Articles

Generate More Leads With Your Freebie

Charlie Cook   |   © In Mind Communications, LLC, all rights reserved.

It’s surprising how many small businesses have an outstanding product, excellent service, and lots of interest from prospects and still aren’t generating enough sales. I was on the phone recently with the owner of Tyler Acoustics in Owensboro, Kentucky who had just such a problem.

I got to know Ty Lashbrook a couple of months ago when I bought a pair of loudspeakers direct from this small business owner and loudspeaker manufacturer. I was so thrilled with the quality of sound from these speakers that I called Ty to inquire about an additional pair. In our conversation I learned that he wasn’t getting as many orders as he wanted. What was the problem?

Ty’s loudspeakers have received stellar reviews; his customers love his speakers, but he is not getting enough new business. Like many small business owners, Ty doesn’t want to spend a fortune on advertising and doesn’t need or want an overwhelming flood of new orders.

He does want a steady stream of new business so he can sell hundreds of pairs of speakers each year. With a few small changes in his marketing, Ty could generate all the business he wants using the following strategies. Ty has over 250 interested audiophiles a day visiting his web site yet essentially none of these people contact Ty.

Simply by offering a free guide to optimizing speaker placement or an article on the 10 secrets to getting realistic sound, Ty could motivate 10-25% of his site visitors to give him their contact information so he could market to them regularly.

Small Business marketing is about qualified lead generation.

Without a lead generation strategy, Ty is receiving only a couple of new leads a day from the people who call him, and he has no way of staying in touch with prospects. You do the math: if Ty collected the contact information of just 10% of the people who visited his site, in the course of a year he’d have a list of over 9,000 qualified prospects and in two years over 18,000.

A monthly email message to this list of qualified prospects with audio tips and special offers would generate many more new sales then he is currently getting.

Marketing is all about building relationships over time.

Giving away information or a sample product is a sure way to generate leads and build your business. Jeff Rich is a pedorthist with a thriving practice in New York City. Most people have never heard of a pedorthist and have no idea what they do. How does Jeff get business? Jeff, makes custom orthotics for people with foot problems and uses a Give to Get strategy to attract new business.

To get referrals, Jeff mails samples of his orthotics to orthopedic surgeons. Clever marketer that he is, Jeff sends only the right one of a pair. When the orthopedist wants the other they contact him. Once orthopedists try Jeff’s unique orthotics and discover the benefits they refer clients and patients. Giving his custom inserts away has been Jeff’s best source of new business.

Want to use your web site to improve your small business marketing and increase sales? Learn how to attract people to your web site, generate leads and convert them to paying clients >>

A couple of years ago an investment firm in Stamford, CT was seeking to grow its clientele. By offering a series of free workshops to their target market they increased assets under management by over twenty million dollars.

Are you using a Give to Get strategy to grow your business? If not, you could be generating many more leads and much more business.