Not getting enough qualified leads through the door?
It might not be the marketing tactics that are the problem, but who you are aiming them at. Effective marketing starts with choosing the right target. Target your efforts at the wrong people/businesses, and you could be wasting time, energy and money. Find the right people/businesses to target, and you could improve your results without spending anything extra.
Most businesses have a rough idea of whom they are targeting but in most cases they also want to cast their net as widely as possible. If they have a bigger market to aim at then it stands to reason that they can attract more customers. The problem is that this is rarely the case – people respond better to marketing that speaks to them individually and casting a wide net is expensive.
Even if you identify a single market, there’s a good chance that there will be different groups within that market. For example, you might target small businesses, but small businesses can be anything from a freelance service provider to a busy restaurant to a retail shop. They are all very different and what suits one might not suit the others.
Your most likely customers are the groups within the groups. The ones that will benefit the most from what you have to offer. Ideally you will want to find groups that are small enough for you to target effectively but still big enough to be worthwhile. Each group should be clearly defined and be as similar to each other as possible.
You should be able to say clearly how your product or service will benefit them and, in the best-case scenario, you will stand a decent chance of becoming a major player in that market.
Now that you know whom you want to target, you need to find out as much about them as possible. Some businesses find it useful to create ‘customer personas’, which are detailed descriptions of typical customer types – usually referred to by name. For example, you could create a persona for a restaurant owner (‘Restaurant Rick’) and café owner (‘Café Claudia’) and a fast food outlet owner (‘Fast Food Freddie’).
Creating these detailed personas will help you visualize the customer in more detail and make decisions about what will and will not interest them and what kind of marketing they will respond to.
Now that you have your customers worked out, you need to create marketing materials for them. The problem is that the sales letter that you want to use for Fast Food Freddie won’t work for Café Claudia. People respond to things that are designed for them and ignore everything else.
If you describe the problems that Restaurant Rick faces everyday – and how you will solve them – then Rick will respond. But Claudia and Freddie don’t have the same problems, so they won’t. Every marketing message and individual piece of marketing material needs to be customized for the prospect persona you will be targeting.
Using effective target marketing strategies means paying attention to the details and knowing whom your prospective customers are. It may seem like hard work to create or customize individual marketing campaigns for every customer type but the results will speak for themselves.
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Everybody wants more leads for their business but the number of leads isn’t always what’s important. You need high quality leads and that means leads that are likely to be interested in your product or service. You need qualified leads.
For most businesses the first question they ask about their lead generation program is how many leads did it generate? But you don’t make any money from generating leads; you make money from closing sales. The better qualified your leads are, the better chance you have of closing the sale.
A qualified lead is one who has the desire and ability to buy now. Both are important. Some customers will be more suited to what you have to offer than others – these customers will be easier for you to sell to. But if they are not in a position to buy, your efforts are wasted – they may not have the budget, they may not have an immediate need, they may be under contract with some other provider.
A good qualified lead generating program will include a number of steps designed to separate the most likely potential customers (the qualified leads) from the unqualified ones.
1. Profile Your Target Market
The first step is to determine exactly who your target market is. A good way to do this is to identify the benefits (not features) of your product of service. This exercise will help you notice common characteristics of your target market and what messages appeal to them. Ask your salesteam, managers, and other employees how they’d define the ideal customer, and compile their answers into a cohesive definition of your target market.
You also need to define different levels of interest, such as “suspect”, “prospect”, “inquiry”, “qualified lead”, etc, and make sure all employees understand the various labels. As potential customers surface, they should be tagged with one of these labels in your CRM database.
Finally, you’ll need tools in place to determine and track WHEN your potential customer is ready to buy, whether they have the BUDGET to buy, and whether they have the DECISION-MAKING authority to buy. When these three aspects are in place, you know you have a qualified lead.
