Now’s the time to consider your marketing funnel, learning precisely how customers are being attracted into it. This process of “filling the funnel” is what’s known as lead generation; something that’s difficult without a thorough, up-to-date plan based on recent experiences.
By writing down each stage of your marketing funnel and thinking about the process from a zoomed-out view, you can introduce plans that reduce the time to making new sales. But let’s talk about getting those leads in the first place.
There are many ways of finding new business leads. My personal favorites are the Internet, direct response mail, joint ventures, news and press, and viral marketing (an orchestrated form of word-of-mouth). Relying on word-of-mouth and typical “image advertising” alone will usually cause a business to dive-bomb and bankrupt, especially during a hard economy.
The ultimate goal of any lead generation is to make the process natural without a constant effort on your part. You want people to be coming to you automatically. And that doesn’t imply word-of-mouth, it means proper systemization.
The Internet offers the best form of systemization available, notably because the costs are much lower than all other techniques. But there are considerations to be made when getting local leads online, number one being whether there’s enough search traffic to justify the process.
The Gainesville Marketing Group has provided lead generation consultations and system development for many types of local businesses including home security installation, dentists, opticians, and others. Our proven systems will bring you new customers immediately with minimal expense.
Are there enough potential customers using the Internet to find service providers like yourself?
The fastest way to gauge search volume in your city is go use Google’s Keyword Tool. After visiting that page, type in your service(s) and use a local modifier like the name of your city. For example, don’t just type in “plumbing”, get a search estimate for “Gainesville Plumbing” and “Gainesville Plumbers”.
If you’re a retail store, I recommend getting estimates based on brand names and specific items that you sell. You aren’t as interested in being found on the Internet for the name of your store as much as what you can offer your customers.
For electronics store, that means name brands like Sony, Toshiba, and others, but also blu-ray player, digital camcorder, home entertainment system, home stereo system, etc. For a clothing store, again, I recommend targeting items and brand names you sell, not only the name of your store.
The exact terms you want traffic estimates for are “Gainesville home stereo system”, “Gainesville HD Radio”, “Gainesville home security”, “Gainesville Armani Suit”, “Gainesville Sony TV Sales”, etc.
Remember that Google’s tool really is just an estimate, but it’s the closest and best free option you’ll have to go by. In my opinion, it’s in their best interest to provide you accurate data.
After having this data, you’ll know whether search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising will be a worthwhile investment for the immediate future, or if you’re early in the game but can afford to stick it through until it becomes a viable lead generation alternative.
You’re probably asking “how many searches is enough to start with”?
That will depend on your business and what you’re selling. Will getting 4 leads out of 100 searches convert to a sale? What is the amount of an average sale? What is the long term value of the relationships you create?
Like anything else in business, it comes down to a numbers game and you should take a few moments for a proper “guesstimate” before putting money on the table for any SEO or PPC service provider.
Also, the argument could be made that now’s the time to being search engine marketing because it will be more difficult in the coming years as competitors wise-up and customers use it more frequently, making the Yellow Pages even more obsolete.
Contact the Gainesville Marketing Group for your free lead generation consultation.