We already know the NUMBER ONE thing that’s keeping you from scaling your business.
No, we’re not psychic. We’ve just seen it again and again and again.
Ready?
Your problem is…
…you don’t know how to generate QUALIFIED leads.
Oh, you know how to get leads. The problem is, very few of them turn into actual customers.
You’ve got a large quantity of low-quality leads.
Unfortunately, all these poor leads result in lost time chasing down a lot of dead ends.
And you can’t afford to waste time on an uncertain prospect or an indecisive buyer. It keeps you from scaling your business, wastes a ton of time and money, and leaves you in constant feast or famine mode.
You need leads that will actually lead somewhere.
Of course, this raises an important question: How do you find that perfect client?
You qualify them.
Quality Control
We’re long past the days when we have to blanket advertise, cold call, or email blast our product pitches out into a vast, unknown void. The days of buying billboard space and hoping the right people see your ad are gone.
These days, we’ve got tools that allow us to specifically, narrowly define our ideal clients and then get our ads DIRECTLY in front of them.
How exactly does this work?
The first step is to understand the value of your company and your products or services. In other words, what’s your Unique Value Proposition? What can you offer that no one else can?
Second, you need to determine the kind of person who will benefit most from your skills. Who is your ideal client? How old are they? How much money do they make? What are their buying habits? Where do they hang out online? What do they like and dislike?
Once you get super specific on your audience, you can build an ad campaign to reach that ideal client. And if you’re wondering, yes, you can get that specific in terms of who sees your online ads.
Facebook has so much data on their users that you can put your ads in front of the narrowest slices of people. Want to reach people in Plano, Texas who are into bodybuilding and like the show “Brooklyn 999”? You can do that.
With the ability to hyper-target your ideal prospects, imagine the time saved and the revenue-generating possibilities that exist.
Real-World Application
To get a better idea of what targeting and qualifying can do for your business, let’s create two imaginary scenarios. These same principles apply no matter what business you’re in.
Scenario I
Let’s imagine you own a property rental company, and you’re in the business of leasing urban apartments, and you need to fill some units.
You take the traditional route of creating a generic ad for the masses and post it on various websites where you think renters might be. It turns out your ad was pretty good and you pull in 100 leads that seem somewhat legit.
Unfortunately, you’re the only leasing agent, so you only have time enough each day to sort through five leads, with only one per day proving to be a viable potential renter.
At the end of a month you’ve generated 20 qualified leads, and as a reliable closer, your 75% closing ratio results in a total of 15 leases.
Not bad but not too efficient either.
Scenario II
Now, let’s utilize the Facebook Ad platform to develop something much less generic, and aimed directly at your ideal prospect.
Your ideal renter looks like this:
- All Genders
- Single, In A Relationship, Engaged or Married
- Between the ages of 25 and 35
- College Educated
- Income over $75K
- Current Renters
- Business Travellers
- Likely to Move
ONLY the Facebook users who fit that profile will see your ad in their newsfeed. Did you catch that? Only the people who fit your PERFECT customer will actually see your ad.
With your narrower scope, your targeted ad generates 50 fewer clicks then the generic version, but there’s a big difference with this smaller list of leads.
These are real renters, looking to make a real move.
- Instead of uncommitted older couples considering a possible downsize, you get motivated newlyweds wanting their first place together.
- Instead of college students still a year or two from being out on their own, you get young professionals ready to upgrade their living situation.
- Instead of long-term homeowners in-between houses, you get business travelers who are happy with the flexibility of leasing.
In crunching the new numbers, the benefits of a quality lead become clear.
Less is More
With 50 responses, you still address five leads per day, but because you qualified your leads much more, they’re MUCH more interested. This means you qualify two for every five contacts instead of just one.
Now you might be saying that Scenario II still works out to 20 qualified leads and using your 75% closing ratio also nets the same 15 leases as Scenario I.
True, except for the fact you hit those numbers in half the leads, which means you were working FAR more efficiently and with people who were more serious about wanting what you had to offer.
Instead of wasting time calling people who couldn’t rent from you, you were only talking to the people who were your ideal client.
If you look at the raw lead totals you started with, the actual closing ratios came out to 30% in Scenario II versus 15% the first time around.
Also, we were conservative with our numbers.
With your hyper-specific Facebook ad, it wouldn’t be unheard of to qualify three or four leads out of every five resulting in a higher number of leases.
Are you starting to see the picture? No matter what your business, hyper-qualified leads is the way to go. It saves you time, increases your conversion rate, allows you to scale, and ultimately, generates far more revenue.
Three Steps to Qualifications
The technology is there for you take advantage of and start building a potential client list that no longer represents a shot in the dark, but a massive shot in the arm for your business.
Just remember these three steps to successfully qualifying your leads:
Understand Your Brand and Ideal Client
Knowing the value of your service will ensure you know who stands to benefit the most from it. This is a valuable piece of knowledge that immediately helps steer you away from wasting time and resources on worthless leads.
Don’t Just Target, Hyper-Target
You have an idea of the individual who wants what you’re selling, and this is the step where you create and send out that campaign that pulls them in. With Facebook ads, you can be as specific as necessary to generate leads that will quickly convert to customers.
Qualify, and then Qualify Some More
Imagine it now. More time to educate and pitch to the highly interested instead of the moderately amused. From this point you can zero in on the quality leads even further, focusing more time on the ones who are ready to buy, saving those who are not quite sure for another day.
Final Thoughts
To generate revenue, you need to be working with and selling to a list of potential clients who are equally as serious about working with you.
The qualification process not only makes finding that perfect prospect easier, but it also saves you time and resources to focus on converting those leads into the perfect customer. Of course, by perfect, we mean the customers that pay you.