Forecasting your Lead Generation’s ROI Opportunity (Part 1 of 2)

When considering how you spend your marketing dollars on a Lead Generation campaign, what are some of the questions you should ask? Here’s a great place to start: How many leads can you expect for each campaign’s financial outlay? What is an ‘average’ sale worth over the course of a year? Over 5 years? Can you make predictions about annual revenue? More importantly, what is the profit?

Have a handle on these numbers and you’ll have a better idea of the potential investment dollars you need to acquire those new clients. If your average revenue opportunity results in $300 for a once a year sale, then of course investing in a $5K marketing program needs to be very well thought out. For this rate of return you need a large volume of sales to make the campaign pay for itself. There’s no exact science, but most marketing experts agree that marketing requires a well planned strategy, to a targeted audience, in a consistent manner.

How Warm are Your Leads?

As with any investment you make in your business, ROI is perhaps the most important index over the long term. Taking a careful look at your cost per lead, conversion rates, sales history and forecasting will help you determine just how much you should expect to spend on a lead-generation campaign that meets your objectives. You can set yourself up for a successful launch by tackling some key components of a successful lead generation program. For example, you can increase lead flow with a highly competitive offer, either because of cost, uniqueness, or overall quality of goods and services; another technique is using a warmer, in-house developed list or association list, rather than colder, purchased prospect lists. These are just a few of the things you need to think about when developing your campaign, but there is much more!

Long-Term Consistency.

Throughout our ten years in business as lead generators, we have noticed that our most successful clients are the ones who believe in consistent, long-term marketing – especially in industries with long sales cycles. Are your marketing efforts consistent? Do you work to provide yourself with a steady, dependable flow of new leads so that your business has constant forward momentum? Or do you experience a roller coaster with sales? One month you’ve got plenty of work and the next month you pick your head up and say, “I better start marketing again.”

The sales closer (or small business owner) who gets quality leads and then puts lead generation on hold for a while to see how those leads fare a few months down the line, ends up with a roller coaster ride and unpredictable commission checks!

Tomorrow’s posting will help you evaluate if you are marketing to the right target.

Amanda Puppo is the owner of MarketReach Inc., specialists at B2B Appointment setting and Lead generation for the M&A universe. www.MarketReach.biz. Reach Amanda at info@marketreach.biz or 609-448-6364.