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The Value of Lead Generation

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Apr 9, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, customer retention strategy, Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, Google Ads, Lead generation, local seo, niche marketing, Online Advertising Wollongong, word of mouth marketing

Whether you’re a B2C or a B2B, if your business has sales, it should be generating leads. A lead is a potential customer, and lead generation is the process of creating and nurturing those potential customers.

The benefits of lead generation include:

Credibility: By offering valuable, reliable information to potential customers, you establish your business as an authority in your field. This means that when they’re ready to buy, they’ll be looking for you first.

More sales: You’re not only attracting new customers when you generate leads, you’re also working on keeping them around for the long haul. Leads are carefully cultivated through the sales process so that by the time they reach conversion, they are ready to do business with you.

Less effort: Lead generation allows you to have more control over the sales process while simultaneously reducing your own workload. By automating certain steps of the process and making sure every lead gets a personalized experience, your team will spend less time chasing down leads and more time closing deals.

What’s the real cost of lead generation?

Lead generation is a valuable marketing tool. It helps businesses build their pipelines and drive sales, and for those who are just getting started with it, it can be a game-changer—especially because there are so many free resources available.

But what’s the real cost of lead generation? And how can you make sure that you’re actually getting your money’s worth?

One of the more popular methods for generating leads is to “buy them” from lead generation companies like Hipages, Oneflare, Airtasker and Service Seeking.
It seems easy enough, pay your hardearned, get a lead, and go from there..

So what’s the catch? Lead generation companies are expensive. They charge a percentage of the total job value, in most cases is 15% plus a monthly fee plan which can be anywhere between $99 to $1200. In fact, on average, it ends up costing you more than $30 – $60 per lead in some cases. That’s per lead. Not per job or sale.

It’s for this reason that we don’t recommend using pay per lead platforms such as those mentioned above. We’ve had dissatisfied clients who’ve used these sites, and generally speaking, each lead they accepted was 30 to 40 dollars. Often once accepted the “client” wouldn’t answer calls or they were just curious as to the cost. After a few leads like this it becomes extremely costly. This only bumped up the price for the next client as we couldn’t afford to keep paying for such expensive leads.

If you own a franchise and are required to pay a set monthly fee regardless of your revenue, it can be costly, and most large franchises will sends leads your way for a price, which on the surface may seem low, anywhere between $4 – $10, but factor in the complusory monthly fees and those leads could be upwards of $60 plus each.

So what is the alternative?

Google or Facebook?

Search is no longer just a place to discover new products and services. It’s become the go-to destination for consumers who are ready to buy. Even if they aren’t sure exactly what they want, search engines are where most people start their research.

So why not get in front of those potential customers at the moment of highest purchase intent?

In a recent survey, 71% of respondents said that search engines were the first place they looked for information about products or services. And with paid search ads, you can show up at the top of those search results—and beat your competitors to the punch.

Paid search ads are highly effective because they put you in front of consumers when they want your product or service most.

Google and Bing Search Ads: Average Cost Per Click, Click-Through Rate, Cost Per Lead, and Conversion Rate by Industry

If you’re considering running Google or Bing search ads, you’ll want to first get an idea of what you can expect to pay for cost per click, click-through rate, lead cost, and conversion rate. These factors will play a large role in how much your ad campaign costs overall.

To help you get a sense of what’s possible in your industry, we’ve compiled the top 20 industries that run Google and Bing search ads (according to their own data). The data is broken down by industry so that you can get an idea of where you need to improve to stay competitive.

Also read: “The cost of Google Ads in 2022”

Pay only for interested leads

What is cost per lead?

Cost per lead, also known as cost per action, cost per conversion, or cost per acquisition, tells you how much you spent in order to get someone to complete a desired action—whether to fill out a form, call you, or make a purchase.

How much does it cost to get a lead?

According to Wordstream market research, the average across all industries is $41.40. This overall average is lower than what we’ve seen in the past, which is good news for advertisers. The automotive vertical has consistently been in the lowest bracket in our past findings.

Which industries have the highest cost per lead?

Industries with the highest cost per lead include attorneys and legal services ($73.70), furniture ($64.72), and finance and insurance ($62.80).

Which industries have the lowest cost per lead?

