You might be one of those people who thinks:
“I don’t get all this computerized mumbo jumbo. I’m old school. When it comes to dealing with prospects for my business, I still like to press the flesh — meet someone and collect leads in person to really get to know them. I bet your sophisticated marketing software can’t really help me do that.”
Wrong.
Let’s go back to the example we gave you in Part Two of this series.
Suppose you meet someone at a function, such as an industry briefing or a trade show. That person expresses an interest in your business. They mention that their company has a problem . . . a problem that your company could very well solve for them by selling them a good or a service. But you part ways without them buying anything from you.
You might think, “Alas! Another missed opportunity!”
Wrong again.
If you know anything about leads, you know that no lead is ever really “cold.”
All leads in person have the potential to “warm up” and become actual customers — if you nurture them properly!
So how can you apply systemized and automated inbound marketing strategies to warm up a lead whom you met in person?
Actually, we’ve got a better question for you. Why stop at just one lead?
A better question would be:
“How can you apply systemized and automated inbound marketing strategies to warm up hundreds, even thousands of leads made in person?”
The key is a technique we call “Taking Control of the Meet,” and it’s really very simple.
Are you one of those people who asks for a person’s business card when you meet them in person?
Not anymore.
When you switch to a systemized and automated inbound marketing approach, you will always present your business card first!
This makes a huge difference. Here’s why:
What would it be like if you passed out business cards that automatically tagged your leads electronically so that, later, you can generate specific reports about their consumer behaviors.
Is this possible? You bet.
Suppose you have one group of business cards that you pass out at cocktail parties and dinners with friends of friends. These are places where you honestly don’t expect to talk business. But should that conversation arise, you’re prepared with your “dinner with friends” cards.
Let’s also suppose that you have another group of cards that you pass out at a big, specific industry event, like an expo or a convention.
Why have different cards for different events?
Because each card will have a specific url on it. (Url is just a fancy industry term for “web address.”)
The cards that you give to Persons A and B at a dinner with friends list your company’s website as: www.yourbusiness.com/dwf (The “dwf” is your own personal code for “dinner with friends.”). These leads in person will be driven to a specific page, only.
The cards that you pass out to Persons C, D, and E at an expo might have a different url, like: www.yourbusiness.com/thebigexpo. These leads in person can be driven to a specific sales page or landing page that is designed for this specific target.
Both urls will take people to your company’s website! But the specific urls will allow you to track where you met that lead, and how that lead behaves once they enter your online environment.
Having this information at your fingertips becomes invaluable when we get to Part Seven of this series, Analyzing Your Marketing ROI.
How?
By following this simple strategy (and many others like it), your business will be able to generate accurate, detailed reports on:
- how many leads your business made in any given time frame,
- where and how these leads were generated,
- all the activities each lead displayed while interacting with your online content (the tagged wildlife analogy), and
- how many of these leads turned into actual sales.
Best of all, you’ll be able to generate these immensely powerful reports by literally pushing a button.
Having information like this at your fingertips will greatly empower your business because:
- You will be able to tell you which parts of your business’s online content attract users and which parts seem to push them away. For instance, you will be able to tell how many leads from individual categories (the dinner with friends or the big expo, for instance) watched videos posted in your video library. How many blog entries they actually clicked through to read. How many pages they perused on your website overall. And so on.
- You’ll also be able to generate metrics on how many of these same leads looked you up on Facebook. Or check out your LinkedIn profile. Or any other social media.
- Knowing this, you can calibrate your content accordingly to attract more leads and guide them into a deeper understanding that your company’s good or service is the key to solving their problem.
- Using this data, you will effectively gauge how warm each lead is. This is called Lead Scoring.
Lead Scoring allows you to gauge the level of that prospective customer’s interest. Which in turn gives you foresight into what else you can do to attract their business, and hindsight into what it takes to attract certain customers once that sale has eventually closed.
If you remember nothing else from this blog series, remember this:
One of the keys to conducting a truly powerful and productive inbound marketing campaign is to create unique electronic identifiers that tag each lead (even those you meet in person) so you can study them later!
PART SIX: CREATING MORE LEADS AND SALES BY LEVERAGING EXISTING CLIENTS
Stern is an Inbound Marketing firm. We focus on increasing sales through better marketing practices using strategic Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing, and Social Media Marketing. We carefully measure and report our results. Our top clients report an 8 to 1 or higher #MarkeingROI on their investment.
We would love to have a conversation with you about lead generation, follow up, nurturing and the true ROI on your social, inbound, and content marketing.
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