Looking at how our contractor clients found new leads in 2014 and early 2015 can help you understand how to generate more sales in the next year.

We work on marketing plans that include primarily long term lead generation programs, because they by their nature generate a better return on your investment.  We also understand that if you don’t have a good size customer base who is referring new business to you, you need to have short term lead generation programs in place.  These will have a lower return on investment, and need to be closely analyzed before you spend any money.  It’s just as easy to lose money on a poorly executed short term lead generation program as it is to make money.

Types of Short Term Lead Generation Programs Ranked by success.

• Google pay per click advertising.: It’s risky if you aren’t experienced in producing Pay Per CLick programs.  You will need a good landing page, a decent offer on that page, and understand how to set up the ad words program using the right type of keywords ,  lot’s of “ad groups”, the right Geo-Targeting,  the right bidding strategy  and time of day targeting.
• Door Fliers: For certain industries these can be produce leads. Time of year, service offering, demographics targeted demographics will all be important to the success of a program. Volume is very important as well.  Think 10,000 doors not 500 when budgeting.
• Yard Signs
• Print Advertising. Careful here.
• T.V. and Radio. Don’t do it unless you sell a high margin, high volume product (windows) and only do it at the right time of year
• Co-op Marketing. Think Home Advisor, or Team Dave Logan.  Once again, you need to be very careful in how you approach these type advertising opportunities. Easy to loser money if you are not prepared to go “all In” on your full sales cycle. You’ll also have to have different expectations on closing percentage.  This is about the lowest form of lead.

Long term Lead Generation Programs:

oddly enough, last years top source has moved to second. That may be based on new demand in the residential construction area.

Number One Lead Source:

1. Search Engine optimization,  local SEO and web visibility programs. Organic and other internet listings out performed referrals by a pretty good revenue margin last year. Web visibility also includes many other aspects of Internet marketing, including video, YouTube, Social Networks and more.
2. Referrals from former customers
3. Referrals from professional’s and networks
4. Charity and community involvement. As in most things in business, relationships matter.  Although you may not see a large amount of new revenue, it will help your branding, and you are doing the right thing.

More to follow on the long term programs that we see as the most successful, and truly generate 80%  of the revenue for the companies we work with long term. Stay tuned…

See more about our lead generation for contractors here: http://www.salesjumpstart.net/blog/contractor-marketing/

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