Warm leads are the dream for a sales team. They are a chance to try and sell to someone who has shown that they might be interested in what you do. This is very different from cold calling people,
A cold lead is when you approach a potential customer out of the blue, with no warning, they may never have expressed an interest in your business at all.
For instance, a cold call would be when your sales team finds someone’s details on LinkedIn, for example, and then makes an approach to speak to this person. You might feel they could benefit from your product or service. A warm lead is when someone has given you their details, either at an event or even through filling in a form on your website. Much of the b2b lead generation for some businesses comes from networking. If someone already knows you exist, or what your business does, they won’t be so taken aback by your call.
So, what are our top tips for creating warm leads?
Outsource The Cold Calls
Cold calling might have a success rate of just 1-3% or possibly a little higher if you know what you are doing. That means a lot of picking up the telephone. If you are using b2b lead generation services, one of the methods they may use is cold calling, and trying to generate interest for your own sales team to follow up.
Paying another company to perform these cold calls can give you a higher success rate, as they are more likely to know exactly what they are doing. They might set up a further meeting for your sales executives to attend.
Lead Generation Ads
If you are able to properly target your advertising, you can find the exact sorts of customers and clients you are looking for. By sending them to a capture page on your site, or a sales funnel, you can take their details for your sales team to utilize.
Lead generation ads might cost some money to run, but implemented well they are a way to get warm leads that can convert pretty well. It is all about split testing and continuing to hone your techniques until you have an amazing lead generation system in place.
A Blog
Blogs are a great and inexpensive way to generate warm leads. Starting a blog enables you to give potential customers valuable information, and prove that you know what you are talking about. It is also a way to harness the power of search engines. This means that you can target what people are searching for, and draw people in from Google. Your blog should have a strong call to action and also a way for people to give you their contact details. There you have it, a warm lead.
A blog might take a while to grow, and the content you are providing needs to be quality, but it is a great way to let customers find you organically.
Encourage Referrals From Existing Customers
A great way to grow your business and get warm leads for your team to follow up is to harness the existing customers you have. You might even offer them a financial incentive to recommend you to other businesses they work with or just to their friends. This is a great system for building trust, as people are only likely to recommend services and products that they trust and find useful.
By asking for referrals, you also ensure that you are not just asking potential customers to take your word that they know what they are doing. Instead, you are basically getting your customers to do this for you, and to advertise their positive experiences to their own network. Even if they are being rewarded financially, this is a powerful tool when making a sale.
Conclusion
These are just some of the smart ways to create warm leads you can follow up on. People use all sorts of methods, utilizing social media, ad networks, or even competitions to try and generate leads, and ensure that people are expecting your call when the time comes to try and make a sale.
Author’s Bio:
Michael is a member of the editorial team at Leads At Scale. His main areas of expertise include business growth, inbound, and outbound marketing & sales.
He is a walking wanderer and a travel enthusiast.
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