In essence, lead generation is simply the process of recognising potential clients and leading them to enquire about your business. As a founder or an executive sales rep, you most likely have already had at least some exposure to this process by now. But contrary to common belief, generating leads is not merely a matter of cold-calling or mailing out a bulk of mail.
Lead generation also requires the creation of effective and engaging conversation starters. Much like any first impression these conversation starters are important. Conversational leads help your company to capture the attention of your customers in the first step of your sales process.
Why You Need To Warm Up Your Leads
Lead generation requires more than simple cold messaging. If you simply “go-for-the-kill” every time you’ll be met with very blunt answers or no answers at all. If you establish a conversational tone and repertoire with your leads you’ll get a more constructive response. A reason why and why not, something you can lead into a tangible conversation and a sale. This is why interaction is important to generating leads, because you know they are even mildly interested in a conversation with you and you can have a real conversation with them.
What Does Lead Generation Interaction Mean?
When it comes to the interaction it means a little bit more than engagement. Interaction is making your audience notice who you are and what you’re about through your actions. Not just those leads interacting with you. This could mean anything from sending over an article for them to take a look at, or engaging with their content. Different platforms offer different opportunities.
Engaging with their content
A simple “like” on a post will get your face to appear within your audience’s notifications. Then when you finally approach them with a connection or friend request you’ll be able to recall their content and generate a discussion. You’ll also learn a little more about them through the content they share, engage with and post. This can tailor your approach, even more, so creating a warm lead will be inevitable. Of course ensuring you have the right approach.
Sharing Your Audience
If you’ve amassed a wide audience, or a niche audience that listens to you it’s possible to leverage it into a useful offering. A simple share of a post or participating in a giveaway could mean a lot to a prospective lead. If you show that you have sway in one pool or another your words will hold a little bit more weight to those keeping a keen eye on you. They may not be immediate leads, but with enough engagement, audience building and interaction they soon will be.
Useful Information
Providing value is an integral part of any sales strategy. If you can prove that your content or a discussion with you will be beneficial then you’ll create numerous leads. To generate that interest you need to provide value via useful content. Checklists, guides and free tutorials work well in bringing people into your world. Finding the middle ground between free and paid for services can be rough waters to navigate. But, don’t let that stop you from offering as much value as possible. Give away too little and the value won’t be there. On the other hand giving away too much could mean you have nothing left to offer. The middle ground is there for everyone, you just need to find it.
Interaction means taking action to achieve your leads. There are many different lead generation methods for generating leads without direct interaction, but it’s quicker and more effective to target your leads first and start engaging with them. Don’t believe that leads will draw to you without taking measured steps. You can get lucky, but it’s better to be smart than lucky.
