{"id":142,"date":"2014-05-29T09:15:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-29T09:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/copyexpressold\/?p=142"},"modified":"2021-08-25T03:31:48","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T03:31:48","slug":"generating-leads-the-easy-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/generating-leads-the-easy-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Generating Leads &#8211; The Easy Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine if you could pay some money and have 10, 50, or even 100 people who are interested in buying your product or service now or in the near future get in touch with you and give you permission to market directly to them. \u00a0This kind of marketing is ultimately cheaper and more effective than traditional marketing, especially brand marketing (\u201cgetting your name out there\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>Last month we introduced the concept of Information Based Marketing and the specific example of a free report or information guide as a way for you to get your interested prospects to come forward. \u00a0This month we\u2019re going to focus on the first half of the process &#8211; getting the prospects to ask for information.<\/p>\n<p>The Free Report is actually the second step of the process, although it\u2019s helpful to have that done first. \u00a0Before you can send someone your information product or resource, you have to connect with them somehow and have them respond to you. \u00a0In marketing lingo we call this \u201clead generation,\u201d or \u201cacquisition\u201d &#8211; it is the act of acquiring the enquiry (or \u201clead\u201d). \u00a0It is distinct from \u201cconversion\u201d which is the act of converting the enquiry into a paying customer.<br \/>\nThere are five main components to any lead generation strategy:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Medium<\/strong> &#8211; this is the method you are going to use connect with your market. \u00a0It could be broadcast (like TV, radio or Billboard), print (newspaper, magazine or mailbox drop), online (where people find it through searching) or direct mail (an addressed letter). \u00a0Each has it\u2019s purposes and place in your overall strategy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Audience<\/strong> &#8211; this is the segment of the total population that you are communicating with. \u00a0It might be a specific list of people (for a postal campaign), people who live in a particular suburb (for a mailbox drop), people who live 80s music and live in Wellington (for a radio ad) or people who live crime shows (for a TV commercial). The better you can define the audience the easier (and cheaper) it will be to communicate effectively with them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Offer<\/strong> &#8211; this is the thing you are asking them to respond to. \u00a0In the case of this article series we are using a report or information guide as the example, but it could be a discount on a product or a trial subscription or something. \u00a0It is important that your strategy have a clear, compelling and attractive offer for your audience. \u00a0If you don\u2019t have an offer then you are doing brand advertising (the least effective).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Response Mechanism<\/strong> &#8211; this is heavily connected to the action that you are asking the audience to take. \u00a0For the free report it may be an invitation to call an 0800 number or go to a website. \u00a0The response mechanism should be designed BEFORE you send out the item and fully tested to ensure that it works!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Follow-up<\/strong> &#8211; not technically part of lead acquisition &#8211; it\u2019s actually part of the conversion cycle, but INCREDIBLY important.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s really important to note here that the purpose of this first marketing piece is NOT to sell. \u00a0If you try too hard to sell you will be much less effective (you\u2019ll be targeting only those ready to make a decision now). The sole purpose of this piece is to get people to put their hand up and ask for more information. \u00a0What you want, more than a sale, is the contact information (and permission to market to them) of a valid prospect. \u00a0In this way the prospect has pre-qualified themselves to a point. \u00a0By asking for the information they are informing you that they are in the part of the population that is (or soon will be) actually in the market for what you have to offer and they are interested in it. \u00a0So instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to reach the 5% ready to buy now (and it is hit and miss so much of the time), you can spend much less getting the attention of the people who actually will want to buy. \u00a0Now you can afford to out-spend your competition on marketing to this much narrower niche of prospects.<br \/>\nVery effective methods (mediums) of lead generation for information guides here are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mailbox Drops<\/strong> &#8211; these can target suburbs or neighbourhoods were likely buyers are. \u00a0They are probably the lowest cost per lead advertising you can do.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Newspaper\/Magazine ads<\/strong> &#8211; great if you can target your ideal audience at a good price (like a trade magazine). \u00a0But it is easy to overspend and not get the results you want.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Postcard\/direct mail<\/strong> &#8211; if you have a good list this can actually be some of the best money you spend.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google Adwords<\/strong> &#8211; if you can target the best search phrases you can do very well here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s no \u201cwrong\u201d answer here &#8211; only expensive ones. \u00a0That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to match the medium and the audience to the offer well.<\/p>\n<p>At Copy Express we offer a \u201csoup to nuts\u201d service where we can help you with everything from the campaign design through to design, printing and delivery. \u00a0Give us a call on 04-568-8773 to discuss your marketing needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine if you could pay some money and have 10, 50, or even 100 people who are interested in buying your product or service now or in the near future get in touch with you and give you permission to market directly to them. \u00a0This kind of marketing is ultimately cheaper and more effective than &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/generating-leads-the-easy-way\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Generating Leads &#8211; The Easy Way&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1546,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/1546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}