Most of us can relate to the feeling of stress or panic when we realize we need to close more sales but don’t have enough enquiries in the pipeline.
The first instinct is to do everything we can to generate more leads, make more calls, arrange more meetings, but this may waste a lot of time and money if this extra effort is not laser focused.
Firstly, it is important to drill into why you might not have the leads you want, and it could be any of the following:
- You are using the wrong strategy – for example, maybe Google ads just isn’t the right platform for your business, or maybe advertising in magazines no longer produces the results it used to. Consider if your customers are actually using social media to search for your product or service, or if you need to reach out to them to educate and engage.
- You have the wrong message – it is easy to try to target too broad a range of prospects, and end up not appealing to anyone. You have a few seconds to catch someone’s attention, make sure your message is crystal clear, and be clear about who your target customer is.
- Focusing on quantity – in the effort to gain more leads, you may pitch your offer in a place where it will do just this, but how many of these leads will convert? Quality not quantity is vital, and you need to make sure your offer is right, and you have a means of qualifying the leads at the start.
- The wrong call to action – the CTA (or what you ask a person to do next) may not fit with your offer. If you are targeting a cold audience, and the prospect is at an early stage of looking at your product or service, to ask them to ‘book a meeting’ may be a step too far for them. Consider offering a softer approach, such as some free material they can download, which means they can take a step forward without making immediate contact.