“I Want Leads,” said the Client to the Marketer

To be a marketer is to be in the business of lead generation and it is perhaps the easiest way for a business to gauge their reach. Are people knocking on your door or not? So it’s no surprise that it’s a topic that gets hearts pumping and brows furrowing. Heaps of people come to me saying, “I want leads” (don’t we all, mate!). But there’s only a few who are actually willing to really inspect their marketing plan and understand the NITTY GRITTY of how to generate leads.

So, what is the NITTY GRITTY of Generating Leads?!

It’s EVERYTHING related to your business prior to making the sale (but then again: people talk, so lead generation never really ends).

Let’s Begin With Your Website

CONTENT matters. This is often people’s first contact your business, so, of course, having interesting, accurate, and attractive content, and an active social media presence is the first step.

According to the Content Marketing Institute (NB: bias) content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising (2017). What this means is that you don’t necessarily have to have a call-to-action or be going for the sell every time.

Next, think about searchability and interactiveness. How are people finding you? And once they find you, are they sticking around to find out more? To begin with, this may mean SEO, digital advertising, social media campaigns, ad spend, PR, media collaboration—but also, it’s really two sides of the same coin as landing pages, nurture streams, downloadable content, webinars, blogs, competitions, product launches, events, and so on. All of these play an important role in how people find and engage with your business.

I hope you realise that there’s NO ‘ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL’ approach to lead generation, nor is it a small undertaking! You need to test and measure—but at the very least, you need to do SOMETHING about it and do it REGULARLY.

Awesome Leads vs Shitty Leads

There is no such thing as a Pay-Per-Lead rate (yes I’ve been asked). This is meant to guarantee thousands of leads, but… you guessed it — shitty, low-quality, poor-conversion leads. Not to mention, costs $1,000s for your business.

The better approach would be to pay a specialist to undertake the work; someone that you gel with or who comes highly recommended, and have them provide a consistent, quality outcome.

Accountability: Keeping Yourself Honest

If you want to generate leads, there’s no such thing as a ‘100% Done For You’ solution… to an extent. We actually offer a ‘Done For You’ solution, but keep in mind, this is still YOUR BUSINESS and you NEED to be involved (and we will make sure that you are, if you work with us). Otherwise, it would be like saying that when you work with a client, you don’t interact with them at all.

It’s the same with marketing! You don’t necessarily have to understand marketing, but you do have to understand YOUR BUSINESS and share what you can.

It’s all about anchoring it back to someone who CAN and WANTS to do the work. TOP TIP: Know how to do the work (at least the mechanisms), but get someone else to do it for you. Someone like a Hunt & Hawk leads specialist. Message me if you have any questions!

Lastly, Here’s What NOT To Do

My inspiration for this post came from two clients, whom we ended up having to drop.

CLIENT 1: Wanted us to generate leads. So naturally, we provided quality leads. The client never followed-up on the generated leads and eventually, turned around wanting even more leads.

Lesson: There’s no point doing more work if both parties aren’t fulfilling their part. Only work with people you want to work with. Don't waste the opportunity by not actioning on leads.

CLIENT 2: Engaged with us after a recommendation from someone else. We walked them through everything. They were happy, but said they didn’t realise how much would be involved. Yikes.

Lesson: Yes, it’s a lot of work – and that’s why you hired help! But you only get out what you’re prepared to receive. And follow through so you don’t let a good lead get past you.

If you have other questions around leads generation or general Marketing for your business, send me a message or visit us at www.huntandhawk.com! I'm happy to answer and help out.