The Fine Art Of Balancing Lead Capture And Sales

[Robert Francis]

For the first few years of my online biz, out of necessity (lack of back end products mostly), new lead generation was mostly an afterthought. I used basic forms and popups and whatnot to gather a small percentage of new leads (email addresses), but it was not my primary focus.

I started in the (warning: nostalgia alert!) glory days of Adwords where you could slap up just about anything and make it profitable if you paid close attention to your keyword profitability, etc. So, 90% of my net revenue was in what I call "direct" revenues; the daily difference between what I sell (information products) and what I spent on Adwords.

About a year ago, I stumbled on to a report by Perry Marshall that led me to switch my lists from 1 Shopping Cart & Aweber to Infusionsoft.com.

This also started me down a psychological preference/focus on building the ultimate "follow up" system.

Infusionsoft allows you to do things that are just amazing (light years ahead of anyone else, best I can tell).

But, somewhere in that pursuit, I seem to have lost the forest for the trees a bit.

The reason that I started (and continued) with a focus on daily return/profits is because (in a very un-Fastlane manner), I've always managed my finances in a way that means I can't really go (too) long between a prospect clicking through Adwords and buying something.

Although (I'd assume) that the "best case" scenario is to focus (almost) exclusively on generating leads and an amazing funnel/follow up/conversion process, my ability to finance this sort of approach is (shall we say?) limited.

So (I think), I should be shooting for some "middle ground" where I am balancing my lead generation/name capture with the ability to close immediate sales/self fund.

The problem is...

I have NO real clue as to what that "middle ground" might look like.

Ultimately, this is (kind of) a "technical" question...

Should I lean towards a "hard" squeeze page approach to increase my lead capture and then "solve all my problems" by focusing on creating an amazing follow up system (that hopefully brings average days to purchase down pretty small)?

Or, should I focus more on sales/conversions/self funding and "take the leads I can get?"

Ultimately, when I ponder this, within a Fastlane framework, I sometimes think that focusing on the "self funding"/take the leads you get is the better, smarter way to go because...

If it's all about scale, maybe it is better to GUARANTEE that I am self funding on all paid advertising so that I can SCALE easier?

Ugh. If you read this whole post, you are my hero and I'd really appreciate everyone's thoughts.

 

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[andviv]

Focus on the cash flow... (i.e. follow the money).

If you find the self-funding technique/strategy then you are done, no? (The engine generates enough kinetic energy to keep itself running...)

 

[Robert Francis]

Focus on the cash flow... (i.e. follow the money).

If you find the self-funding technique/strategy then you are done, no? (The engine generates enough kinetic energy to keep itself running...)

Well, this is (basically) my quandary...

It's all about which piece of the puzzle you are choosing to focus on/optimize.

Best I can tell, through research, most of the "best" (certainly the "gurus") seem to advocate/lean towards the "lead generation" approach. It's the whole "it's easier to sell someone when you have more than one chance" and " it takes 7 contacts to make most sales" type of thinking.

So, if I were to choose to just focus on lead generation and then focused on the follow up/funnel/conversion over time processes...I think that may be the more leveraged choice.

It's way easier to get 15-20% lead capture than it is to get even 1% conversion (sales) rates and you have multiple shots to close that bigger percentage.

So, I'd think MATHEMATICALLY (assuming I constructed an amazing follow up system) that there is more leverage in that focus/approach.

On the other hand, if I focus on the front-end/conversions/sales piece, I'm guaranteed self funding and maybe can grow my lead generation by massively scaling advertising with GUARANTEED self funding.

I'm guessing that, ultimately (like most such questions), the answer is really "do both well," but I'm looking for a little advice from others that may have struggled with this issue and may have some strong opinions about which is the better model/focus?

 

[Neon]

If you're getting most of your traffic from places like Adwords then you know they can shut you down pretty much overnight without reason.

So if you've got no lists and that happens...well, you're in serious trouble.

I think building a list is super important but most people have trouble CONVERTING the list.

Done well, a list should convert higher than straight traffic.

So if you're having trouble making money while building a list I would look at what you aren't doing between the point the customer joins the list and then does or does not buy what you're selling. It's all about systems.

There are some exceptions though, for certain markets like for example some sort of software that solves a NOW problem (virus removal etc.) then it's more important to just capture that initial sale before they go somewhere else to solve their burning need.

 

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[LightHouse]

So you have an exsisting list now that you have built over time, why are you not using the list to profit from? Are you interacting and providing value to them?

There is no point in getting leads if you have nothing to sell. And if you are just using it once, your burn rate will be so high you will be riding a thin edge waiting for disaster. It's not too fine of an art to me(ive never sold to a list, keep in mind) but the idea is you have something to provide so every customer has a value first, then you tune your lead capture to make that a profitable reality that could run until traffic prices changed.

 

[theBiz]

this is so true. I once executed a few different strategies myself for about a week until i saw one working. I then outsourced the project for $100.

2 weeks later when i checked my inbox i had 1,350 leads with names, about 70% had phone numbers (the rest i emailed them back and got them), and a bio about them.

Most people in Lead gen know those numbers are amazing, especially with 0 referrals.
Only problem, i was being deceptive in the ads, so when trying to call the people with some sort of sales pitch i would get hung up on.

its not about quantity its about quality as MJ always says, regardless of your business, service or product, bad leads are a waste of time.

 

[andviv]

Most people in Lead gen know those numbers are amazing, especially with 0 referrals.
Only problem, i was being deceptive in the ads, so when trying to call the people with some sort of sales pitch i would get hung up on.

Well, you found out you have a market for whatever the ad was offering... did you stop to think on how to monetize what the ad was offering, given that people clearly want it?

Instead of selling them what you have to sell, find what they want and sell it to them... would that work in your case?

 

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[Robert Francis]

So you have an exsisting list now that you have built over time, why are you not using the list to profit from? Are you interacting and providing value to them?

I have a list and (I think) I do a better job than most extracting back end sales and LCV.

My concern is long term. You always need to be refilling the funnel and I haven't been doing that as much as I'd like in the recent past.

 

[theBiz]

yes and no andiv. We will find out soon when i do the product launch but it actually is difficult to know without every piece of the puzzle put together. I saw a demand so im building a product around it which will only be truly tested when actually put out there. For sure the demand is out of control so phase 1 is covered.

i did nothing along the lines of this but you can list a brand new BMW for $15,000 and say you are an old grandmother who just wants to get rid of it call me at ...and leave a fake number that captures phone lines and sell those numbers to your local bmw dealer but most of them are bad leads and people are pissed off about it later.