There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. These are clichés you’ve heard before, but can they apply to generating business leads? I think so.
You wouldn’t put all your money in one investment would you? Let’s hope not. So why wouldn’t you diversify your lead generation efforts? Here’s why you should.
Effective Lead Generation: Make Your Efforts Diverse
Diversifying lead generation techniques allows you to minimize risk, satisfy different ways your buyers want to communicate, gives you the ability to measure which efforts work — and which don’t — and cast your net wider.
Every company and market audience is unique. So a lead generation program that is a home run for one company may be a dismal failure for another. The key is to diversify your efforts and measure your success from each category. A few lead generation categories that may form the right mix for companies are inbound, focused outreach, partnerships, etc.
Lead Generation Process Works in Two Directions
Two types of lead generation activity are inbound inquiries and focused outreach.
Inbound Inquiries – What could be greater than qualified inbound inquiries? In the world of lead generation probably very little. But as you are building awareness, the key questions to ask and to test are:
- Do these inbound inquiries fit your ideal buyer profile?
- Will they eventually buy from you?
- Will they refer you to someone who will buy from you?
- How strongly are they filing your long and short term pipeline?
Testing and monitoring over time will give you your answer.
Focused Outreach – What could be a more challenging initiative than focused outreach? Probably very little. But the important remaining questions are:
- What if your buyers expect you to reach out to them?
- What if you want to connect with a select group of potential buyers in a personalized, highly focused manner when they have not connected with you?
- What if your buyers are looking for a human connection with you before or after they buy from you?
- What if potential buyers require a response from your company?
- What if your inbound activity or other efforts are not enough to meet your goals?
Should you wait? Probably not. Should you be proactive? Most definitely.
Your Experience Will Be Unique
Focused outreach and inbound response are both solid lead generation activities that can build your sales pipeline and produce results based on your company goals, buyers preferences and current lead generation results. What lead generation activities are producing the best results for your company?