Blue Ocean Strategy is all about creating UNCONTESTED market space in which you dominate the competition because there IS no competition!   It is just as viable (and profitable) on the web as it is offline, and I believe it will become more so.

Right now, many companies (especially small businesses) are “surviving” on the web because of moderate traffic costs (particularly PPC) and competitors who, by and large, don’t really know what they’re doing.

As the competition heats up, “me-too” companies will be eaten alive, leaving only those with a well-executed internet strategy and tight conversion funnel will really prosper.

Thanks for the summary Stuart!

“I don’t want to generate a heap of rubbish leads - they need to be of high quality”.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s because the quality of your clients and the size of your paycheck begins at the lead generation level. The way you prepare prospects to contact you via your ads, your website, your free or fee-based information products, your company logo and “look and feel” - all influence how quickly and effectively you can make sales.

In my own business and when working with clients, I don’t just want to generate “qualified” leads but highly qualified, ready-to-buy leads. There’s a distinct difference. Highly-qualified, ready-to-buy leads are:

• Easier and faster to close
• Less price-focused and more value-focused
• More motivated to succeed
• Tend to understand what you do and why your different - don’t require a lot of time to educate

So, recognizing that what you do at the lead gen level influences what happens further down your sales pipeline, here are five strategies for increasing the quality of your leads:

1) Target the right prospects

Many businesspeople and marketers are unwilling to laser-focus on the specific prospect group that they can help most. For example, if a mechanic is an expert at restoring old BMWs, instead of concentrating on that market he sometimes makes the mistake of trying to appeal to all car owners.

Targeting via psychographic profile can also be very effective - a psychographic factor describes consumers on the basis of some psychological trait, characteristic or lifestyle. I favour using pyschographics in preference to demographic (age and gender) targeting alone.

How do you target a particular group? Start with your headlines. e.g.

“Does Not Having Enough Money to Retire On Keep You Up at Night?”

A headline like the one above (for, say, a financial planner) would tend to bring motivated prospects into the marketing funnel.

2) Pre-Educate

Especially if your products / services are higher priced, intangible, complex or in a highly competitive industry, it’s critical that you educate prospects about your offering and value.

There are many ways to do this including downloadable Special Reports; White Papers; Questionnaires, Surveys and Audits; Seminars and Events.

You can also monetize the education process by charging for materials. This not only generates a revenue streams but also forces motivated prospects to “self-select”. Self-selection is a critical component of the most successful lead generation programs.

3) Pre-Qualify

Self-selection is one form of pre-qualification. Others include describing whom your product or service is for.

e.g. “Our no-deposit first home loans may be perfect for you if you have been in steady employment for at least 2 years and have a income of $60K+ per annum.”

Phrases like these reduce unqualified buyers from your sales funnel.

4) Pre-Sell

This one goes without saying. If your ads, sales letters or other materials are compelling enough, you can actually make 95% of the sale before the prospect even speaks to you. All you have to do is answer 1 or 2 questions and then finalise the paperwork. A pre-sold lead is the ultimate outcome of a successful lead generation program.

If you have to arm-wrestle every prospect into buying from you, the chances are you’re not doing enough pre-selling at the lead gen level.

5) Future Pace

Future Pacing is “showing” the prospect what their life will be like in the future once they have your solution. It’s a technique that can be used in print as well as in a sales setting, and makes the benefits you offer much more immediate.

Future pacing backed up by testimonials and case studies are even better. “Social proof” elements such as these are an integral part of many successful lead generation efforts.

What to do now

How well is your lead generation process working? Your “gut feel” should give you the answer. Is converting every lead into a sale a battle? Or do you often find yourself twiddling your thumbs waiting for leads to come in (hint: they won’t just materialise - you have to do something)? Although this post deals more with lead quality than lead quantity, by implementing some of the concepts above you should see a significant improvement in results.

Leave a comment to share your thoughts about generating qualified leads.

Will Swayne Internet Lead Generation Guy

Two Australian accountants, Tony Melvin and Ed Chan, have recently launched a book called “How to Legally Minimise Your Tax”. It has not only hit the bestseller lists in Australia, but has also provided them with a raft of back-end sales opportunities. Some of their back end offerings include more advanced DVD-based products in addition to the professional services that they provide. All in all, a job well done!

So how do you get your book published?

I too have had a book project in the wings for some time but the whole business of getting a book published is rather daunting and for one reason or another I’m at the same stage with this as I was 6 months ago.

Recently I regained some momentum with this project when Charles Cuninghame from Text-Centric Copywriting introduced me to Pam Brewster from Brolga Publishing, who very kindly gave me some pointers on how to go from an idea to actually seeing your book in bookshops.