2. Create an Appealing Marketing Message
Once you know exactly who your target market is, you should create a marketing message that appeals to their needs, desires, or fear of loss. Your marketing message should be directed tightly at your most likely prospects – if your sell dog toys, for example, your target market is dog owners and your message should be ‘…fun, durable dog toys with XYZ safety credentials…’.
Simply targeting your message will turn off unqualified prospects, such as cat owners. This is crucial when you’re spending a lot of money advertising, such as with your pay per click campaign. You don’t want unqualified prospects clicking on your ad and costing you money. Learn more about this in my FREE ebook.
It also makes your message more relevant to the people that you are targeting – making them more likely to respond. On a similar point, you can target the methods you use to your well-defined ‘most likely customer’ group.
3. Manage and Nurture Leads
Do your marketing right and your leads should all match the basic criteria for your product or service. But you still don’t know whether they are really interested (or are just window shopping) or whether they are in a position to buy. Your lead management program can be used to introduce a number of sanity checks to further weed out the less qualified prospects. A sanity check is simply a point in the process where you ask for a small commitment. It may be signing up for your mailing list, agreeing to an initial phone call or being willing to set up a meeting. You can even try a ‘trial close’ where you ask them to make a small purchase or commit to a test project.
Each step asks for an increasing level of commitment and at each step a few people will decide that they are not ready to go to the next step. If that’s the case that prospect should simply be added back into the pool of future customers – and you’ll need a good lead management system in place to nurture them until they’re ready to buy.
By the time someone reaches the point where you close the sale, they’ve already shown their interest. And closing the sale is much easier when you have good qualified leads to work with.
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Online Radio Stations?
Due to their size and ability to reach niche audiences, they tend to attract a much more targeted audience than mass market, traditional radio stations.
Potentially…
This makes advertising on them an attractive proposition to marketers who target niche groups. Moreover, most Internet radio stations will also create podcasts of popular shows – recorded versions that can be downloaded and listened to at any time – creating an added attraction.
The natural starting point is an Internet search to find stations that suit your target audience. Ideally you will find stations that combine information relevant to your niche with a relevant audience. If you sell widgets, it might make sense to advertise on Widget Radio – unless, the only people who listen to Widget Radio are widgets makers like you.
Like any traditional station, online stations should be able to provide you with key demographic information about their listeners. Study this info and listen to the shows before going any further.
Depending on the outcome you want, you can choose between audio ads, onsite advertising (like banners or text links) or sponsorship. Budget permitting, you can combine sponsorship and audio ads with banners and buttons to increase visibility, CTR (click through rate), retain attention for better conversion and ultimately, increased ROI (return on investment).
One of the most attractive aspects of internet radio advertising is the simple fact that your customers are only a click away to your website. Not only can this significantly increase your ROI but it also allows exact, detailed tracking of results. By carefully measuring what works – and what doesn’t – you can more effectively plan your marketing.
Taken together, the targeted listenership, ability to combine visual and audio advertising and detailed tracking possibilities make internet radio an attractive alternative that could give you a leg up on the competition.
Online Radio Listenership Figures
“In any given week, 8.1 million people listen to radio via the Internet, either live or through a Listen Again service, and 1.87 million listen to a Podcast.” Source: Rajar/Ipsos Mori
In America alone, the number of people watching less TV and spending more time on the internet has grown by more than 400% in the past few years and more than 50% of them have consumed streaming media. Source: Rajar/Ipsos Mori
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Buying leads is a common mortgage lead generation method. Over the last few years it’s been a very effective strategy indeed. Due to high demand, if you just “did the numbers”, it was relatively easy to make a profit.
Unfortunately, things have tightened, causing two problems. First off, demand has obviously weakened. Secondly, your prospect still gets flooded with calls from competing mortgage agents. What’s worse is that your prospect can’t tell you apart from the others. To her all mortgage lenders look and sound the same.
You need to separate from the pack. But how? Cold calling and prospecting is hard work so buying leads should still be part of your overall strategy. You can use the services of different mortgage lead generation companies or partner with someone to cold call for you. Buying leads may still provide some work, but smart mortgage agents are busy building a network of referring allied professionals – and setting themselves apart form the pack in the process.
