Following up on leads is 90% of the game, right? At least that's what we hear. You spend all this time networking, marketing yourself, making cold calls, looking for the right client, but what's the point of it all if you don't follow up on the leads you DO have? This was a major obstacle for one of my clients this week and a shift was created when I shared the Low Hanging Fruit List with her.
Let's think about Low Hanging Fruit on a tree for a moment, as it relates to its counterpart higher up on the tree. The Low Hanging Fruit is heavier, probably riper and because of that, easier to pick. Think of your warm prospects, those that have already expressed an interest in working with you, as this type of fruit. Ready for the picking.
Yet, many of us focus a lot of our energy on the higher fruit, the harder-to-reach fruit or prospect. We spend a lot of time working on far-fetched Client Attraction projects, when we really could be spending the time contacting and closing the deal with people who've already said they'd like to work with us but haven't been turned into clients yet. Logically, this doesn't make as much sense, does it?
Well starting today, you're going to change that by putting more focus on Low Hanging Fruit, while you continue to market your practice as a whole. Here's how...
Your Assignment:
Have a Low Hanging Fruit chart on your desk at all times. It should have several columns.
1. Name
2. Phone Number
3. Email Address
4. Referral Source
5. That Client's Particular Concern
6. Status/When to Contact Them Next
Leave this sheet on your desk at all times, in a place where you can refer to it several times per day.
Go through your mental Rolodex, day-planner and sticky notes to see who has expressed interest in working with you over the last 6 months to a year, but hasn't been converted into a client or patient yet. This could have been either in passing ("Oh, I should work with you one day," to "I want to work with you, but I'm not quite ready yet."), or more intently ("Let's set up a time to talk about working together") via email, verbally or third-party referral.
You'll want to list all of these people on this sheet. This can also include those who you met with for an initial consultation but who never signed up, for whatever reason.
This will be one of your more important documents you'll use for getting clients and you should plan on using it for the long haul. This method of keeping track of people who are closest to becoming clients (and then following up with them regularly, using different methods) is somewhat deceptive because it's so simple, but the good things usually are.
The bottom line is that when my clients use this list, they enthusiastically report that they convert more prospects into paying clients. When they stop using this list briefly, prospective clients slip through their fingers. That should tell you something.
Now, if you're not sure how to attract lots of prospects in the first place, or get them to say "I want to work with you!", then it's time to take action and invest in a step-by-step marketing system that will feel easy and authentic to you.
Copyright (c) 2007 Fabienne Fredrickson
Although organic optimization is not the first choice for many (depending on the brand and business model) organic search does have inherent benefits that are unparalleled by sponsored or paid advertising tactics.
Conversion is all About Trust
The distinction of hearing something directly from a trusted third party referral is one of the oldest and most successful forms of market leverage a brand can develop. Particularly when purchasing decisions are being formulated in the mind of prospective consumers.
It is this element of trust (like hearing about a great coffee shop or restaurant from a friend) that encourages people to part with their hard earned cash and step up to try a new product, travel to a destination, try something new, etc.
With the obvious advantages of organic search (ranking highly in the natural search results) and the multitudes of low hanging fruit available for the picking (as far as keywords go).
Is it simply lack of patience, lack of brand flexibility or simple ignorance to the benefits of an effective organic search engine optimization campaign that keeps PPC in business or the people who use it so enthralled by it's influence.
You have to consider the variables:
* Not everyone has content that is ideal or suitable for organic search. * Branding may conflict with excessive verbiage * Timing, market share and a fast yielding sales cycles may not provide ample time to wait on organic search results to mature
The entire notion based on volatile purchasing of select keywords and bidding on them (based on competition and click through rates) doesn't necessarily encourage businesses or webmasters to focus on content quality first, only cost per click & conversion.
Rather that viewing your marketing campaigns short-term goals using logic of PPC, the downside of PPC is just that, you have to pay per click.
