The Exact Research Process We Use To Generate A Massive Amounts Of Leads Monthly Like Clockwork
Jake Roper
?? Ex-college athlete ? Founder & Creative Director ? Launched over 500+ growth campaigns ? Learn to pack your sales team's calendar in 30 days, free training in featured section ??
I’m giving it all away...
If you’re like me, you probably hate the research phase of the lead generation process.
But you know it’s necessary.
This work is the 20% that amounts to 80% of the results. And we will constantly refer back to it even months after we’ve launched.
Safe to say, this work is imperative.
My company, Adstra has drilled down a very specific process that we conduct time and time again. The process is the same, but the content changes. That way, we can garner great data — regardless of who we are working with.
This process has allowed me to take the trial and error completely out of the process. Before we launch campaigns we know:
Our clients are blown away by the data that we bring back. The best part: we don’t pay for any research tools.
How is this possible?
Well, it’s quite simple. Let me explain.
Initial Market Knowledge
Whenever we start a new engagement, we always get the founders’ thoughts first.
The comical truth: they usually don’t have any clue what’s going on. And it’s not their fault. I’ve had founders tell me about their dream customer and after research we’ve discovered that they were completely off the mark.
You’d be surprised how often this happens. The last thing you want in this situation is to listen to the founder, build the funnel, and have it come back with sub-par results. The founder will never say:
Oh yeah, it’s my fault. That was my research.
Not even close. You, the marketer, are always to blame. So you must do what you can on your own to achieve results because like I said, you’re always the one to blame.
However, the initial meeting can give you a decent start to the research portion. The lesson here: take what you already know with a grain of salt. Be OK with the fact that you may find that you’re incorrect.
Marketing isn’t a job where you are married to what you know. You must be concurrently on a mission to prove yourself wrong. Constantly. That’s how you perform the most proactive research possible.
Once we have this meeting, it’s off to the races. Mind you, we call this Phase I of our process. We have 4 phases in total. This first portion usually takes the longest and is the most tiresome.
But it’s the most worth it. Something we say often in our company: the better you prepare, the luckier you get.
Growth Evaluation Report
For every one that we work with, we produce a document for them called the Growth Evaluation Report.
Here’s what it looks like:
Let’s break these down, shall we?
Sherlock Holmes Strategy
This is the overall thought process that we take into our research. We know that our messaging must also speak to those who aren’t ready to buy but are in information-gathering mode, problem aware & not problem-aware. This is called customer awareness.
How do we get these people to book a call with us or buy our thing? By entering the conversation that is already happening in their head with our copy, messaging, outbound, ads, headlines, etc.
The following process is how we evaluate our audience and see what they are talking about, how they are talking about it, and so on.
Of course, the insights we get on age and more demographics — we can use for software and other targeting parameters, but we want to see what these people are saying.
The truth is, demographics don’t matter nearly matter as much as psychographics.
Here’s how we find what we are looking for:
WWWH Method
Let’s see how we would do this for an individual running a tutoring business.
We help (WHO):
Achieve (WHAT):
Without (common beliefs):
By (HOW):
This is the outline you create before you do any research. Now, it’s time to dig into the market.
Prospect discussions
Head to Reddit/Quora and find threads on your prospects. Take note of common themes:
This is the tinder to the fire you’re going to light in your marketing and business growth. Spend more time than you think here.
Halo Strategy (coined by Sabri Suby)
Take what you’ve found and segment them into this sheet:
Highlight the commonalities and score them. Now, you have ammunition to work with that’s backed by your customer. Free of any bias.
Larger Market Formula (coined by Sabri Suby)
This is crucial. Remember what I said about customer awareness in the beginning? This is where it comes into play.
3% Buying now — 99% of businesses are going after this portion of people with their ads and messaging. Target the lower rungs of the pyramid to capture more attention, leads, and customers at better costs.
17% Information gathering mode — Actively looking for solutions to their problems.
20% Problem aware — Are aware that they have a problem, but aren’t actively looking for solutions.
60% Not problem aware — May not even know that they have a problem.
With this information, you want to segment your persona into these brackets to better understand what stage they are in.
That way, you can create messaging that resonates with people in ways that your competitor can’t or is not currently doing.
When your prospect sees it, they know you aren’t like everyone else who has tried. That’s how you win.
Sales Angles
Using the Reddit conversations and other methods of research, fill these in for yourself:
Write 5–10 sales angles — LF8
Life Force 8 (LF8) refers to Drew Whitman’s Ca$hvertising. I highly recommend reading it.
The Life Force 8 are the eight basic human instincts hardwired into every person:
Using the LF8’s applications, present your benefits in terms of these applications:
1. [Benefit] Life force 8 application: Survival & security
2. [Benefit] Life force 8 application: Freedom from pain
3. [Benefit] Life force 8 application: Comfort in living
4. [Benefit] Life force 8 application: Social approval
5. [Benefit] Life force 8 application: Enjoyment
Feel free to choose different applications or create more. But, you’ll know if you stick to this, you’re appealing to innate human desires.
Competitor Analysis
Make a list of as many competitors as possible.
Use FB ad library and Google ad library to find competitors' ads. Most platforms allow you to peek into their ads and see what they are running. You can do this on Linkedin and many more as well. Consider any ad that’s running longer than a month or so, profitable.
We will list competitors, and what their benefits are and we will make observations on their marketing.
The key here is to find similarities among all of them in terms of:
Sales Funnel & Enablement Model
This is how we believe we can funnel their customers. Here’s an example:
Now that we have mapped out the customer journey, we can build with a good idea in mind on what we are building. It surprises me how often people build without knowledge of:
See how you can create a model using this information for your own business.
Now that I’ve pulled the rug back on our whole process, I know it probably seems like a lot of work. Consider having me help you for free!
TL;DR
Thanks for joining me on my mission to provide as much value as I can in the marketplace. If this can help just one person, I’ll be as happy as my cat when I rub his head (he gets so happy when I do this!).