Here’s a summary of Pam’s recommendations…

Broadly speaking, there are three options: going through a publisher, self-publishing via traditional bookshops or self-publishing on the Internet. Let’s look at each one in turn…

Option 1: Going through a publisher

The key advantage of going through a publisher is that the publisher meets your costs and distributes the book on your behalf.

1. The first step is to approach a publisher (preferably one who publishes books in a similar genre to yours). An easy way to find appropriate publishers is to simply go to a bookshop and look at who’s publishing books in your chosen genre.
2. The next step is to submit a brief synopsis, Table of Contents, author profile and 1 or 2 sample chapters to “sell” the manuscript. If the publisher likes what they ready, they’ll contact you to request the full manuscript.
3. If a publisher agrees to publish your book, they will meet the cost of production and distribution. First-time authors typically receive a royalty payment of 10% of RRP and royalties are paid 6-monthly.
4. If you go through a publisher, one of the prices you may have to pay is letting go of some editorial control.

Option 2: Self-publishing

If you can’t find a publisher to take on your project (or you’re the maverick-type who just likes to make their own rules!) self-publishing is another option.

1. First step is to find a distributor – the distribution cost is typically 60% to 70% of RRP. The remaining 30% to 40% has to cover all of your costs including printing. If you’re lucky there will even be a bit left over as profit!
2. The word on the street is that distributors normally aren’t terribly thrilled to work with first-time authors. The reason is that newbies often have unrealistic expectations and are more trouble than they’re worth to deal with.

Option 3: Self-publishing via the Internet

The other option is to self publish and distribute over the internet - either in e-book format or in printed format. The advantage of this include the relative ease of publishing and the ability to potentially target very tight subject niches (plus, you get a much greater percentage of the profits).

The disadvantage is that your reach is significantly diminished, especially if your target market are not necessarily active online. [Or your industry may be very competitive online but far less so offline. When you go offline your marketing efforts will gain much greater traction.]

Step 1: Publish Book.
Step 2: ……..
Step 3: Profit!

How many authors actually make a profit from their work? A few bestselling authors make millions, but the majority either eke out a modest existence or make nothing.

If publishing a book is a “means to an end” (i.e. a lead generation tool for your business), then not making any profit on the front end isn’t a problem. If you structure it correctly, you should have a back end of products and services where you make your money.

And simply calling yourself a “published author” can add significantly to your pre-eminence within your industry. Even if you never sell a copy, you’re still a published author and an industry expert.

Now, where was I with that manuscript……

While I think that providing value up-front is appropriate in many situations (for example, I publish a free marketing newsletter monthly), the “Free Offer” can be overdone and come back to bite you by devaluing your services in the eyes of your prospects.

Free newsletter leads to free consultations leads to cut-priced pilot projects and so on…

Giving too much away free can send you to the poorhouse. Recently I came to the conclusion that I have been giving away too much free as well, and have been putting in place a range of strategies to turn the situation around to

(A) make my time more productive and profitable and (B) provide genuine value to a greater number of high-quality clients .

The best marketers are those who have worked out a way to have people pay for their expertise as soon as possible in the marketing process. Sure, start by giving away free information (newsletters, reports, White Papers etc…) - but you also need a strategy to convert “free” into “fee” as soon as possible.

One way to do this is with educational information products. If you’re a speaker or expert, you can impart plenty of great information in the form of products that, even if they are modestly priced (e.g. a $29 e-book), start to place value on your intellectual property.

This breaks the cycle of free consultations and free advice that hold many professionals and other businesspeople back.

I’ve recently co-authored a strategic manual on Internet marketing and lead generation with Jay Abraham that will be go on sale soon…it plugs many of the strategic gaps that hold back regular “offline” businesses from profiting from the internet.

It took me a while to realise the importance of offering premium information - my best stuff - in a form that can be economically accessed by my target market. This new Report will certainly create huge value for clients and also meet my objectives too.

If you’re interested in how to leverage the internet in a way that produces explosive results for your “offline” product or service business, sign up to my Client Attraction Newsletter. You’ll not only receive tonnes of valuable business-building advice, but also get advance notice of the Internet Strategies Report launch.

Also, why not share your stragegies for converting “Free” to “Fee” by leaving a comment. Sensible comments (not about V1AGGRA) will be left a backlink to your site!

Bests,

Will

Apart from enjoying a cuppa of Dilmah Tea on a regular basis, I’ve always admired Dilmah as a well-positioned product.

What does “well-positioned” mean?

To me, it means, clearly differentiated from competitors and focussed around a single, appealing idea.

Dilmah’s USP [definition: Unique Selling Proposition] is encapsulated by the tagline, The Single Origin Tea.

Now a tagline alone does not a USP make. Dilmah goes much further, fleshing out their commitment to the perfect cup in myriad ways.

