Top 10 Ways to Generate Sales Leads in 2010

You want and need a killer sales strategy to kick off 2010 and The Search Guru is here to help. You are probably already using some of these techniques. If so, what can you do in 2010 to ramp up their effectiveness? If you’re not using any of these strategies yet, why not?

Our recommended sales-churning methods include:

• ways to use social media services
• pay per click management techniques
• organic search engine optimization strategies
• insights into your link building campaign
• buzz marketing

These methods are listed in no particular order because each situation is different – but we are confident that you can craft a powerful strategy using your own unique combination of the strategies listed below.

You can generate sales leads by:

1. Using social media services more fully

While the direct correlation between using social media services to generating sales leads can be tough to quantify, it’s also tough to dispute that interacting with your customers can help your bottom line. Brands have become personalities with human voices, thanks to sites like Twitter and Facebook and, if you’re avoiding these channels, you’ll lose out to your competition that embraces them.

The best way to make these sites work for your company is to learn to listen to what your potential customers are saying, and to interact with them in response. Ask questions of your followers and fans, reply to complaints or compliments, and follow up on opportunities.

Consider participating in relevant Twitter chats as a method to reach new followers. Twitter chats typically take place at the same time on the same day of the week (i.e., Monday at 3 p.m., EST) and generally are created for niche groups. Sometimes there are predetermined topics and sometimes there are open chats. To participate in the chat, add a hash mark (#) immediately followed by the name of the chat in each of your tweets.

Ironically, one of the best ways to use social media services to get sales leads is to treat Twitter, Facebook and the like as conversations, rather than as sales channels.

2. Continuing to focus on your link building campaign – and by also creating a website and/or blog that linkers will naturally love

Pursuing links in major directories, niche directories and in other relevant sites online is still a great strategy. You can take some of the load off of your link building campaign, though, by creating site and blog content that is so useful and interesting that bloggers and other web sites will naturally want to link to your content.

What special knowledge do you have that would help your clients and prospective clients in their jobs? How can you clearly share that know-how in step by step how-to articles and blog posts? What does your keyphrase research indicate about how people are searching for that type of information?

If you write quality material that addresses a need and if you effectively optimize that information so that your great work is found, then you should automatically get more inbound links. Some of the people who link to you may directly contact you for more information, which is a great way to generate sales leads; meanwhile the search engine spiders will take note of the natural linking that is taking place and reward your site appropriately, making it easier for other potential clients to find you.

3. Creating a carefully targeted buzz marketing campaign

If you’re thinking of doing a giveaway or a sweepstakes to generate online attention, plan your online publicity before you launch your buzz marketing campaign. Leverage channels like Twitter to do double duty for your brand by tying the sweepstakes entry to a Twitter action that will also net you more followers. For example, make the sweepstakes entry requirement be for users to tweet a message that says they’re entering your giveaway, with a reference to your username. All of their followers will see it, and likely follow form. Now you not only have interested parties, but you also have them promoting you for free!

4. Getting to know your target audience all over again – and then making sure you’re speaking directly to them

Maybe you’re actively creating content on Twitter and Facebook and maybe you’re trying to interact with people through other social media services – but it isn’t working very well. If so, step back.

There are reasons why these types of online interactions are known as “social.” People want to chat and socialize and hear interesting news. Are you providing your potential sales leads with intriguing info?

If your copy isn’t converting too well, take a look at how you’re addressing your audience there, too. For your blog and website, conduct additional keyphrase research to see if that provides guidance on changes that may have taken place in your prospects’ lingo.

For example, if your research from a year or two ago indicated that people were searching for luxury widgets – but your new research indicates a desire for affordable widgets – have you adjusted your blogging and copywriting strategy to accommodate the changes caused by a tough economy? Or, if you want to continue to sell luxury widgets, have you modified your marketing plan to reach the portion of the widget audience that still wants and can afford luxury models? How has that changed the tone of your content so that you can persuade your potential customers to contact you?

5. Writing content, using organic search engine optimization techniques so that you prequalify your leads

We’ve seen statistics that suggest that only 25% of online leads are really ready to buy, leaving 75 percent of them in multiple spots along the buying cycle.

When writing content, use your keyphrase research to guide you in selecting the best keyphrases for each of the multiple levels of pages that you will write for Product A.

For example, for the 25% of the leads who are ready to buy, use the specific longtail keyphrases such as “Brand Q widgets”; the keyphrases that indicate a willingness to purchase, such as “buy widgets online”; and so forth.

For the potential leads who are still researching choices, use broader keyphrases in your copy, such as “highly efficient widgets” or “best widgets” while providing them with the education they need; this will help build loyalty towards your company. Then, guide them to the next step in their buying path by providing links to the most likely widgets that would suit their needs – and so on and so forth.

Does your keyphrase research indicate that some people search for widgets by brand while others search by size? If so, then create copy for both types of searchers so that they will want to contact YOUR company.

6. Using your analytics and log walking to create and/or modify copy

What keyphrases are people using to find your site? Are they what you expected? If not, what content can you create to further target these prospects? What specific articles and pages are drawing people to your site? Do those web pages clearly show site visitors how to buy your products and/or services? If it’s an article that you intend to be informational rather than promotional, is it clear how the prospect can contact you for more info?

In other words, how can you enhance the conversion value of the pages that are already attracting attention? Analyze why the pages that draw the most traffic are so successful. What needs are you meeting? What other types of content could fulfill similar needs? What will your organic search engine optimization strategy be for those new pages?

7. Pay per click management strategy

Laser-target your PPC management strategy by getting beyond those high-level keywords. As bids get more expensive, remember that your best-converting keywords are usually the longer phrases. For example, if you’re selling gift baskets, a keyword like “baskets” will be expensive and vague. Instead, add keyphrases like “corporate gift baskets.” A smaller audience is searching for “corporate gift baskets,” rather than simply “baskets,” but it’s a very specific term and one that delivers highly qualified sales leads that are precisely matched to your product. This means lower bids and better business!

8. Leverage Facebook’s full potential

Facebook has grown up a lot in the past few years, and its platform is a fantastic way to interact with your audience. Go beyond just posting a status or link on your Wall and use the tools that will really help you go viral. Create an event and invite your followers – did you know that if they accept the invite, it shows up on the news feed of all their followers? This is a quick way to spread the word without you having to do anything other than cultivate your current following.

9. Engaging clients

By providing top notch service to your current clients – and by going beyond the call of duty in watching out for challenges and opportunities for your clients, you have created a team of credible and engaged sales people for your company. Solicit testimonials from these incredibly satisfied clients and ask them to refer their peers and networking contacts to your company.

10. Being you!

You have passion for your work, you have helped numerous clients reach increasing numbers of their own potential customers and you know who should enjoy the benefits of your services more than anyone else does (or at least you should!).

Never lose sight of the fact that recommendations #1 through 8 are merely tools. Incredibly powerful tools to help you gather sales leads, but simply tools, nevertheless. Just as you need to keep site visitors in mind when writing optimized copy, you need to keep your clients and their needs, goals and strategies in the forefront as you use appropriate tools as a means to your end. Let your successes speak for themselves as you generate sales leads for the upcoming year.

What do you think are the hottest tools for sales leads in 2010? Post your comments below. And, by the way – Happy New Year!

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