Not a problem for a publicly traded company or a product with a high profit margin (since branding is important) as not all products can have 10 pages dedicated to them or an entire site wrapped around it to create relevance to develop the process of growing seed keywords into fully grown top 10 rankings.
But for many struggling businesses the costs keep rising and just like gas prices, exorbitant fees are a result of supply and demand.
In contrast, the upside of Organic search engine optimization is, once you overcome the on-page (content) and off-page (link building) factors, you can potentially reap untold amounts of traffic from various long-tail keywords if optimized properly.
The Bottom Line, It's all about the Brand Strategy
It's not always what you sell, it's how you sell it that determines if renting via Pay Per Click (PPC) or owning/developing brand equity (Organic SEO) is the right decision for your business.
I wanted to use an example to elaborate such as the difference between "high self monitor advertising" and "low self monitor advertising".
A high self monitor mentality is akin to a stark Madison avenue ad where images are the brand, the feeling they create is what they are selling, where the person transposes themselves with the subject or theme of the ad. They envision the fulfillment and how the use of the product or service will impact them. Which type of consumer are you or does it depend on the product?
An example of a "high self monitor ad" would be a new fragrance launch employing the advertising angle of a young, attractive, successful couple relaxing on the beach scantily clad in casual attire, the girl wearing a designer bikini and a few pieces of glamorous jewelry, the man ideally wearing a $30,000 Rolex watch, shirt open, pants rolled up and barefoot in the sand, exhibiting playful demeanor and expressions of care free abandon frolicking about the beach.
Then, naturally, "THE BIG FONT" with a stylish Name (after months of A/B testing, focus groups and rounds of review of course) and actual fragrance product/bottle are the only things in sight. The Price tag (doesn't matter) and you probably wont see one until you go to purchase it, it's the lifestyle your buying into.
Whereas a "low self monitor advertisement" and low self monitor consumer would focus on the product (why is the bottle so strange?), the details, what's in it, how much does it cost?, do I need it, why in the hell are they on a beach with perfume?, etc. Clearly the needs of the consumer dictates the marketing method employed in the brand strategy. Which one are you?
Organic search and sponsored internet marketing are no different. There is a clear-cut method that appeals to each type of consumer, so based on the product you are selling it really boils down to if the ends justify the means and who benefits. It's all about building pre-qualified traffic that inherently has a need for your product or service vs. window shoppers or tire-kickers if your business model utilizes e-commerce.
Conclusion:
Organic SEO is fine if you;
a) Have a product that you can dedicate 300-750 words to to describe it's value. b) Can exhibit supporting materials images, references and materials that emphasize the products benefits. c) If you can shroud it in semantic synonyms or jargon (essentially keywords consumers might use to find it) in enough frequency, that it can leverage a high-ranking organic search result.
Aside from that, if you have a product that has a high price point, where there is some wiggle room for how much you are willing to spend to keep the cost per sale within bounds, then by all means pay per click advertising is a viable solution. Another alternative is possibly a hybrid of the two (organic SEO and PPC) to find which method has the highest conversion for your brand.
At the end of the day, if you're in business, you have to weigh the advantages of how your marketing strategies and profit margin impact the bottom line. In closing, one key factor to consider is with organic search results, the keywords branch out over time, so dozens of the keywords you pay for every time someone clicks, you could achieve through an organic search engine optimization campaign.
If you have the time and a great product that is news or review worthy, ultimately, the choice is yours.
Both Fabienne Fredrickson & Jeffrey Smith are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Fabienne Fredrickson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Prospects, Business Cards and Acne Treatment. The Client Attraction Home Study System avoids all the unnecessary stuff and instead gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It's all step-by-s. Fabienne Fredrickson's top article generates over 18100 views. to your Favourites.
Jeffrey Smith has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fitness, web development and Search Engine Marketing. Jeffrey L. Smith is an seasoned search engine optimization expert and founder of SEO Design Solutions Company. Jeffrey has been involved in internet m. Jeffrey Smith's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.