An allied professional is a professional service provider who frequently comes in contact with your potential prospects, but who doesn’t sell mortgages themselves. They could be real estate agents, accountants, insurance agents or lawyers. We all know that referred business is better business. Referred prospects will likely know a bit about you and you come with an endorsement from the person doing the referring – a person they already trust and do business with. In short, the prospect will listen to you, take your advice, and buy from you precisely because their other advisor introduced you. Your job is simply to make the process easy and comfortable for the client.
It’s worth remembering however that referral business doesn’t come for free. While there may be no monetary cost, you need to invest your time, energy and professional reputation into building the right relationships.
They’re not just helping you. You’re helping them. Most pros want to take care of as many of their clients’ needs as possible. By doing this they raise the chances of keeping that client over the long-term. They also like to be looked on as the expert and the ‘go to person’ with the connections. If you do your job well your referral partner will look good too. Moreover, by having “his people” service his clients he lowers the chance of someone else stealing the business.
If you’re smart, you’ll also look for ways to refer business back to your professional partners. Not only will it cement the relationship between you but it will also encourage them to send you even more referrals.
It’s important to remember that you want allied professionals who are successful and who are working as hard as you. That’s step one – drawing up a list of possible partners.
From there your goal is to make working with you attractive, simple and rewarding for your potential partners. Developing and working with networks of allied professional is not a cheap mortgage lead generation tactic. It might not cost you any cash but it certainly takes time and effort.
OK, sounds great. But how do it get started?
First of all, this is a soft-sell approach with a focus. Your objective is to create business alliances, not to sit back and wait for them to come to you. At the same time using a hard-sell approach to build these alliances is likely to put other professionals off working with you. They may be afraid you unleash your hard-sell techniques on their loyal customers. Be professional, be willing to help and be straight to the point.
Develop a Specialty or Niche
To attract professional partners, you need something that sets you apart from your competitors. Instead of being just another mortgage guy, you want to become the new home mortgage lead generation specialist, the small business owner’s mortgage pro, the multi-unit mortgage advisor or the government secured mortgage expert. Don’t fear being pigeon-holed, people will remember you and you can leverage that into new fields over time.
Build a Local Territory
It can be as big or as small as you want. It doesn’t even have to be your own neighborhood. If there’s a more lucrative part of town make that your territory. You want to be the local expert that all the allied professionals call when they have work in that area.
By drawing a defined territory it’s easier for you to manage, market to, and defend. Plus, it’s easier to travel and meet these professionals in person at their office, over lunch or at a professional business function.
Finally, success breeds success. If you can demonstrate your success, that encourages professionals to work with you. That’s much easier to accomplish in a well-defined territory.
Build and Demonstrate Your Value
Become an expert. Hold workshops, teach courses, present to local business groups and write articles for the local press. This raises your profile and demonstrates your expertise to other working professionals in your area. Make sure to keep clean copies and reprints of all your press (articles, write-ups, and reports) and use this material as supporting evidence of your expertise when approaching potential partners. All this makes you more attractive to customers too – making it easier to refer business to you.
Hire or Partner With an Assistant
You must be on top of your physical game. You want to be rested, cool, and calm when you hold meetings with the allied professionals. This is hard to do if you’re running around all day chasing leads and sales. Let your assistant do that.
Rewarding Referrals
Depending on your local rules and regulations, always reward referrals that turn into business. You should even consider giving a small gift for an honest lead or referral even if it doesn’t turn into business. Not only is it good business etiquette but it also encourages more of the same behavior.
Referral fees and rewards can be a touchy issue for some people. So, leave the possibility open and ask your allied professional if they have thoughts for or against it. Cash incentives may, in some cases, be too blunt so be creative in rewarding those that help you grow your business.
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You do have a list don’t you?
