9 Questions

From Pat Mcgraw's blog:

9 Questions that will Lower Lead Generation Costs

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 06:00 AM PST

Here are nine simple questions to consider when developing your next lead generation campaign – the answers to these questions can help you lower costs, increase performance and generate more profitable sales. (Let me know if I missed any of your favorites!)

Who is your target audience? With lead generation, you need to know who you are targeting and where they are in the buying cycle. Why do they need what you offer? How does your product/service make their lives better?

What problems do they have that your products/services solve? People buy solutions to improve their lives – so what is the need/problem you address for the target audience? Make sure you clearly identify [a] the need and [b] the unique, valuable way your product/service solves that need for them.

What options do they have – what are you competing against? You will need to address these issues because they will serve as obstacles during the buying process. And remember, doing nothing is a viable option for your audience – how does your product/service provide a better alternative than living with the need/problem?

What makes your solution the most valuable solution available to these people? You need a point of unique differentiation that translate to value for the audience – otherwise, you’re no better or worse than the competition.

What are you telling them – and why should they care? Most people want to know about benefits, not features. They want to know “What’s in it for me?”, not how wonderful your business is. Stop blowing your own horn, start telling them what they need/want to hear.

What offer will motivate them to respond the way you want them to respond? What is an offer they can’t refuse? If you find yourself going through a list because you expect different types of prospective buyers to see the promotion, you might want to refine your target – when you try to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing. If you are targeting people ready to buy today, the offer is going to be different that if you are targeting people that are just realizing they might have a need.

What channel(s) are you using to deliver your message and offer to your target audience? (Why?) Where does your audience go for information – and do you need to be there on a more frequent basis in order to cut through the clutter and capture their attention?

Pet Peeve: Just because you got a great deal from your email vendor doesn’t mean that every promotional campaign must be email – especially if your audience tells you that they use other channels to identify solutions for their needs. Not picking on email here – my point is too many look at the cost to reach the maximum number of potential buyers rather than the cost to generate a sale and I can’t tell you how many times the cost per sale metric has shown that certain channels are cheap to use and ineffective at generating profitable sales!

For interesting insight – visit Return Path and read Complacent Marketers Give Hope to Social Media.

But marketers’ complacency for the dominance of the email channel may be encouraging them to disregard what their subscribers want. This could potentially be their downfall.

This is confirmed by the recent launch of the DMA’s Digital Tracking Study, which I attended. The event delivered the alarming news for marketers that 90 per cent of emails that UK consumers receive are not considered to be relevant to them. Two thirds of UK customers only find one in ten of the emails they receive interesting.

These failings represent a very real prospect that social media could eat into email marketing’s audience. Not providing consumers with relevant, targeted marketing emails runs the risk that their heads will increasingly be turned towards social media. Marketers need to tighten up their email best practice to avoid diminishing the value of a vital marketing channel, particularly when the efficacy of relatively new social media marketing campaigns is still being debated.

What is your contact strategy for this audience with this message and offer? Are you using a 1-shot approach that will either hit or miss? Or, since you know your target audience will buy eventually, are you putting together a carefully planned strategy for contacting the individuals multiple times via multiple channels over the coming weeks/months?

So, a few things to think about while developing your next lead generation effort – have I missed anything?

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