“Lead generation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens within an ecosystem… Otherwise you waste a vast amount of resources.”
~ Debra Hilton
To Fire the Marketing Manager… or Not?
Jamie was a great guy who clearly had experience and a good reputation in his field, but he wasn’t getting the lead flow he needed to fill his courses or get the number of clients he wanted. As he put it, “All I need is people to talk to, when I’m in front of people my conversion rate is incredibly high.”
He was absolutely certain that his current marketing wasn’t delivering and he was looking for a new marketing manager… which was why he was talking to me.
One thing was clear: he didn’t have the qualified lead flow he needed.
What wasn’t so clear – to me, anyway – was that his marketing manager was the problem.
No question, there are some pretty average brand-focused marketing providers out there, but when he shared the strategy documents with me I didn’t think he was working with one of these. In fact, I realised that I knew the person he was working with and that they are direct response experts who usually deliver.
Blame the Right Person!
As we talked about what Jamie was doing… LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, webinars, challenges etc. it was clear that he thought the blame lay with his incompetent marketing manager.
I wasn’t so certain.
In fact, it was quite clear that his marketing manager was doing a good job – with what he had given them. Jamie’s issue was that he was desperate for leads so… Every time he heard about a new strategy (usually from a friend or mentor who seemed to be getting lost of leads) he would investigate it for himself and (often) invest.
As a result, he had several disparate teams doing aspects of his marketing with no co-ordination. When Jamie thought about how much he was spending on marketing and looked at his results, he blamed his marketing manager – even though he rarely consulted him before making a decision.
Of course, each of these (reputable) companies had their own strategy and he then asked the marketing manager to deliver what these other people needed which meant that the poor guy wasn’t even left to deliver his own carefully mapped out strategy.
Random or Systematic Marketing?
There’s nothing wrong with actively prospecting on the platforms Jamie was using, and I agreed with his decision not to use much paid advertising because he didn’t have an offer that was really effective, but here’s an illustration of how random acts of marketing was hurting him:
His marketing manager had a strategy:
- Attract the attention of potential clients
- Add them to his email list and podcast subscribers
- Cultivate the relationship with them; and
- Sell products, experience, and opportunity in every email and podcast.
This was designed to take advantage of Jamie’s extremely high conversion rates when the know-like-trust factor was used.
Each of his other providers had a strategy too, but they weren’t linked into the overall strategy. Individually, they were working as designed, but they didn’t have any traction.
For example, his LinkedIn program were inviting new connections for him at the maximum rate of 300 per day as well as managing requests and in-mails. Their strategy was to invite people to webinars and events, but since this was pretty much a ‘cold list’ of LinkedIn connections they weren’t really interested in buying his courses and coaching off the back of an event like they did when he promoted them to his list.
His Facebook/Instagram activity (managed by a different company) was doing similar things – and suddenly the marketing manager was jumping around trying to meet the demands of all these different “no-fail” lead generation providers.
Jamie had succumbed to the effect of random marketing activity – frenetic, uncoordinated, and unsatisfying!
Resolving the Problem….
I understood Jamie’s problem, but the person I felt sorry for was the marketing manager who was no doubt frustrated at taking the blame (and doing the work) for a problem that Jamie had inadvertently created.
I told Jamie to stick with his current marketing manager and follow the strategy he’d shown me, either closing down his other systems or telling them to focus on adding people to the house list as originally designed. He didn’t need more ‘cold contacts’ he needed to warm up those he had through regular email contact.
This is not the first time I’ve seen business owner succumb to sexy, no-fail lead generation strategies that deliver fewer qualified prospects than they had previously experienced because they create a distraction. Unless your marketing team has unlimited time, energy, creativity, and skills then strategic focus beats random ideas.
If you are ignoring the effective marketing advice you’ve been given, then blaming the results (or lack thereof) on the wrong person it’s time to STOP IT!
Jamie already had an effective marketing strategy in place that was integrated, consistent, and persistent and delivering a conversion rate of close to 90%. His real problem was that the ‘add-ons’ were imposing their own activities and agendas and derailing that strategy.
When he recognised this, his lead generation was transformed and so was his business.