Industries with the lowest cost per lead are animals and pets ($14.88), automotive repair, service, and parts ($17.81), and restaurants ($20.49).

Which industries have the highest conversion rates?

The conversion rate of an ad is the number of people who clicked on your ad and then did what you want them to do (like contact you or buy something from your site). This is one of the most important numbers you’ll ever look at, because it tells you whether your marketing dollars are being spent in a way that creates value for your business.

We found the average conversion rate across all industries to be 8.82%, ranging from 3.25% to 19.19%.

Industries with the highest conversion rates include animals and pets (19.19%), physicians and surgeons (19.15%), and automotive repair, service, and parts (15.23%). Industries with the lowest conversion rates were furniture (3.25%), apparel/fashion and jewelry (3.6%), and real estate (3.93%). Our past data also finds the highest conversion rates in the legal and automotive verticals and the lowest in real estate and apparel.

On the other hand, the personals conversion rate has historically been higher than what we’re seeing here.

I am not a marketer, I run a business, so how can I do both successfully?

You’re not alone. You think you’re the only one who’s ever been through this, but we’ve heard from many business owners just like yourself.

You’ve built your business on passion and hard work, so it can be a rude awakening when you realize that you need to give all that same passion and attention to crafting an effective marketing strategy.

For a lot of people, it’s especially hard because they don’t have a background in marketing—they’re just business owners. But the good news is, we can not only help you with that, we can also help turn you into a marketer who happens to own a business.

Here’s how:

Three Words: “Standard Operating Procedures”
We have been developing and using our marketing SOPs to great success. Our SOPs provide you with step by step instructions that make setting up effective ads simple and straight forward. They are easy to follow even if you are a beginner or don’t have any experience in creating Facebook or Google ads.

Our SOPs come with detailed instructions on how to set up your ads, tricks of the trade that save you time, money, frustration and improve your results. We have been working with different audiences over the years and have tested what works best for your market.

Like to know more? Click this link

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

3 Easy Steps To Get More Customers, Than You Ever Thought Possible!

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Mar 6, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Customer experience wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, local seo, niche marketing, word of mouth marketing

Step 1: Select A Narrow Target Market

A 100 watt light bulb, like the kind of lightbulb we normally have in our homes, lights up a room. By contrast a 100 watt laser can cut through steel.
Same energy, dramatically different result. The difference being how the energy is focused.
The same is true of your marketing. You have a limited amount of money. If you focus too broadly, your message will be too scattered to be relevant to anyone.
The goal of your ad is for prospects to say, “hey that’s for me”.
Take the example of a photographer. If you look at ads from most photographers you’ll often see a laundry list of services like:
Portraits
Weddings
Family photography
Commercial photography
Fashion photography etc..
The technical way photography is done may not change very much from situation to situation, but let me ask you a question. Do you think someone looking for wedding photography would respond to a different ad than someone who’s after commercial photography?
Do you think a bride-to-be looking for a photographer for her wedding might be looking for something radically different than a purchasing manager from a heavy machinery distributor looking to photograph a truck for a product brochure of course!
However if the ad just rolls out a broad laundry list of services, then it’s not speaking to either prospect, therefore it’s not relevant, therefore it will likely be ignored by both market segments.
That’s why you need to choose a narrow target market for your ad.
Being all things to all people will lead to marketing failure. This doesn’t mean you can’t offer a broad range of services, but understand that each category of service is a separate campaign. My advice is first dominate one target market, then move onto the next.