It is often said that your profit is in your list, but many companies simply do not take the time and effort to build a prospect list effectively. A good prospect list is a goldmine of future sales – and built and used effectively, it can become your first source for new business.
List building is particularly effective online – even if your business is done offline. Building a list online allows you to target people with similar needs – based on the information that they search for online. Prospects with similar needs are more likely to respond to well-targeted campaigns.
A useful prospect list is ALWAYS based on permission – permission for you to contact a prospect in the future. If you don’t get their permission, it’s spam. Your first consideration should therefore be how to encourage prospects to give you that permission – how can you encourage them to subscribe to your list?
The simple fact that you have a form on your website is not a guarantee that everyone that visits will give you their details. So, how do you go about it then?
Given the amount of spam and other junk email that people receive, the permission to contact your prospects with further information is a valuable asset. Call it a permission asset. To gain a permission asset you need to offer something valuable in return. Usually this will be useful information – a special report, ebook, white paper or newsletter for example. You should keep the information you ask for to a minimum and make it extremely clear how you intend to use their contact info.
If you take the time to build and use your list effectively it can become your greatest marketing asset.
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Email Marketing & List Building Strategies & Target Marketing
Are you using lead generation articles? Should you be?
Using articles for lead generation can be a great way to attract new prospects and demonstrate your expertise at the same time. They are simply short informative articles written about a topic that your potential customers are interested in. Once you’ve written them they can be placed in various places online or even used offline. Either way, by giving away free information, you can encourage prospects to visit your website and request further information.
Your lead generation articles should answer a specific problem that your customers might have. So, the best place to start is with them. The first thing you should do is some basic keyword research to find out what kinds of things your prospects are searching for online (get more information in our free special report). You will also want to have a basic understanding of the kinds of problems they are trying to solve. With those two pieces of information you can start to write a list of likely topics.
Lead generation articles should be simple and provide a real solution – they are not a sales pitch. You want to demonstrate that you understand the problem and can provide a solution. Start with a basic bullet point outline of what you want to say. Usually you will have an opening paragraph that explains the problem. Follow that with a simple list of the key points or best solutions. Each point in this list can become a subheading for your article. Use bullet points or numbered lists when appropriate for easier readability. Finally, you should close off your article with a simple concluding paragraph to sum up what you talked about.
Using a simple structure makes your articles easier to write, logical and easier to read or skim. Aim for about 500 words total and if you are writing for the web, make sure to include your key words and phrases. Use examples to help illustrate your points and keep the tone light but professional.
There’s no point in writing articles for lead generation if you don’t promote them well. Writing articles takes time so the best bet is to try to use each article in a variety of ways to ensure you get the best results.
For example, you can:
Try to use each article in as many ways as possible to improve your results but remember to rewrite it slightly for each place that you want to use it. If you start with a good outline you can work from that and make the job of rewriting easier.
Informative articles can be a great way to generate leads, bring people to your website and show that you ‘know your stuff’ – but it is a long term strategy. Commit to writing regular articles, use a simple structure to help you and distribute them as widely as you can. If you do that over a period of time you will start to see real benefits.
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Lead Generation & Lead Generation Techniques & Online Marketing Services & Target Marketing
Creating effective lead generation ads is one of first and most important steps in any lead generation process. Of course, we all want plenty of eyeballs on our advertising and visitors to our websites, but those figures mean nothing to your business if you cannot convert them. Converting visitors to customers on any campaign is what generates income for the business.
Advertising works when it speaks to the needs of the prospective customer. The good news is that there is a simple formula that you can use to make your advertising more effective.
To create good sales copy for your lead generation ads, you can follow this guide – AIDA – which stands for:
Attention:
When writing your message, make sure the heading captures the attention of your target market. To appeal to your target audience, the heading has to be eye-catching, targeted and specific. Avoid jargon and marketing speak. Clearly state the specific benefit your audience will get from what you are offering.
