3 Critical Lead Generation Success Strategies

Written By Ted Grigg
DMCG Results

Whether for B2C or B2B lead generation, the omission of one or more of these three planning steps guarantee an unsuccessful lead generation program. Their inclusion, on the other hand, will dramatically improve success rates.

1. Tame the database

Get a handle on the company's target universe.

In other words, how many households represent good potential customers? How many businesses would find the company's service or product essential if prospects understood what it could do for them? It's all about counts, counts and counts regardless of channel.

The planner must know as much as possible about the customer’s demographics and purchase behavior. Make a strenuous effort to understand the company's market penetration or market share. The deeper the penetration, the more expensive the customer expansion.

After mastering the database, determine how much revenue to aim for from existing clients, past leads and cold/qualified prospects. This knowledge guides the planner on what channels to focus on. It essentially drives the channel strategy, the lead generation goals and the budget.

2. Develop the financials setting reasonable goals

Determine the financials for the service or product. What is the average sale? What is the conversion rate from lead to sale?

If the Cost Per Sale (CPS) is $100 and conversion rate 10%, then the Cost Per Lead (CPL) comes to $10 per lead. This provides the definition of success for all of the channels or channel combinations used in the lead generation program. Design your program to achieve these numbers. (Direct marketers call these numbers "allowables.")

The third step requires developing the offer. Keeping the CPS clearly in mind, what offer(s) will likely stimulate the call to action?

3. Create a compelling offer

Listed are some offers that will help the planner create a successful lead generation program.

- 0% interest

- FREE shipping

- Free 30-minute telephone consultation

- Trade show premium

- FREE T-shirt for minimum gift

- Win a trip for 2 to Bermuda

- One-year FREE service

- Volume discount

- 2 for 1 or 50% off

- 30-day FREE trial

- FREE survey report for completing the survey

- FREE white paper

- Free iPod for appointment

- Demonstrate product in action

- Breakfast seminar with all expenses paid for attendees

Following these three planning approaches will put most lead generation programs ahead of the competition. How do I know this? Because many of my past clients omitted one or all of these steps in their lead generation processes.

What other points do you find are often lacking in the lead generation planning methods?

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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