Offline to Online Lead Generation

If you are new to online marketing, or even if you are an old pro, here are a few tips to drive traffic online and actually ‘track’ results.

But before I explain the tips, I want to share a little story. I recently attended a couple of home shows in the past few weeks. Now with the economy getting real tight, and the media that specializes in doom and gloom in some areas such as remodeling, I went to the shows expecting more hard selling than normal and I practiced saying “No Thank You” in a mirror prior to going to the shows.

To my surprise, I didn’t need the practice, because, to be very candid, most of the vendors weren’t very impressive. Don’t get me wrong, there were new products, before and after pictures, lots of things to get ideas for my next few projects, but the marketing efforts were very Very lame.

First, the basics. There were many either unattended or understaffed booths. Second, the materials that were offered were generic brochures; most didn’t have any ‘catchy headlines’ or anything inspirational to attract my attention. Second, there weren’t enough business cards, and only a small percentage of them actually had a website url listed on them. And then were the booths that gave away pencils, tape measures and sporty water bottles, but you could see the vendors glare at you to see if you were a buyer or novelty collector, hiding the give-a-ways for prospects that had checkbooks in their hands.

So, as a walking marketer, I did my duty to stop at the interesting booths, ask a few questions about the business, product or service, and then listened to what seemed like hours of explanation of what the vendor did. Most didn’t even do the rudimentary things like shake hands and exchange first names. As a test, I went to a few booths, stuck my hand out and said “Hi, I’m David. What can you tell me about your business?”

Again, I given lots of business background, but only one vendor actually asked me if I was looking for a product like he was offering. (I will discuss basic relationship building in another post sometime).

After the show, I did what the majority of patrons do. Put my pile of goodies and freebies aside so later I can go thru them and go online to check them out.

Ok. I am going to repeat what I said…I put my goodies aside to I can check them out later.

Here is a fact: According to one of MarketingSherpa’s Benchmarking Guides, most patrons look online to qualify vendors and their offers, as well as get more information on products and services introduced in tradeshows.

(Note: If you are not familiar with MarketingSherpa, visit them at www.marketingsherpa.com and look at the many benchmark reports and surveys they offer on internet marketing).

I can spend hours describing the benefits of having an online marketing strategy, but the simple truth is this- If you don’t have an effective one, you are going to miss sales.

Here is a simple strategy that can be set up in a day or so if you are somewhat experienced, or you can hire a service to do it for you for a very reasonable fee (contact me if you want a consultation or recommendation).

Offline to Online Lead Generation
The promotion could be for a trade show, monthly or quarterly special.

Decide what you are specifically promoting. If you only offer one product or service, then decide on a ‘Month Special’ or ‘show deal’ (i.e 10% off for a limited time).

Create a landing page on your website for that specific promotion.

Buy a generic business card, or make/buy a flyer or brochure – it doesn’t have to be 4 color, just one color will do. You can buy laser printer cards for about seven dollars per 100 at most office supply stores, you can create a word processing document with your logo and colored logo and go to the nearest quick printer or office supply store and have them make color copies rather cheap, or you can purchase limited printings of business cards in quantities of 250-500 for 5-50 bucks.

On your promotional materials, make sure you specify the landing page url, rather than just your domain name.

Regardless of how you deliver your promotion (trade show, direct mail, postcard, etc) when the prospect decides to do further research, they will normally type in that url.

Now, the trick is to ‘capture’ more information, and turn the lookers into leads.

On your landing page (also referred to as an Email-Squeeze page), offer another 5% discount, a small upgrade product, a white paper, a free report, a free newsletter signup, what ever, to get them to provide you a name, email address, phone number to call, best time to call, and so forth.

Your ‘Offer’ needs to be something of value to the visitor, or they will click away.

Here are some examples fresh on my mind, as I recall my trip from the homeshows:
-Water purifiers, offer a free analysis in the promotion, and on the website landing page offer 5% discount for buying in the next 6 months when they sign up
-Kitchen Remodeling Services-offer an equity investment report and on the website offer upgrade of a cabinet appliance feature, like a lazy suzan in return for their contact info
-Landscape Service- a report on how to eliminate weeds in brochure, landing page-a small Japanese maple or 10% discount on plants
-Cabinet Shop – a report on equity value of stock vs. custom cabinets in promo, and an upgrade to raised panels from flat panel door faces.

I can see the heads shake on this one. You want to give away free stuff? Are you crazy?

No, I am not. Here is why. It is well known that trade shows don’t always produce results. Some companies live by them as their only means for marketing and advertising, while others use it for purely branding purposes.

But in all cases, it’s about the Relationships that you build with prospects. Does it matter that you give away a $130 lazy susan for a $10-20,000 remodel? Not in my book.

The customer may not need your services right away, but because you offered a freebie, kept in touch with them, developed a relationship with them, they will eventually call you to do the work, and/or refer you to others.

One more thing…make sure that your promotion is transferable to someone else. Let the prospect know that if they don’t have a need for your product or service to pass their offer on to a friend or family member that could. Some of my best clients came to me by way of a referral.

(As a side note, If you would like a consultation on how I can assist you with online promotions, I have a limited supply of sporty water bottles, tape measures, pencils and chocolate goodies to give away to the next dozen or so people. But Hurry, supplies are limited.)