A solid, trustworthy lead generation system is vital for the success of any business. Period. At The Reach Co this is how we teach you to turn ‘complete strangers into loyal customers.’
The entry point is easy enough right?
Maybe you have a lead magnet to grab emails and build your email list. Maybe you’re running google ads to a landing page with form to capture appointment information. Maybe you’re killing it on TikTok or Facebook Ads with their native lead forms that get pulled into your system.
Whatever you’re doing to initially GET the leads, there are four key elements that can enhance your lead generation efforts while taking the lion’s share of the work and automate it, freeing you up to focus on your business instead of staring at a screen.
By implementing these components, you can streamline your workflow, automate communication, and maximize conversion rates. In this post, we will look at each of these essential components and how you can leverage them to boost your lead generation strategy.
Easy to follow workflows
Workflows are where you ‘work’ your leads. This is where you automate:
- Getting your leads to book their appointments
- Talking with your leads through SMS, emails or calls
- Moving them to different stages of your pipelines based on actions they took
- Notifying your team of someone needing a manual call
- Sending out reminders to get a confirmation
- Triggers to remove leads from other workflows based on certain things
The possibilities go on forever. These are the simplest things ever, and there are some AMAZING and complicated things we’ve done for clients with workflows.
But, a workflow doesn’t have to be crazy complicated. The less moving parts you have the less likely something is to break. That doesn’t mean that a level of complexity can’t be added to make your system “smarter” and more agile to address your customer’s needs. It just means a lot of business owners add all the bells and whistles because they’re there, and then never use their CRM really because it got too complicated too fast.
It also means crappy agencies will set up your lead gen systems in a way that is overly complicated to “position themselves as the expert” at your expense when a simpler system that you felt confident using regularly would have worked just as well.
Clear and logical workflows are the backbone of efficient lead management.
Andrew Peters
By establishing transparent and standardized procedures within your CRM system, you provide a roadmap for your team to follow. Define and document the specific steps involved in lead follow-ups, nurturing, and qualification. These clear guidelines ensure consistency, collaboration, and accountability among team members. By creating a structured approach, you increase the likelihood of converting leads into paying customers.
Defined Pipelines and Stages
Do you have a system in place where at a quick glance you can all your leads’ value, what stage they are in on your pipeline, what source your leads came from, how many are in the appointment booked stage, and what the total value of your pipeline is?
For real, can you go to one page and see all that stuff easily in a way you can understand it right now?
Pipelines give you the ability to quickly visualize and track a lead’s progress towards conversion.
Pipeline stages are vital for effectively tracking and managing leads throughout their journey. By breaking down your sales process into distinct stages, from initial contact to closed sale, you gain a comprehensive view of each lead’s status. This visualization allows you to identify potential bottlenecks, optimize your sales cycle, and allocate resources more efficiently. By aligning your team’s efforts with pipeline stages, you can ensure smoother communication and a higher rate of conversions.
Again, these don’t have to be complicated, but they DO need to make sense for your business and how you work. For example, my own sales pipeline has 7 stages.
- To be qualified
- Strategy Call Booked
- Strategy Call No-Show
- Not qualified
- Follow Up
- Agreement Sent
- Won
This is what makes sense for my digital marketing agency. We also have an onboarding pipeline where we work to get clients set up with invoicing, onboarding forms, service agreement, and project management established. And of course, we use custom workflows to automate a ton of this.
That being said, one pipeline doesn’t fit every business! What works for our lead generation isn’t necessarily going to work for an HVAC company. And what works for an HVAC company isn’t going to work for a medspa. How do we know? Because we’ve built pipelines for both. Lead Generation will always have core components, but how those components are mapped out will change based on industry. And that’s where the expertise of someone that does this on the regular comes in handy to help you see the big picture and put together a strategy that can work for you.
Keep in mind, each one of those stages also has the potential of having one or more workflows tied to it based on what is going on. Someone books a call on my calendar, they get put in the 2nd stage and put into an appointment reminder workflow. Someone checks out on our website, the move to the 6th stage, get sent an agreement to sign and start their onboarding forms, all via a workflow. Easy peasy.
And the beauty of it is that I don’t have to remember which boxes to check and what to send. Once we’ve established the journey we want our clients to take, the system does it for me.
Intelligent Auto Responding
Studies show that businesses who respond to leads in five minutes or less are 100x more likely to connect and convert opportunities.
Let that sink in. Let it really sink in.
Most leads will go to the vendor that responds the quickest. Not the one with the most reviews. Not the best. The quickest. This is called speed to lead, and I’m here to tell you that THIS number is what can set you apart from your competitors immediately! Did you know the average speed to lead time for small businesses is 48 freaking minutes?!
