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Marketing Magic: Turning Leads into Profits

By Chris Nelson, Managing Director, Advanced Marketing Solutions

What’s the secret? Leverage and persistence are the keys to maximizing your profit impact per marketing dollar.

What’s the secret? Leverage and persistence are the keys to maximizing your profit impact per marketing dollar.

Leveraging the marketing investments is often overlooked. Just remember that the sum is greater that its parts. So if you’re running advertisements, trade shows and seminars, make sure to use inclusive communications. For example, if someone responds to an advertisement by calling a toll-free number, the call center should let them know that there is a related seminar coming to their area. If folks can’t attend a seminar, they should be reminded of the major trade shows that your company will attend. It is surprising to discover the number of marketing programs that are left to stand alone. Use a domino approach to connect marketing programs and enhance the total value.

Patience and persistence are indeed marketing virtues. Direct marketing campaigns and events are used to generate leads. But after the hot opportunities are passed to the sales channel, what happens to the rest? Many times, the warm or unqualified leads are tossed aside. In this case, a large percentage of the marketing budget is wasted; perhaps 50% to 75% of the leads are never contacted because there was no immediate purchase intent or defined budget. But what about three months down the road? Consider the value of a nurture and harvest program, where leads that are not yet sales-actionable are part of a communication and qualification process.

Using a blended and leveraged approach to marketing programs with a nurture-and-harvest lead management process could provide a better flow of qualified sales opportunities. A follow-up phone call, letter or email one week, one month and one quarter after a trade show might cost $3. While finding a new contact could cost 7-10 times as much. In addition, using small, industry-specific incentives can encourage people to qualify themselves via inbound phone, web or email, which is considerably more cost effective then designing and implementing new marketing programs.

Creating an ongoing lead management process to nurture and harvest leads from marketing programs will increase the profit impact and provide a significant return on your investment. The magic of marketing is not in generating more leads, but in getting more from the leads you generate.

Chris Nelson is the Managing Director of Advanced Marketing Solutions, a marketing/sales support and lead management firm that implements programs to maximize client revenue and profit impact. For a free consultation to see how your marketing programs could yield a greater ROI, visit www.internetleads.com or call Chris at 508-486-9700.

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