What’s a Lead?

A lead is essentially a potential customer that hasn’t yet purchased or used your services. A good lead shows interest in your services and can be viewed as prospective clients. They can be identified in different ways, including

• Social Media

• Service/Product Trials

• Consultations

• Marketing

• Networking & Outreach

Here’s how you can generate a leads list for your business.

Know Your Target Audience

In order to successfully reach out to gain leads, you need to identify your target audience. Knowing the target audience of your business gives you an idea on the ideal type of customers you want to have. Research your audience, from their characteristics to the problems they face. Questions to keep in mind:

• What type of consumer are they?

• Where are they located?

• What kind of industry are they in?

• What is their main problem and how does your service help them solve it?

Once you have a stronger understanding of your target audience, it’s easier to narrow down what will successfully reach your leads. 

Take advantage of Social Media

With the existence of social media, you may get more help finding sources and leads online than you think! Networking is a huge part of marketing these days, and it’s a common practice to reach out to those who are part of the same community as you. Platforms like LinkedIn are great for finding prospective clients, as there are many professionals that are looking to network or collaborate with others with similar interests. 

Get Creative With Promotional Methods 

While you may be using social media to reach out to potential leads, there are also different ways to approach them. Try out different promotional methods to see which work best. Depending on the client and business, some may work better than others. A few examples of promotional methods include:

• Sharing informative blog articles

• Participating in engagement speaking

• Promoting at industry events

• Advertising

• Cold calls

• And more

Research your target audience in order to get an idea on which promotional method would have a higher success rate in converting them into leads. Test out these methods and review the results.

Gather Referrals

With networking in mind, referral marketing can be a great way to spread the word about your services. If you have existing customers who are satisfied with their services, encourage current customers to refer your services to an acquaintance. This provides you an opportunity to give an even more thorough introduction to sales leads that have been referred to you. 

Effective Engagement

While cold calling isn’t always an easy technique, it does work with the right people and sources. Whether you’re speaking to someone on the phone or engaging in person, how you present yourself can make a big difference in how it influences a prospect’s interest. Things to watch out for:

When engaging with a potential lead, pay attention to your tone. The tone of somebody’s voice can say a lot. The speed of your speech also matters; if you talk too fast, it just comes across as you’re in a rush and that you don’t really care about your time with the sales lead and just want to get it over with. Your confidence also says a lot about the value of your services. Sounding unconfident can imply that you don’t have high expectations of your services, so why should the sales lead? Be confident, but not arrogant. Keep it professional and polite; be assertive in your goal, but don’t be too pushy or else it drives away sales leads. Finally, be knowledgeable. Know your stuff in order to be as informative as possible so that sales leads will have confidence in what you say. 

On a final note, it’s important to keep your message consistent and deliver what you promise. Success comes with trust and authenticity, and you’re more likely to gain the trust of a sales lead by being genuine and showing that you put a lot of value in providing the right print products for their business needs. How you present yourself and the way you go through your conversion process says a lot about how reputable your print business is.