There are a lot of reasons leads don’t turn into customers. Asking for their contact information isn’t one of them. We see all manner of lead generation methods (and reasons to capture leads) when working with pool and spa dealers around the country. Some are promoting big shows or events, others are simply trying to drive traffic to their retail stores. Whatever the reason for generating leads, there are five things to remember when it comes to any type of lead.
Leads want to be captured.
Have you ever given someone your contact information and hoped that they never contacted you? Of course not. If someone is interested in what you have to sell and has any interest in ever purchasing, they’re a lead and you need to make sure you capture them.
I often describe this in terms of a car dealership. If you’ve ever walked onto a car lot, you know that within a very short time someone will come up and introduce themselves. Whether you know it or not this is the first step in capturing the lead. Over the course of the conversation a car sales person will (typically) eventually get your name, what you’re interested in, your phone number and your email address. These are incredibly valuable pieces of information. Smart businesses know this and will stop at nothing to capture lead information.
Your website needs to act like a car sales person. At every turn, it needs to be politely asking for contact information. “But I don’t like websites that ask me to fill out forms” I hear you saying. Get over it. I’m sure you’ve filled out at least one form on a website in your time browsing the internet. Do you know why? You were interested in that product and wanted to learn more. Would you return to a car dealership if no one ever introduced themselves to you? Probably not. If someone is ready to move forward with learning about your product and you never give them the opportunity to easily get in touch, they’re not likely to return and your marketing efforts were for nothing.
Leads need to be captured.
Do you spend money on advertising? Has a customer (that you spent countless hours making happy) ever provided you with a testimonial or referal? Are potential customers walking into your store. Are you capturing every lead?
As a business owner, you absolutely must capture every lead. They need to be captured. If you’re not, you are literally throwing money away – and not in that casual, incorrect usage of the word ‘literal’. It’s going to waste, never to be seen again.
Recently, Tim and I went to a weekend spa sale with a client. Our job was to sit at the front door and capture every lead that walked in the door. I’m proud to say that out of 155 people that walked through the door, we managed to get 145 names with email addresses. Spa shows are expensive. When all costs are accounted for, every person who walks in the door costs a dealer anywhere from $300 to $500. Averaging that out, if one third of the people who walk through the door buy a spa, you’re spending $1200 in advertising for every spa sold. Profitable? Usually. But it’s more profitable if you capture every lead.
The math is very, very profitable
Let’s keep the math fun going. Of those 145 email addresses we captured, let’s say the third mentioned above purchased. That leaves us with about 96 people who didn’t buy. Now, let’s keep the numbers small. If you enter all of those people in to a ‘post show’ follow-up campaign using our Leadgic automated follow-up system, you’ll close another 10% of those within the next 90 days. Assuming an average profit of $3000 per spa, that’s another $27,000 (profit) in your pocket. In most cases, you’ll also close another 10% within the next six months. Another $24,000 (hey, profit!). What if you’re doing a show every weekend? Even if you only do four shows per year, you’re throwing away $100,000 simply by not capturing every lead and staying in touch. Wow.
Leads that don’t show up or don’t come into your store are still leads!
Let’s continue with the show example. Based on analytics reports of website traffic, we see thousands of people who visit the show landing page. Are you capturing these leads? Or are you just telling them to come to the show? I think you see the math coming…
Let’a assume 3000 people visit you landing page and we capture just 1% of their contact information. That’s 30 leads who are interested in what you have to sell (see above). Using the same 10% in 90 days and 10% in six months model if you properly follow-up with these people you’re looking at another 6 sales, netting you ~$18,000 (per event!).
This model applies no matter what your business.
Spa shows are concentrated examples of lead generation, lead capture and getting new customers. But this same math applies no matter what your business. By not making concentrated efforts to capture every lead you’re throwing away tons of potential revenue that is even harder to get next time.
As someone who routinely helps businesses capture more leads, properly follow-up with those leads and generate more sales, I ask that you take a good, hard look at your lead capture apparatus and make sure you’re capturing every lead, every time.
If you’d like to review your current strategy please do get in touch, we’d love to help.
