The Integrated LeadGen Process

One Size Does Not Fit All Situations

Your company is unique. Your product or service may not be, but there is something that sets you apart.  Otherwise, why the heck are you in business? You need a plan – a good, sound marketing plan. That’s why we are an authorized Duct Tape Marketing Consultant. The Duct Tape Marketing System provides a simple, effective, and affordable approach to developing a specific plan for your company that is as sticky and trustworthy as a roll of duct tape.

Each plan should be developed from the perspective of your specific company and targeted buyers. No one plan fits everyone, and not everyone fits one plan. Pretty profound, huh? Did we mention that we like to work with companies that don’t take themselves too seriously? We like to make money, but we also want to have fun doing it. If you want to work with us you’ll need that attitude too.

Below our diagram we will elaborate on the elements of the process.

Integrated LeadGen Process

Discover

Before we can start to develop a marketing strategy we need to discover, together, who is your ideal customer. Hint: it’s not anyone with a pulse and money to spend. We will survey your existing customers…you know, the ones you would like to clone and have another two dozen or more. Our clients are always amazed at what we learn from this exercise. The reason these customers buy is usually not what you think. We combine our customer research with a thorough analysis of your competitors.

We also review all of your current marketing materials and advertising. From this discovery process we begin to get a clear picture of what we need to move to the next phase.

Develop

In this phase we work with you to narrow your market focus and develop your core marketing message. It’s important to realize that you cannot be all things to all people. You have certain things that you do very well and we have discovered what those are. Now it’s time to identify those market segments and develop your marketing message that will resonate with those target markets.

The core marketing message becomes the key element in the process. This is the messaging that will basically wrap around everything else in your marketing. It’s an important foundation and we generally spend the time it deserves to get it right.

Create

Be honest, you were starting to wonder when something gets created weren’t you. After all that’s what most people think marketing is all about. Right? Creation of marketing materials and campaigns are important, but it’s even more important to have a solid strategy guiding those efforts. Otherwise you make the same mistake that many others have, and you end up simply trying different marketing tactics that don’t end up being very effective.

This is the phase where we evaluate your company image in light of the marketing message we developed. There are two very important parts of this phase. One is that the way your company is presented is attractive and consistent throughout everything you do. The other is that you create marketing materials that educate your customers and prospects. No one like to be sold, but every likes to buy. Educate your prospects and when they are ready to buy, if you have done a good job educating them, their decision is simple – they buy from you. They will buy from you because they have learned to know, like, and trust you.

Promote

Once you have created outstanding marketing materials that educate you will need what we call your lead generation trio. Lead generation is the art of turning a “suspect” into a prospect. When it comes to generating qualified leads there is no magic bullet. The trick is to devise dozens of lead-generation initiatives and stick them all together around a core message and offers. The trio used to do this is advertising, referrals, and public relations. The vehicles you use are numerous.

Tools

One of the biggest problems most businesses wrestle with today is what media (tools) do we use in our marketing campaigns. There are so many choices, and new ones seemly pop up every day. Which ones work for you depends on where your target market “hangs out”. Remember the survey we mentioned in the Discover phase? Part of that also includes finding out the answer to the question – where do your prospects/customers hang out?

The one essential to all of this is your website. It needs to be the hub of all your marketing efforts. You can no longer simply throw a website on the internet and expect people to beat a path to your virtual door. There are over 265,000,000 websites on the internet; and it takes work for you to be found. We help you with the right tools to reach the right potential customers.

The other essential tool is one that has been around for years and helps immensely. Your calendar. All of this can seem to be overwhelming unless you put your marketing plan on your calendar. Marketing needs to be an everyday part of your business. You, or someone on your staff, should perform marketing tasks every day. It’s the only way it will get done effectively. We won’t leave you until we have helped you to schedule all or our recommendations.

Want More? Go back to the top of this page and subscribe to our SMART Marketing ezine and we’ll give you our 14 page report on the 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success that outlines this process in even more detail.