Top Ten Lead Generation Tips

Lead generation and generating sales leads are key functions for any business.  These are my top 10 tips to achieve lead generation success.

1.  Planning. The best lead generation campaigns are those where the activity is planned over a long period of time.  Don’t just do ad-hoc one off campaigns but plan your communication to ensure a steady stream of high quality leads.

2.  Knowledge. It is vital that you understand your market place, who do you need to communicate to, how do they want to be communicated to, what information do they want etc. This will form the basis of your lead generation communication.

3.  Database. Make sure you invest in a good quality database- the better the quality of contacts, the more chance you have when it comes to generating good leads.

4. Segmentation. Segmentation is very important for a successful campaign. Segmentation makes sure messages are directly tailored towards the prospect’s needs and characteristics, thus increasing the chance of a sales lead being produced. Segmentation can be based on a variety of criterion, including: past purchase behaviour, industry, company size and location.

5. Laws. Make sure you adhere to the laws regarding the use of data and communicating to it. For more information on data, the law and how it could affect your business go to:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/

6. Integration. The integrated approach to lead generation and marketing can heed a much more successful campaign. Carefully timed multi touched campaigns are much more effective than single isolated campaigns.

7. Online. Ensure that you integrate your online with your offline activity.  Utilise Bloggs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc to communicate effectively with your target market.  Ensure that you promote these in all your marketing activity.

8. Event driven. Make sure some of your lead generation communications are event driven. Having a reason to communicate with your database is better than having none whatsoever, and more likely to get read. Event driven communications can be invitations to an event/seminar, a seasonal promotion, product launches, surveys and competitions.

9. Relevant. Ensure that all communication, whether online or off is relevant to your target market.  Try and engage recipients and get feedback from them, if you send information that the recipients don’t want you run the risk of them switching off from all your messaging.

10. Call to action. Make sure you give your recipients a direct call to action. If they are not aware of how to react to your communications, you cannot expect a good response rate!

11. Follow up. I know I said 10 but this is so important. You must ensure all positive responses to your lead generation communications are followed up effectively. Do not allow enquiries to go cold.