lead generation

Sarah Worsham / May 6, 2014

Tips for Effective Lead Generation

While we may have marketing to increase awareness or stay top-of-mind, the gold at the end of the rainbow is generating quality leads. Content marketing and communicating with customers via social channels are great ways to connect, but how do you leverage your efforts to generate leads? Marketo, which provides a marketing automation platform, recently asked several marketers (including me), about lead generation best practices:

There are a lot of philosophies and opinions on lead generation. To help you cut through the noise, we spoke to four leading marketing experts and got some of their best insights. Here’s what they had to say about the dos and don’ts of effective lead generation. — Dos and Don’ts of Effective Lead Generation

Some of my thoughts:

Leveraging your network to drive lead generation can be a very tempting way to try to get referrals. While it certainly makes sense to use this resource, it’s vital to respect your network.

Spamming with marketing and sales offers is the surest way to lose valuable human connections, and increase the deafness to your message when you really need it. Stick to an 80/20 rule for any marketing you do online, but especially to your networks. Eighty percent of your content should be of value to the audience, and only 20% (or less!) should be direct marketing or advertising.

Providing regular, valuable content to your network will increase their awareness of your services and improve your reputation as an expert.

Sarah Worsham / May 12, 2009

Social Networking for Referrals

Many companies get the highest conversion rates (and best customers) from referrals. People tend to trust their friends, family and colleagues over companies – that’s a given. So, it may be in your company’s interest to use social networking to gain referrals. Like networking in person, social networking for referals involves quite a bit of relationship development and communication. People need to get to know you before they’ll be willing to recommend you to anyone else.

Social networking for referrals also means being on the networks where your potential referrals will be. And if you provide products and services to other businesses – this probably means other businesses. So, for this social networking purpose, it’s not about where your customers are on the social networks – it’s about where the referrals or other businesses are. This means it may make sense to dedicate some resources (time & effort) to networking and building relationships on business networks.

So if your business relies heavily on referrals for new sales, you may want to look where your potential referrals are, instead or in addition to where your potential customers are.

(photo by Athena’s pix @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: social networking, referrals, leads, business, lead generation, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Mar 30, 2009

12 Tips for More Effective Email Marketing

emailfrozenchipmunk Emailing a prospective client can be difficult at best. Following up on potential leads is important, but so is saying the right thing. It may help to consider your email piece as an elevator pitch – you only have a few seconds to grab attention and entice the customer to continue the conversation. Here are a few tips to help make your email more effective:

Keep it short – No one wants to read pages of text in an email. If it’s longer than 3 or 4 paragraphs, it’s too long. One or two paragraphs (short!) are best.
Focus on the customer – What benefits are you offering them? What will they gain from your product or services?
Be concise – Get right to the point about who you are and what you’re offering.
Use bullet points – Short phrases in bullet points can be effective for getting across a message succinctly.
Provide examples – Potential customers want to know what you’ve successfully done in the past. Keep examples short and link to longer explanations or case studies on your website.
Keep it simple – Even people in your industry won’t want to read wordy technical explanations. Make sure just about anyone can understand what you’re talking about.
Link to your website – for more information or longer testimonials or stories.
Include a call to action – Whatever you’d like the person to do. It’s most effective if its something you’re offering them on your website (for free) that you can use to gather the lead (and measure that they’re actually interested).
Introduce Yourself – Customers want to know who you are, but keep it to 1 or 2 sentences (think elevator pitch). Link to more information on your website.
Followup – Don’t rely on customers to contact you. Followup with another email or a phone call during a specified time period. Ask when and how they prefer to be contacted.
Respect privacy – Have a privacy policy and follow it. Allow people the option to opt-out of receiving emails from you. Post it on your website and link to it in your emails.
Give them space – Don’t bombard potential customers with phone calls and emails. Give them time to think and do their own work. Contact them at specific times through their preferred channel.

This an evolving list. Do you have tips that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear them in the comments!

(photo by frozenchipmunk @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: direct marketing, email marketing, internet marketing, business, leads, lead generation, sales, marketing

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