Interest:
Once you have their attention, the next step is to keep them interested by giving more detail about the solution your product or service will provide. People want to know what’s in it for them. They don’t want to know why you think you’re so special. So, writing from the customers’ point of view, explain the following:
Desire:
Desire is emotion not logic. You covered the logical points in the Interest section above. Buying decisions are emotional too. Paint a picture for your customer of how their life or business will be better for having bought your product or service.
Action:
Get them to act! People don’t like making decisions. Making a decision is risky. This, of course, means your prospective customers need a little poke to get them moving – a reason to take the next step (and a clear picture of what that next step is). Create the sense of urgency, scarcity or savings. Now direct them to take the action you want them to (ex. buy now and save 40% off the total price).
Follow Up:
If you use the AIDA system to craft your marketing, you should be able to start generating leads – but remember, leads are not sales. Not everyone will buy from just seeing your first lead generation ad. You need to create a system that allows you to nurture the leads until they are ready.
With that in mind, your first line of marketing should encourage people to
(a) Buy if they’re ready or
(b) Find more info if they’re not. The ‘more info’ option is your chance to gather contact information for your list.
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How to Buy Leads & Lead Generation & Lead Generation Techniques & Target Marketing
Insurance lead generation for most companies is a straightforward process. You start by buying leads or generating them yourself through advertising online and off. Then you start selling.
Simple!
For the consumer however, buying insurance is confusing, time consuming, and tedious. They are afraid to ask someone like you for more information because they believe it will lead to a sales pitch. That means that you don’t get as many leads as you would like. This is unfortunate, because you’re probably the one person most qualified to answer their questions and help them make an intelligent decision.
In short, if you want to place more customers, you need a way of generating insurance leads that sets you apart from the other insurance companies who are targeting those very same prospects. So how do you do that? How do you make yourself stand out?
Starting with the customer in mind, the best method of insurance lead generation is to make it easy for prospects to contact you and find the information they’re looking for – without fear of the dreaded hard sell.
It might sound crazy but if you want to generate more insurance leads the smart thing is to…
… give your prospect the information they want, with no strings attached.
Providing content that answers your prospects queries will attract more prospects – the ones who are put off by the hoops that other agents make them jump through. Secondly it will make you a trusted resource that they will return to. Of course, you’ll also want to gather prospects’ contact details where possible. This is your permission to continue to market to them over time. To encourage prospects to give you this permission you’ll often need an incentive.
In your insurance lead generation process, the first step could be to create a special report that covers the key points your prospect should be aware about before buying your kind of insurance (life, auto, income disability, home, etc). The report should cover basic dos and don’ts and give him advice about what to expect when purchasing your insurance product. Then, at the end, you should include a simple way for them to get in touch.
Many times he will call you to finish what he set out to do – buy insurance. If not, you can still go back to route one and call them. Even if this does not lead to an immediate sale, you’ve started a relationship and are now one step ahead of your competitors.
Many prospects still don’t buy immediately, even if they need what you’re selling. Things happen. They get busy. Other life events take attention away from buying insurance. So what else should you do as part of your insurance lead generation process?
Simple. Follow up with them. By joining your mailing list the prospect has given you permission to keep in touch. You want to stay top-of-mind and ask for the sale as many times as needed until they become a client or ask you to stop contacting them. Depending on what contact information you have, you can stay in touch by phone, email, mail, or a combination of all three.
Ideally, you will automate this communication to save you time and allow you to focus on fresh leads as they come through. You’ll find by being consistent and communicating with lukewarm prospects over time, those that don’t buy now often buy in the future (or do other good things like refer business to you).
Now that you have a mailing list of prospects interested in insurance, you can cross-sell them other lines of insurance. For instance, if the first reason they contacted you was about information on Life Insurance, you can now offer information on purchasing Income Disability Insurance. Also, if you only focus on one line of insurance (for example, Business Owner Policies), you can partner up with another agent that specializes in a different line of insurance and split commissions.
Many agents use the leads they buy poorly. They buy them and wait days to call the lead back. When asked why, many say that they were busy or at appointments when the leads were emailed to them. Don’t let these leads go stale.
