If you’ve been in business for a while, you remember the old-fashioned way to cultivate sales leads. It typically involved a physical Rolodex of contacts, countless phone calls, and many overpriced lunch meetings. While these elements will always be part of the lead generation process, finding prospects is much more sophisticated in today’s high-tech world. Ready to nab some new customers and enhance the relationships with your existing ones? Let’s get started!
All the tools you need to make new sales
There is a plethora of websites, apps, and platforms to improve the communication between your business and your customer. In her Entrepreneur article “Six Ideas for Finding New Sales Leads,” Ann Handley helps break down some of these helpful lead-gen tools in sizable (and simple) chunks. These are generalized and summarized below, focusing on the top line messages.
SlideShare
With 60 million visitors per month and 130 million page views, you’ve probably already heard of this professional content-sharing community. In fact, it’s one of the largest sites of its kind in the world and it ranks as one of the top 200 sites on the web. Here, users can upload and share PDFs, presentations, webinars, and e-books. It’s also considered one of the only high-traffic platforms that integrate organic lead generation through its LeadShare service.
In order to download a presentation, users must fill out a contact form. During several points in the presentation, viewers are encouraged to contact the business for additional information – a beneficial prompt if they take the next step to call you.
Product videos
Do product videos increase sales? Absolutely, if they are produced correctly! Keep videos short and sweet, no more than 30 seconds if you can. Include helpful (not annoying) calls to action that are easy to take. For instance, make the featured product in the video clickable to bring people right to the point-of-purchase. As further proof, analytics technology company Kissmetrics took a look at StacksAndStacks.com, a housewares realtor. They found that visitors were 144 percent more likely to make a purchase after seeing a product video.
Email signatures
This may seem overly basic for improving your lead gen strategy, but don’t overlook this simple step that you can do in five minutes! In addition to your contact details, what exciting happenings can you brag about right now? Did your business just win an award, publish a dynamic bylined article, or launch an exciting new product? Highlight these “wins” in your signature, as well as the link to your company blog. WiseStamp even allows you to add your latest blog post to any outgoing message. Essentially, if you can give potential new customers more reasons to connect to you or care about you, do it.
LinkedIn answers
Chances are, you have the expertise and know-how to solve problems that your customers or potential new targets have. Illustrate this capability by answering relevant questions posted to the LinkedIn community. Don’t go too crazy, though. Stick to the questions for which you can provide the most value, and stay away from the ones that you don’t have much to add.
Error pages
This is an interesting one. Transform those “nothing” pages (like your 404 error page) into usable and helpful content. Be witty – such as explaining “while this page doesn’t work, our company is seamless for its customers” and provide relevant contact information. Get creative in making bridges instead of dead ends.
Many companies have found this “pretty” and “cute” site to be a powerful lead-gen and traffic-generating tool. Once you have your business page, think bigger than product shots. Include infographics and links to other informative (and exciting) videos and articles. You have to become “pin worthy” to stand out.
Never lose sight of your leads
Even with all the latest and greatest technology tools out there, much of lead generation comes down to you. The devil is in the details and it’s important that you not lose sight of a single one. Make sure you create and routinely maintain (sometimes daily) an extensive database of your current customers – both those that you have spoken with but haven’t quite closed the deal, as well as those that are on your dream wish list. Update each of these contacts with relevant notes including everything from when you last talked with them and what they said to their recent wins and losses and their favorite bottle of wine. Nothing matters more than cultivating details and holding them as one of your most valuable company assets from here on out.
This article is made possible by Checksforless.com For more than 35 years, Checksforless.com has provided over 500,000 businesses with high quality business checks, deposit slips, and other banking supplies with easy ordering and fast production times; all at the guaranteed lowest price in the nation. Our discount business checks are easily customizable and compatible with over 4,500 software programs including QuickBooks® and Peachtree®. Email or call us toll-free at 800-245-5775 or visit us online at Checksforless.com.