John's a freelance photographer in Ohio who called to tell me of his frustration with
advertising and promotional campaigns he has tried in
last couple of years. Each time he does a promotional mailing to his list of 10,000, he is lucky if he gets one or two inquiries. I had a similar call from a corporation that was spending its time and money driving traffic to its web site. With six thousand visitors a day, they were only getting a couple of inquiries per week.Both businesses were spending a lot of money to get attention but weren’t converting this attention to leads.
Are you having
same problem?
Marketing is a lot like farming. You can’t just head out to your fields and bring in a bountiful harvest. First, you buy seed from
money you’ve budgeted. You buy enough to be sure that a good crop will germinate and thrive until harvest, and you’re likely to plant several different crops to hedge
weather and
market.
You may not be interested in becoming a farmer, but if you want to see your business grow there are three ways thinking like a farmer can help you.
1. Learn How to Collect More Leads A farmer needs seed and lots of it to bring in a bountiful harvest. You need a lot of quality leads to increase your clientele.
If your ads or mailings aren't resulting in a steady stream of inquiries, find out what's not working and change it. By changing a couple of sentences of your marketing copy or your offer, for example, you can increase response rates by a factor of ten or more.
Could you collect more leads with
right marketing strategy and marketing copy?
2. Learn How to Increase Your Lead Conversion Rate A farmer who had spent his savings on seed wouldn't plant his field, then go on vacation and come back months later expecting to find a healthy crop. While you may be
exception, this is
way most people market their businesses. According to The Yankee Group, between 40% to 80% of new business leads aren't converted simply due to lack of follow-up.