Business is about balancing the risk/reward ratio.  Taking calculated risks that hopefully reap big rewards.

And the most dangerous risk in any business is the number one.

One choice, one customer, one product, one method of lead generation.  Because no matter how secure you believe you are, disruption could be just around the corner.

Just ask the taxi industry with Uber.  Or hotels with Airbnb. Or if you’re in Australia, the fallout from the Banking Royal Commission and the effect it’s likely to have on the insurance and financial planning industry.

Given this, to maintain levels of growth you need to have a mindset of preparedness (you can’t be asleep at the wheel) and have strategies in place to mitigate risk.

The most important being your lead generation system.

For those of you who rely on being on the front page of Google to get all your traffic SEO changes frequently. You may be number one on Google today, but tomorrow you’re nowhere to be seen. End of traffic, end of business.  It’s happened multiple times over the years.

Or you may be running Google paid Adwords to funnel traffic.  A few years ago Google banned hundreds of thousands of advertisers – for life! No reasons were given. People doing upwards of $20M per year went to the wall. Google can and does frequently change the rules – pulling the rug out from underneath, leaving you out in the cold.

And the same goes for Facebook, Youtube or LinkedIn – or for that matter any other form of advertising.

Facebook recently changed its organic (free) post reach (your friends/fans who’ll see your post) to 2% – 3% of your total potential audience.

For example, Little Things, an online publisher with 12 million followers, was completely dependent on Facebook.  In March they went out of business due to Facebook throttling reach.  Their business model didn’t stack up if they needed to pay for the privilege of communicating with their customers.

The sands are always shifting.

Remember, you don’t own the advertising medium.  They do.  You advertise at their pleasure.

And then there’s the cost.  Any particular medium might become prohibitively expensive meaning advertising becomes unprofitable here.

And it may not be the advertising medium that changes the rules. Governments meddle more and more in business – stopping you from many traditional forms of advertising. Financial Planners and Insurance Brokers haven’t been able to cold call for years! Anti-spam legislation stops legitimate businesses from contacting qualified prospects.

So what’s the answer?

Diversity is the key. You must have multiple methods of lead generation so when one slows down, others can take up the slack.

No one channel should contribute more than 20% to 25% of your leads. You need to mix up online and offline advertising. Don’t rely solely on Google, Facebook or LinkedIn because one day they may stop working as effectively.

And you must, repeat must, get the prospect away from the original advertising medium onto your own database.

At the very least you want an email address so you can consistently keep in touch, educate and deepen the relationship so that when they’re ready to buy, they’ll contact you.

Obviously the more details you have about them, the better.  Mix up emails with phone calls, physical mail and SMS.  That way you have multiple ways to get through.

Always have a backup plan. It’s only your livelihood at stake.

Which is where we can help you diversify.

We create multiple path lead generation systems for our clients – including online advertising with Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. We also create targeted sales promotions sent through direct mail or email. And if you insist on using telemarketing to consumers, we can train your sales staff to do it the right way.

So if you want to insure your business and keep the leads flowing, call us on 0414 913 334 to get the ball rolling.

We offer short, sharp strategy sessions which are a good way to dip your toe in the water and see what we can produce for you.

 

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