Capturing your leads’ attention promptly is crucial for maintaining their interest. An intelligent auto responder integrated into your CRM system allows for automatic and personalized follow-up engagement as soon as a lead is generated. This immediate response initiates a positive interaction, demonstrates attentiveness, and builds trust with potential customers.
It can be as simple as this.
Send out an automatic text 15 seconds after getting the lead that says ‘Hey this Mark with Atlanta Chiropractic. I saw you’re interested in our $39 New Patient special! Is now a good to call and get you scheduled?’
Next, send an internal notification to Mark so he gets a text with the details and see the task in his dashboard. Then Mark uses the CRM’s built in call system to call and track that call.
If they respond ‘no’ to that question, your workflow simply responds ‘Okie doke. When would you be available to call? Or, you can book a time right here that works for your first appointment.’
If they don’t book or give a time, they’re just added to the workflow that keeps nurturing them and added to a follow up pipeline stage. But, since you responded quickly and your workflow is setup to work this way during business hours, chances are they will and you’ll be able to call well before that five minute mark.
This only works if you a) have a workflow setup to immediately initiate contact with a lead and b) have staff ready to call them before you lose them to a competitor. You HAVE to work this for it to work. And the numbers don’t lie. Calling a lead 30 minutes after they reach out is 21X less effective whereas responding in the first minute (followed by the actual call) can lead to 391% more conversions.
An Easy to Use Booking Solution
A user-friendly booking solution built into your CRM system simplifies the process of scheduling appointments or consultations with your sales representatives.
By removing barriers and friction from the booking process, you create a more seamless customer experience. This streamlined booking solution saves time for both parties and increases the likelihood of converting prospects into customers. A smooth and straightforward booking process contributes to a positive customer perception of your brand.
You’re going to have people that reach out after hours or don’t pick up the phone. You’re also going to have people that would rather just book their own time and not have to talk to folks. Having a simple booking solution where people can schedule your services, and even pay while booking or get the invoice directly after the appointment…well, it’s helpful and people love this.
What people don’t think about when working on their CRM workflows and pipelines is this “how easy is it for our staff to book someone for a specific appointment” and “how easy is it to get a deposit to reduce no-shows and problem clients.”
You see, just like you want to make it easy for your leads to book in their service, you also want to make it easy for your team to a) book people to the correct calendar directly, b) visualize the lead’s journey and see what actions led to booking an appt, and c) send out the correct booking link without having to go to google drive and making sure to copy the right one (yep, that’s a problem we’ve helped a client with before).
A solid booking and calendar solution that is built into the CRM makes getting appointments from leads SO MUCH easier than wrangling different tools and links.
And guess what it ties back into.
If you guessed a workflow, kudos to you. Again, these can be simple or complicated. You want to make sure the lead is able to reminders via text/email leading up to their appointment, that the person handling the appointment is 100% in the loop, and that your lead (now your client) is being nurtured with content relevant to their appointment both before and after the appointment.
See, booking solutions don’t just have to do with the actual appointments. They provide ‘milestones’ by which you can handle your other work. Here’s a simple example:
- A client books a Botox appointment for a medspa we work with. They go through all the confirmation workflows leading up to their appointment.
- 30 minutes after they are marked as ‘shown’ they get a text asking if they will rate the service they received.
- If they say 4 or 5, they get a call to action to leave a review.
- Then they go into a nurture campaign lasting 4 months that talks more about botox and pitches educational pieces on other services that pair well with botox.
- Once the four month mark comes around, they get a text saying ‘Wow, can you believe it’s been four months since you got botox? Let’s get you on the schedule for your next appointment! {{calendar.botox_calendar_link}}’.
Wrapping Up
To achieve optimal lead generation, it is crucial to have a well-rounded CRM system that has clear workflows, well-defined pipeline stages, an intelligent auto responder + speed to lead time, and a streamlined booking solution.
Is there more to it? Ya, for sure, but these four pillars provide the structure, efficiency, and automation necessary to generate and convert leads effectively. By leveraging these components and customizing them to your business’s unique needs, you are poised to maximize your lead generation results and drive business growth.
Remember, your lead generation system should be an evolving entity. Continuously assess, optimize, and adapt these components to suit changing customer dynamics in order to maintain a competitive edge in your industry.
If you read any of this and it clicked, let us help! You can read about our approach to lead generation here along with pricing and schedule a call to see how we get your CRM experience up to snuff so you can quit leaving money on the table.