For example, each box of Dilmah tea contains a folded insert that explains the care that goes into the sourcing, packing and delivery of every cup of tea.

The website features some great copy too. Here’s an exerpt:

Dilmah is the product of a lifetime devoted to tea. Founder of Dilmah, Merrill J. Fernando embarked on a quest to bring quality back to tea when in the 1950s, he witnessed the concentration of ownership in the tea industry into the hands of a few large corporations and as a result, the ‘commoditisation’ of tea. As one of the first Ceylonese to have the opportunity to be trained in tea, Merrill harboured a dream since his initiation in the world of tea, to launch his own brand of tea, and to offer consumers the choice of something truly different. His dream took over three decades to come true, and in 1988 he launched his own brand - Dilmah, coined from the names of his two sons Dilhan and Malik. Dilmah introduced lovers of fine tea to the concept of tea ‘picked, perfected and packed’ at origin. Being owned and managed by a tea producer, Dilmah is also a role model for producing countries. Merrill pioneered the concept of ‘Single Origin Tea,’ choosing to remain faithful to Ceylon Tea, acknowledged the finest tea on earth.

Essentially, this is really just “About Us” sales copy - but look at the different strands that are woven together into a captivating product story…a lifetime devoted to tea…struggling against the corporate hegemony to fulfil a dream…the family story behind the name…a model for developing countries…remaining faithful to Ceylon Tea….

This passage oozes with authenticity - so often missing from most marketing communications and something so difficult to convey well. As soon as you try too hard, it slips away.

Almost every day, I’m reminded of how important a strong USP is to the success of any marketing project. A great USP with average execution can succeed, but a weak USP with superb execution often tanks.

To make your marketing work better (without spending any more money), consider re-thinking your USP.

Will

It’s now been about 2 months since I removed ad copywriting and other “offline” marketing services from our website and the results have been fantastic. In the last month we’ve received a 110% boost in enquiries from new clients and a noticeably higher “lead quality”. My take on this is that potential clients are more aware of our core business (Internet lead generation) and less distracted by other ancilliary services.

That said, there’s still a number of changes that we should make to the site to reflect our new focus. Everything was done in a bit of a rush so the current site has a foot in both camps.

If you’ve been wrestling with the idea of how to focus your business marketing, JUST DO IT. Focus simplifies your life and makes your marketing message easier to understand. So if you’re not making the headway that you’d like, take a look at

where you’re making the most profit, where the demand is, where your strengths lie, and what you like doing…

…then take the plunge. You won’t regret it.

Will

While I don’t necessarily disagree with the comments in these posts, I must confess to getting the heebie-jeebies every time I hear the words “small business” and “brand” in the same sentence. It’s normally associated with amorphous marketing chatter about “building your online brand” and “leveraging brand equity”.

Beware of “Branding” B.S.

The problem that I have with the term “branding” is that it connotes strong images of corporatized, awareness-based marketing.

To “brand” a product or service is to literally imprint your mark on it. Brands started as a way to differentiate items that are (to the naked eye anyway) rather similar (e.g. horses).

By imprinting your brand into the mind of Mr. Consumer, the hope is that, at the time of the purchase decision, your awareness-building will pay off and you’ll be more likely to get the sale.

That’s great, but the branding paradigm just does not apply to most small business lead generation situations.

Unless you’re marketing a mass-market service, and/or have deep pockets and a penchant for spending sprees, then you should be spending every marketing dollar and every ounce of psychic bandwidth generating actual qualified sales leads, not building awareness.

Far too many websites fail because they’re all about eye candy and not enough about effective selling.

Don’t Brand. Postition.

If your primary marketing challenge is online lead generation, then you should think of the Internet as a one-on-one, direct marketing medium, not a branding medium.

* Sidebar *

DIRECT MARKETING: Marketing that aims to elicit a “direct response” from individuals viewing your website [e.g. a newsletter signup, an email enquiry, an order].

MASS MARKETING: Simultaneous standardized marketing to, a very large target market through mass media. [online, this model might be followed by the likes of Google, Odeo, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Amazon]

* End Sidebar *

If the Internet is a direct response medium, then rather than creating fuzzy feelings with diffuse branding efforts, my advice is to focus your energies on effectively positioning your business in the mind of potential clients.

That means answering the question, “Why should I give my business to you, when with one click of a mouse button, or by flipping open the Yellow Pages I can find 10 other providers who offer the same service?”

If you can answer that question in a compelling way, you’ll generate top-quality enquiries and sales leads. And you can do this whether you’re a household name on the Internet, or your website went live only last week.

Further reading

See copywriter Bob Bly’s related post, “Is Madison Avenue Advertising a Total Fraud?”.

Till next time

Will Swayne Online marketing consultant