And yet this is exactly what happens when a prospect is asked to sign up for a newsletter, fill out a contact form, or in some other way put a level of trust and commitment in a company they may have had very little interaction with yet.
And the results of these tactics tend to speak for themselves, few, if any leads, and certainly nothing to write home about.
So what’s the alternative?
To offer value of course, and give something away of equal or greater perceived value than your trusty prospects contact details. Which leads us nicely into my next point and the bonus lead generation tool every business needs to succeed.
Bonus Lead Gen Tool: The Lead Magnet
If you’re involved in the internet marketing community, then I’m sure you’ve heard the term lead magnet before.
But for those outside of internet marketing, a lead magnet is one of the most valuable and underutilized tools available today and is essentially just something of value you can use in order to entice your prospect to give up their contact details.
Your lead magnet could be a guide, a cheat sheet, a blueprint, a template, a video series, or even a webinar or free call.
The best one for you will largely depend on your business, market, and offer but regardless of what method you choose to deploy, the take away point is this.
Your business NEEDS a lead magnet, and it’s worth spending a good amount of time, money, and energy in developing one as it will serve you for weeks, months, and maybe even years to come.