Step 2: Create A Lead Generating Ad

Even in a narrow target market, all prospects should not be treated equally.
All other things being equal, the more money you can spend marketing to high probability prospects, the better your chances are of converting them to a customer.
Just like our proverbial archer, who has a limited number of arrows, you have a limited supply of money for your marketing campaign, so it’s essential you invest it wisely.
For example if you have $1,000 to spend on an ad campaign which reaches 1000 people, you’re essentially spending $1 per prospect.
Now assume that out of the 1000 people the ad reaches, 100 are potential prospects for your product. By treating them equally, as you would have to do with mass marketing, you’re wasting $900 on uninterested and unmotivated prospects to reach the 100 who are interested.
What if instead of treating them all equally you could sift, sort and screen so that you were only dealing with high probability prospects and not wasting valuable time and marketing dollars on uninterested and unmotivated prospects?
You could then spend the whole $1,000 on the 100 high probability prospects. That would allow you to spend $10 on wooing each of them instead of the measly $1 per prospect you’d have if you treated them all equally.
With ten times the firepower aimed at the right targets, do you think we’d have a better conversion rate? of course!
But how do we separate the wheat from the chaff? The short answer is we bribe them into telling us!
Don’t worry there’s nothing underhanded here. We offer an “ethical bribe” to get them to identify themselves to us. For example, our friend the photographer could offer a free DVD telling prospective brides exactly what they should look for in a wedding photographer and showcasing some of his work.
A very simple lead generating ad could be headlined: “Free DVD Reveals The 7 Costly Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Photographer For Your Big Day”.
Anyone requesting this “ethical bribe” would be identifying themselves as a high probability prospect. You now have at least their name and address which would go onto your marketing database.
Remember the goal is simply to generate leads. Avoid the temptation of trying to sell from your ad. At this early stage you just want to sift out the uninterested and unmotivated so that you can build your database of high probability prospects.
Here’s the other big reason you want to avoid selling directly from your ad: at any given time (on average) about 3% of your target market are highly motivated and ready to buy immediately. These are the prospects most mass marketing hopes to convert. However there’s a further 7% who are very open to buying and another 30% who are interested but not right now. The next 30% are not interested and finally the last 30% wouldn’t even take your product if was free.
If you tried selling directly from your ad, you’d be targeting only the 3% who are ready to buy immediately and losing the other 97%. By creating a lead generating ad, you increase your addressable market to 40%. You do this by capturing the 3% who are immediate buyers but also by capturing the 7% who are open to talking as well as the 30% who are interested but not right now. By going from a 3% addressable market to 40%, you’re increasing the effectiveness of your advertising by 1,233%

Step 3: Follow Up Until They Buy Or Die

So now that you have your database of high probability prospects, what do you do next? Quite simply you market to them until they buy or die.
It may seem like I’m advocating being obnoxious and pestering people to buy until they cave in. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Traditional selling is focused on pressure tactics like “always be closing” and other silly little close techniques which are based on pressure.
It makes the seller a pest who the prospect wants to avoid.
Instead of being a pest, I advocate becoming a welcome guest. Send your high probability prospects a continuous stream of value until they’re ready to buy.
This could be in the form of tutorials, articles, case studies or even something as simple as a monthly newsletter that’s related to their area of interest.
This builds trust, good will and positions you as an expert and educator rather than just a sales person going for the jugular.
Various technology tools make it easy to automate this continuous follow up mechanism, making this a cost effective and scalable way of building up a huge pipeline of interested and motivated prospects.
Some of these prospects will convert into customers immediately, while others will do so weeks, months or even years later.
The point is that by the time they’re ready to buy, you’ve already built a solid relationship with them based on value and trust. This makes you the logical choice when it comes time for them to make a buying decision.
This is one of the most ethical and painless ways of selling, because it’s based completely on trust and an exchange of value.
While your competitors are blindly shooting arrows every which way in the hope of hitting one of the 3% of immediate buyers, with “The Visible Target Technique” you’re focusing all of your firepower on a clear and visible target.

Tune in to the minds of customers. Find out all you can about their wants and needs. And, above all, do what you do best – market your services! If you are in a niche business and want to increase the possibility that people with that need will find you Stop waiting for things to happen and make them happen yourself. Your destiny is just a click away!

To Your Success

John

Big Business vs Small Business Marketing

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Aug 11, 2021 | Advertising Wollongong, Customer experience wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, local seo, niche marketing, Online Advertising Wollongong, website design, website hosting, word of mouth marketing

Does Size Really Matter?

Well in marketing your small business, it most certainly does. In this article I’m going to show you one of the biggest marketing miscalculations made by small business when it comes to getting their message to their target market.

I can’t tell you how widespread this problem is, and it’s at the very core of why most small business marketing fails.

If you’re a small business owner, you’ve almost certainly given some thought to marketing and advertising, things like; What approach are you going to take? Where are you going to advertise? What are you going to say in your advertising?

The most common way most small business owners decide on doing this is by looking at large, successful competitors in their industry and copying what they’re doing.

This seems a pretty smart thing to do right? Copy what other successful businesses are doing and you will also become successful?

