What Is A Lead?

A lead, when it comes to marketing is essentially anyone who may be interested in buying your service or product. More specifically though, a lead is someone who you either know, or at least have their contact information, and who could potentially benefit from whatever it is you are selling. For example a butcher shop could potentially sell their meat to anyone who eats meat, but not vegans or vegetarians. But just because I am a meat eater doesn’t necessarily make me a lead to them. For one, I could live in another country which would not qualify me as a lead unless they ship worldwide. But secondly, I could have no clue about the existence of said butcher shop, and they likely do not even know that I exist. That is, unless they have my name and number or email at the very least. 

Why Are Leads Important?

Hopefully you now know what leads are, but why are they important? Well, for a state employee working in the research department, they don’t need leads because they are steadily employed working for the state and stay busy analyzing data. Now consider a the owner of that butcher shop. She owns the business and like any good business owner should want to maximize her profit. To do that she will want to constantly be expanding the number of people coming into the shop everyday. There are multiple ways to go about growing a client base, but essentially every form of it will involve getting leads. You can think of leads as potential customers who you can influence to become an actual customer. 

One example of a way to get a lead is a simple TV commercial. If you’ve ever watched a late night local show, you know that small local businesses like to place commercials to advertise for their business. Now if I’m watching a late night show and see the commercial for the butcher shop then I just became a lead. However this isn’t really the best lead because even though I now know about the business, the business doesn’t know about me. They can’t follow up with me to further encourage me to buy their meats. 

What Is The Best Way To Convert Leads?

If the butcher shop really wants to improve their marketing techniques they should take it online. Online advertising has grown in the past decade and for good reason. It truly is the most effective way to convert leads into customers. A simple way is through a website contact form. You’ve probably filled one out before where they ask you for your email at the very least. Once a company has your email they can contact you essentially whenever they want to coax you into becoming a customer, for example by sending you a coupon. 

Another way to convert leads is through social media like Facebook. Facebook revolutionized not just the way we interact with our circle but also with how we are marketed towards. Businesses can fine tune their ads so that they reach exactly who they want them to, their targeted demographic who is most likely to become a customer. Google Ads work similarly in that you can finely focus on who you want to reach. 

Now that you know about leads and how to convert them, what are you going to do? The best way to learn is by experience I’d recommend you stop reading now and take at least one step towards either getting more leads, or converting the leads you already have. Most importantly have fun doing it.