The second way to grow your business is to generate more leads.
Do you know the difference between a suspect, a lead, a prospect, a customer, a loyal customer, and a raving advocate?
The Marketing Funnel begins with someone who is in our target market, but hasn’t yet responded to any of our marketing. When that person responds to marketing or makes an enquiry, they become a lead. It’s important to follow your leads up and give them an opportunity buy, moving them from being leads to being prospects.
At this point, we move from the lead generation phase to the sales phase, and our prospects become our likely customers. After a single purchase, they become our customers, and after repeated purchases they become our loyal customers. Finally, we want to get our loyal customers to become raving advocates who tell everyone about their experience with us and generate referrals.
Do you have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system? Is it up to date? How do you keep track of your leads to ensure they are followed up?
Who is your target market? Where are they in the highest numbers? You need to understand this in order to tailor your marketing to the right people.
Lead generation strategies:
-Attending events
-Networking
-Newsletters
-Strategic alliances
-Website
-Blogs
-Open days