But honestly, this is one of the quickest ways to fail and I’m very certain it’s responsible for the bulk of small business failures. Here are the two major reasons why I think that is..

Large Companies Have A Different Agenda

Large companies have a very different agenda when it comes to marketing than small businesses do. Their strategies and priorities differ from yours significantly.

The marketing priorities of a large company looks something like this:

Pleasing The Board Of Directors
Appeasing Shareholders
Satisfying Superiors’ Biases
Satisfying Existing Clients’ Preconceptions
Winning Advertising And Creative Awards
Getting “Buy In” From Various Committees And Stakeholders
Making A Profit

The marketing priorities of a small business look something like this:

Making A Profit

As you can see there is a world of difference in the marketing priorities of small and large companies. So naturally there is a big difference in strategy and implementation.

Big Companies Have A VERY Different Budget

Strategy changes with scale. This is very important to understand.

Do you think, for example, a large property investment company has a different property investment strategy to the average small property investor? Of course they do..

The large company’s strategy simply won’t work on a small scale. You can’t just build one floor of of a skyscraper and leave it at that. You need them all.

If you have an advertising budget of millions and years to get a profitable result, then that’s going to be a very different strategy to needing to make a profit immediately with a $5000 to $10,000 budget.

Using a large company marketing strategy, your $10,000 is going to be a drop in the ocean. It will be totally wasted and ineffective because you’re using the wrong strategy for the scale that you’re operating at.

Branding and ego-based mass marketing is the domain of large companies. To achieve any kind of cut through requires an enormous budget and the use of expensive MASS media.

So What’s left For The Little Guy?

Direct response marketing gives small businesses a way to compete on a small budget. It’s designed to be accountable and ensure you get a return on investment that is measurable.

Following the path of other successful businesses is smart, but it’s vital that you understand the full strategy you’re following and that you’re able to implement it.

Strategy from an outside observer’s perspective can be very different to the reality. If you’re following a strategy that has different priorities to you or has a vastly different budget then it’s highly unlikely it will generate the kind of result you’re hoping for.

Yours In Market Success

John

Thanks go to Allan Dib from Successwise for his insights

Future of Marketing, What Skills You Will Need?

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Jun 5, 2021 | Advertising Wollongong, AI Wollongong, Customer experience wollongong, CX Wollongong, data analysis wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, Machine Learning Wollongong, Neuromarketing Wollongong, niche marketing, Online Advertising Wollongong, UX Wollongong

How will marketing change in the coming decade?

According to Adobe’s Marketo, “Niche marketing capabilities will become the most important skills. Current tasks performed by a marketing team will decline in importance or be automated into oblivion.”

Most In-demand

The marketer of 2025, will need skills that focus around analytics, data & insights, CX (customer experience)/UX (user experience), AI (Artificial Intelligence) & machine learning, Vanity metrics, which include impressions, “likes,” shares, comments, followers, open rates, views, traffic, time on site, bounce rate open rates etc.. digital marketing & media (though this is declining), and marketing technology & operations, marketing will essentially be a technology hub.

Sophisticated Data Analytics

In fact, only analytics remains a top priority from the current crop of top four skills. They includes digital marketing and media, Social media marketing will halve and content marketing.

Sophisticated data analytics, will be the most important skill in the marketing.

To provide deeper, more advanced insight into patterns, trends, and themes that may be hidden within data. is a Data analysis that uses predictive modeling, machine learning algorithms, deep learning, business process automation.

Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing is the study of customer behavior and how it affects the buying pattern of a target audience. For example, researchers may find that a particular stimulus causes a response in the brains of test subjects that’s correlated with a desired behavior (e.g. the release of a ‘feel good’ hormone). Obviously, as a marketer, you’d want to know these cause-effect relationships so that you can apply the principles to your creative, and thereby drive improvements to your key conversion metrics.(Smart Insights)

The marketing team of tomorrow, may not be recognised by the marketing team of today. Artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics will be the key tech drivers. Neuromarketing, which barely exists today, will feature strongly.

The day-to-day functions of marketers will change greatly. For instance, there will be much less emphasis on decisions around email marketing or social media. Rather, those kinds of tasks will be more and more reliant on machines to make better decisions than people make today.

Yours In Marketing

John