Have an assistant or sub-agent call them back immediately. If too much time passes the prospect’s enthusiasm dies and their level of interest disappears, making a sale harder or impossible. Chances are they’ll also be contacted by other agents. If you don’t get a sale right away, remember to encourage them to join your mailing list (again using free info as an incentive). This can provide a long list of prospects to contact in future with new offers or simply keep in front of until they’re ready to buy.
Related Articles
Health And Life Insurance Lead Generation
How to Buy Leads & Lead Generation & Lead Management & List Building Strategies & Target Marketing
Health insurance lead generation or life insurance lead generation can be difficult. It’s a very competitive market and it’s difficult to distinguish your insurance products from those of your competitors. In some cases you’ll even be selling the exact same insurance products as your competitors. So how do you set yourself apart from the others and generate more insurance leads?
Actually, the answer is in the question. You need to set yourself apart TO generate leads. Let me explain. When someone is looking for health insurance or life insurance there will be no shortage of businesses and agents lining up to take their business. From the customer’s point of view it can be very confusing. They want to make sure that they get the best possible coverage at the best possible price.
You’re in a good position to advise them but they have no reason to listen to you over anyone else – to them it’s all just a sales pitch. They don’t know who you are. They don’t know what you know. You need to create trust.
Trust is important in any business but in an industry where the customer is confused by contradictory claims and jargon, it’s essential. Trust is based on a relationship – either with you personally or your brand – but you don’t have the time to go out and build relationships with every single prospect individually. You’re still going to buy leads in. You’re still going to do all the things that you usually do. But, to generate more trust — trust that leads to leads — you should consider the following three ideas:
People are confused. Ideally they want a simple, unbiased answer to their questions: what is the best coverage for me and what is the best price I can get that coverage for. To generate trust and build leads for your insurance business, you should look for ways to answer those questions, minus the sales pitch.
You could start with a few introductory articles on your website, covering general insurance topics. People searching for this information online are good prospects. Providing that information means that they will find you before they find your competitors – and trust you more because you’ve helped educate them.
People like doing business with other people – especially people they know. Again, it’s down to trust. There are plenty of opportunities to bring your own personality into how you market your business. You could start in your local market by being an active networker.
Online you should make sure that your website – and all marketing communications – display elements of your personality and include things like personal biographies, contact details and even photos. Finally, you can use any number of social networking tools to help build your personal profile online.
Referrals are great business because they come with an endorsement attached. Accountants, solicitors, financial planners or any other professional could well be able to refer business to you. When they do, your job is simply to uphold the trust they’ve put in you and do a good job for the client. Customers are also an excellent source of referrals in the same way.
However you choose to generate leads for your insurance business (health insurance, life insurance or any other kind of insurance), finding ways to build trust is an excellent way to set yourself apart from your competitors and encourage people come to you.
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How to Buy Leads & Lead Generation & List Building Strategies & Small Businesses & Target Marketing
Can effective email marketing campaigns win you more business?
Yes!
Email marketing can be a great way of getting more customers – so long as you don’t fall into the trap of spamming. Email marketing is best when it’s used to keep in touch with people who’ve already shown an interest in your product or service. Targeting these kinds of people with email can help promote new products and services, close sales and create interest.
So how can you use email effectively?
There are many ways of using email campaigns to build customer relationship and create brand awareness, including;
However, one of the most effective ways of using email marketing is with an auto-responder program.
An auto-responder program allows you to create standard emails in advance, which then get sent out to customers or prospects at a pre-set time. You’ll need a form on your website where people can sign up for your newsletter or emails. Once they hit the “submit button” their email address is sent to the auto-responder. The auto-responder will then start sending the pre-written emails at your chosen time increments. For example, you can have an email message set to be sent immediately, so that once the lead signs up, they receive a welcome message from you.
Using auto-responders, you can create an entire sales cycle that runs automatically.
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