HOW TO TURBO CHARGE YOUR LEAD GENERATION
1. Tag clients on Facebook and LinkedIn and give them appreciation. Then reach out to their friends/colleagues who “like” or comment and invite them to a free special event you’re holding, a webinar, class, fundraiser, open house, or other special events.
2. Run “entry-level” workshops on your chosen area of expertise. Advertise these extensively on the radio and social media.
3. Author a book. Seriously – there are multiple ways to make this happen without you even having to type a word yourself. Nothing will establish your credibility faster in your marketplace. At the very least, author a buyer’s guide for your top product or service and turn it into an eBook that can be downloaded on your website. Again, forget the traditional way of writing a book – slogging it out for months. Talk your book instead and turn it into a buyer’s guide (like we do).
4. Completely redesign your customer experience and turn it on its head. Set out to create the most extraordinary customer experience that will spread like wildfire. Throw out all the sacred cows. A great example of this is a dentist who now sends a limo to pick up his clients and treats them to a hand and foot massage while they wait for their “treatment,” or the plastic surgeon who themes his office like a sexy French boudoir. Once you’ve redesigned it, send out a press release and make calls to all your local media to get the word spread.
5. Get a list of all the clients your company has done business with, ever, but who you haven’t worked with in the last twelve months. Send them a heartfelt letter signed by you, the CEO. Include a special offer that would be hard to pass up and a deadline.
6. Create a real “snail mail, paper, and ink newsletter” for your customers. Make it fun and interesting, and jam-pack it with helpful content demonstrating your company’s expertise. If it’s even remotely good, your newsletter will stand head and shoulders above anything else in the mailbox, and your clients will look forward to receiving it. Dollar for dollar, it’s still a very powerful lead generation and client retention tool.
7. Revamp your company blogs by adding a call to action at the end of every blog post and get some SEO work done on your website so it ranks for the top keywords your target market is searching for on Google.
8. Craft and syndicate Search Engine Optimized (i.e.: Google friendly) press releases that tie your business in with human interest stories or the latest news.
9. Host fun, themed, client appreciation events and invite past clients, prospects, and other business owners to attend. Make it an annual or bi-annual event. Have fun, network, and get referrals.
10. Get your sales team to make calls to happy clients and ask them if they can share the names, phone numbers and emails of two people who’d also benefit from your products or services.
11. Craft phone and email scripts that convert for use when you get phone and email inquiries. These scripts become systems your business operates on, saving you time and increasing sales. Telephone and email scripts also help project a more consistent image – an excellent tool for building trust.
12. Deliver great content to your house list on a regular and consistent basis– articles, market updates, case studies, etc., so that your list will get to know, like and TRUST you.
13. Create four to six-minute “how-to” videos and post them on YouTube with a list of your keywords and a link to your landing page in the description. Post these on your social media channels as well.
14. Network with other CEOs who might not be your geographic market but who also service your target prospects. Create a strategic alliance and promote each other’s businesses. I’ve written extensively about this over the years and call it “piggyback marketing.” It’s one of the best and fastest ways to generate high-quality leads for your business.
15. Buy ad space in a magazine read prolifically by your target market. Run an “advertorial” (an ad that looks and reads exactly like an article, except that it’s your dream article written about your company.) Order plenty of additional copies and send them to your high-value prospects as part of a multi-media ad campaign.
16. Buy ads on Facebook and Instagram that will send people to a fan page with a fantastic offer (free book, class, video series, white paper), in exchange for their email address.
17. Create a sales and promotion video about your business and write to your best clients asking if you can feature them in it (of course, they will say “yes,” and you’ll be able to get glowing testimonials from them). Then, hand them an email campaign they can send to their clients, friends, and influencers featuring the video. The viral campaign to their people makes them look terrific.
18. Send a direct mail campaign to targeted homes or businesses that fit your ideal client profile. Make it a multi-step campaign (to improve your response rate). Include a great offer they’d be mad not to respond to, along with a deadline to respond. Make your direct mail piece fun, colorful, oversized, and impossible to ignore.
Are you using all of these strategies to generate leads for your business? If not, which ones do you think your team should be getting onto, pronto…?
