Quality or Quantity? Generating the Right Leads for the Sales Team

The question of quality vs. quantity in lead generation is rather misunderstood.  This is an important issue when selling small business owners using online marketing to generate leads.  These leads are leveraged by agents to sell the business owners.

This topic unfolded during an interesting conversation with a consulting client who has a POS for a very specific vertical.  The client’s business was using “normal” methods of marketing and had just hired a full-time marketing person.

In this episode I’m sharing the principles in our discussion on the cost of acquisition per lead.

The implementation of online marketing lead generation strategies leads to other considerations besides simply quantity vs. quality.  Often the wrong questions are asked.

To generate leads for sales people who are closing deals, you should understand that  the marketing process is all predicated on the flow of leads to the sales people and how busy the sales people are.

The cost of acquisition equation is the total marketing spend divided by the total number of sales made.  Thus, if $100 is spent on marketing to acquire ten sales, the cost of acquisition per sale is $10.

However, there is a problem with that equation.  If you have sales people who are twiddling their thumbs, that’s bad!  Or if you have sales people with so many leads that they have no time for follow-up, that’s bad.

To fix those problems, you must adjust the quality vs. quantity equation.

Suppose you have ten sales people and five of them don’t have enough leads.  Take the cost of acquisition (cost per lead) down significantly by changing the call-to-action.  You need a simple call-to-action to which many people will respond.

Example:

Create an eBook such as, “3 keys to choosing the right pizza shop POS.”  Run Facebook ads against that.  Get people to give their email, phone #, name, etc.  Then give those leads right to sales people who have nothing to do.

This will dramatically increase the flow of leads.  Now your sales people have leads to call.  Your sales people will soon be too busy to follow up on all the leads, creating the reverse problem.

The solution to that is to increase your cost per lead.  Add a step in the funnel.  Offer a free eBook for download.  Then re-target all those people, encouraging them to schedule a demo.

Example:

Even better would be a wider net at the top.  Make a very specific video.  For example, “Tip on how to run a restaurant better,” or “How to increase table turns in your restaurant,” etc.  This should be the kind of video that only people in that vertical would appreciate.  Only that vertical would get value from the video.

Run the specific video as a Facebook ad.  Then run a second Facebook ad to people who watched at least 25% of that video and asked for a free demo.  Next you can do your direct pitch.

By doing that, you probably went from paying $7 or $10 per lead to paying $40 or $100 per lead.  But each lead is a demo someone scheduled.

This might seem your cost of acquisition just went thru the roof.  However, only the marketing cost of acquisition increased significantly.  The net output of the entire system improved.  You’re getting more deal flow through your sales team.

Simple Summarizing Concepts:

·       Get the highest quality leads possible within the context of fulfilling the quantity requirements of the sales team.  Make sure you’re getting enough leads to the sales people.

·       The same principle works for individual sales reps.  Whether you should buy $10 leads or $200 leads depends how busy you are.

·       For someone without work to do, get 100 – $10 leads.  Do more work.

·       Perhaps you already have 300 merchant accounts and $200,000 per year in residuals but want to grow your business.  Spend $200-$300 to get amazing leads.  Close larger accounts; close three or four leads per month.  This will dramatically increase business over time.

·       In my opinion, quantity vs. quality is the wrong conversation.  The focus is not whether one is good, and one is bad.  Rather, it’s a balancing act.

·       Do you need more leads?  Do you have too many leads?  Adjust your marketing funnel accordingly to make sure you’re getting the number of leads you need to fulfill the quantity requirements of your sales team.

This is sometimes a confusing topic.  If you have questions or want to hire our company to help eliminate the confusion, email  james@ccsalespro.com.