Deciphering small business marketing leads
When you own a small business, understanding the various leads you attract is critical. Leads can involve several classifications during the sales process. Of course, a detailed categorization is necessary for salespeople to turn a lead to a sale as they progress through the process. However, at the beginning of the process, I recommend a simplified organizing of small business marketing leads. Let’s take a look.
Cold small business marketing leads
In my humble opinion, cold leads don’t exist. Most experts will define a cold lead as one that doesn’t express any interest in your product or service or they haven’t heard of your company. I don’t believe this is a lead at all. The “cold” you need to concentrate on is cold calling – more on that later. Now, if a sales rep is able to generate interest with this contact, you have a warm lead.
Warm small business marketing leads
As I stated above, a warm lead has an interest in your product or service. Of course, there are many ways to garner warm leads. These channels could be cold calls, social media, e-newsletters, referrals, or advertising. Once you have the warm lead, the trick is turning it into a qualified lead. Qualified leads are at the beginning of the purchasing cycle. They need what you provide and might be willing to buy.
Hot small business marketing leads
A hot lead is actively looking to purchase your product or service. This lead has a budget and is more than likely comparing benefits and costs between several companies. A hot lead is the nearest to buying in the sales cycle.
Cold calling for small business marketing leads
As promised, I’ve come to the “cold” you need to focus on – cold calling. Cold calling is a phone campaign that reaches out to potential customers in a semi-qualified list. These prospects may or may not know your business but have been pre-qualified to potentially have an interest through SIC or NAICS Codes and other factors. Overall, the purpose of the cold call campaign is to introduce your company and what it offers to determine if further follow up is warranted. This is the first step in finding warm leads to convert into sales.
About the Author
Paul Kowalski (or Pappy as he is called around the office) spent over two decades working at other agencies before opening Conach Marketing Group in 2008. The early part of his career was working with Fortune 500 clients at different agencies. However, working with smaller clients was his preference. This choice was because of the impact on a client’s business growth and forming closer, personal relationships.
About Conach
When he was creating Conach, his goal was to bring those Fortune 500 strategies along with years of B2B marketing experience to small business marketing clients. As a result of focusing on business to business marketing, Conach specializes in construction marketing, financial marketing, and industrial marketing. Even though we are in Mid-Michigan, Conach provides marketing services to clients across the country.
For more information, visit conachmarketing.com or contact us or call 989.401.3202.