How to generate leads for you business...
One of the most searched terms by small business owners, but why? Why do small business owners have such a hard time with lead generation?
To answer that, let's first go through the areas that most small business owners find themselves stuck when taking on their own marketing...
Why aren't my ads working?
The most common problem I see with small businesses that struggle to manage their own ads comes down to the lack of time and energy they put towards not only learning how to build and manage advertising campaigns but to also continue to stay up to date on software updates and changes in trends and market behavior.
The next common problem is a lack of available budget. Lead generation cost time or money, there's no way around it. Many small business owners are already skeptical of platforms, ignorant to how those platforms optimize and don't have the time or money needed to get through the learning curve quickly.
By showing up to your campaigns unprepared, you're setting yourself up for undesirable outcomes before you start. It's critically important to understand what tools and resources are available, what the cost of the campaign will be and what those results will yield as a return.
I suggest starting with a basic understanding of the terminology, that way you better understand the "how to" information that is all over the innawebs. If you're unsure where to start or where to find that information, take advantage my this marketing cheat sheet.
Why do I get clicks but no conversions?
This answer rarely makes any friends, but the reason you're getting a lot of clicks and traffic to your page without conversions is probably because your website or landing page sucks. I mean that respectfully but an ad breaks down into 3 main parts.
1. The actual ad, it's job is to generate the interest to get clicks or drive traffic to your page.
2. The landing page or website, it's job is to compel your visitors to take the next step and become a lead.
3. The follow up, it's job is to take converted leads and move them through your sales cycle into becoming clients.
Occasionally, your targeting may be the problem and in some instances there's a lack of congruency throughout the advertisement and that causes people to fall off. The best way to fix targeting problems is to re visit your avatar. Unsure what an avatar is? Check it out here.
Target customer example:
I believe this search is asking how to create an "avatar"
Start with a name, for this example I will name them Jeff. Jeff is 38 years old, married with 2 young kids. He owns a small residential service business with 3 employees if you include his wife Sarah who does his book keeping. Jeff has big ambitions to grow his small business and eventually pass it on to his kids.
Then I lay out my assumed schedule for Jeff. 5am Jeff's alarm goes off but he ignores it until 5:45am when his wife Sarah finally gets annoyed and yells for him to shut it off. He then gets to the kitchen to start the coffee pot and turn on the sports highlights while he gets ready for his day.
7am he's out the door and headed to another busy day of work in his Platinum f250.
In that time his wife is getting the kids up, taking them to school, holding down the house and Jeff's finances. She then picks the kids up from school and has started making dinner around 5pm when Jeff calls to say it'll be another late one.
Finally Jeff gets home and greets his wife who is eager to spend the afternoon with her husband.
As Jeff turns in for the night, he can't help but worry about scaling his business or not making his dreams come true.
You see, Jeff does well but has relied on word of mouth and great service to get him this far. He's heard the horror stories about marketers and businesses being burned. In fact, Jeff once lost thousands of dollars to a marketing agency that didn't hold their end of the deal and because of that, he's more comfortable staying where he is than risking another loss on growth.
Jeff wonders about hiring an in house marketer but knows that his business can't support the cost to hire a full time employee who doesn't generate revenue in the traditional sense.
Now I'm going to take all the bold phrases and use those for interest, relationship, hobbies ect... This in formation will transfer to nearly every platform's targeting process.
However, I'm also going to target Sarah, as she knows her husbands needs, fears and dreams as well as what he can afford. Her interest will probably be different, so make a second avatar for Jeff's wife, Sarah and market to her as well.
Having only one landing page
Unless you only have one type of customer and it's in a very niche industry, you're shooting yourself in the foot by not having a message for each customer type.
You need to rotate and test offers, designs, colors, layouts, verbiage and more. With one website or landing page, you are extremely limited in your ability to test. Testing is marketing.
There's dozens of software that exist on the market for landing pages, but in my experience over the last several years of marketing there's one landing page builder that takes simplicity and performance to a whole new level. Check it out here and get a free 14 day trial.
Want to learn more about ads without spending a fortune on another high ticket course?
I've got a content library showing the ins and outs of what i do on the day to day to generate new leads for businesses through the power of paid advertising. Get discounted access here.
Grab the cheat sheet along the way and you will be set to go from zero to hero on your next ad campaign in a couple of days.