All successful businesses understand the importance of getting more leads, converting them into profitable clients, and retaining them for 
the long haul.
There is an immutable equation which underpins this.
Traffic – Conversion – Economics.
Traffic is how many people see your offer. Conversion is the percentage that become clients. Economics defines what it costs you to get each client and determines profitability.
In this article we discussed how to select a market and the importance of niching down.
But figuring out who your best prospects are is only part of the equation. Unless you can get your message into their hands they’ll never know you exist.
Which is where “advertising media” comes in.
Email, physical mail, print advertising (newspapers, magazines), flyers in mailboxes, online search, social media sites, FAX, SMS etc. are all examples of media.
Which media(s) you choose depend on what your prospects are likely to respond to.
Targeting tradespeople? We’d had great success using SMS directly to their phones.
Selling high end financial services? The Financial Review or magazines catering to high net worth individuals may be the go. Or directly targeting them via LinkedIn.
Consumer products? Try Facebook.
Fire Protection Services? One of our clients has great success from Google advertising we set up.
However, not all traffic is equal. Which brings me to Economics.
Some traffic sources will be far more profitable than others. A cheap lead source may produce lots of prospects. But they turn out to be low quality leads with a low conversion and spend rate.
Another more expensive advertising medium may produce far fewer, but highly qualified leads who spend orders of magnitude more.
The only way you’ll know is to test. And keep track of your conversion rates.
Once you determine which media(s) are profitable and at what rate, increase marketing spend here and ditch the rest.
One caveat though.
People buy when they’re ready.
It could be quite a while between first contact and initial sale. Just because a media appears initially unprofitable doesn’t mean you should ditch it.
Institute a regular keep in touch mechanism that provides ongoing educational material with occasional offers. You’d be surprised at how much this can add to your bottom line.
I’ve written about how to use a lead generation magnet to capture their details here.
In an upcoming article we’ll cover what needs to be in your message so it attracts your ideal prospect. Look out for it.
In the meantime, if your sales are plateauing and you want more leads and improved conversion rate, our Accelerated Business Growth program will help. You can get more details here.
