How to Generate Sales Leads

Generating sales leads is the process of making contact with and collecting information from prospective clients. In larger companies, generating sales leads falls to the marketing department, since they're responsible for creating all advertising and outreach materials. However, in smaller organizations, it's common for salesmen to have to do their own sales lead generation.

There are several proven techniques for generating sales leads:

•     Networking
•     Advertising (TV/print/Web)
•     Telemarketing and teleprospecting
•     Direct mail, fax or e-mail marketing campaigns
•     Web sites and search engine optimization
•     Buying a sales lead list
•     other ways

Generating sales leads traditionally begins with networking. This is as simple as contacting your friends, family, former coworkers and existing clients and asking if they know anyone who may be interested in your product or service. These referrals are also called sales tips.

Besides networking, trade shows are excellent opportunities for business-to-business (B2B) networking. By setting up a table at a trade show, you can collect contact information from dozens of potential buyers and business partners.

Web advertising is fast becoming the most powerful way to generate sales leads. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, in the week of September 24-30, 2007, Web surfers clicked on over 53 billion online ads selling everything from financial services to cars to travel [source: Nielsen NetRatings]. These ads often lead to short surveys or contact forms that can be accessed in real-time by sales representatives. More on real-time and opt-in sales leads later.

The best sales leads you can have are word of mouth referrals from friends. Someone you know telling you about a product or service will have more impact than a celebrity commercial ever will. You need to consider how you can leverage your existing client base into new customers. You can arrange a referral system, rewarding current clients for new customers. Discounts, free goods and services are just some of the things you can offer.

If you own a store or restaurant, offer special rewards throughout the month. Seniors days, student days, and general customer appreciation days can bring in people off the street. As long as you provide them with good service and a great product, they will return. Point programs, coupons and other incentives like this are become the normal way to do business, and can help generate fresh leads.

Create an email newsletter, and have people sign up for it on your web site. This way you will have a list of people you know are interested in your product or service. Do not spam your list, as that will generate complaints and ill will. Send them interesting, usable information and include discounts to readers of the newsletter. This can generate a large number of sales, while providing your clients with value added service.

A mail campaign need not be a massive undertaking costing thousands of dollars. You can adopt a limited program in which you send out five or 10 pieces each week. The key in your program is to target your prospects and then follow up with a telephone call. By having a direct mail piece precede your call, you’ve warmed up a prospect – you can refer to the piece and ask the prospect if he or she’s had a chance to read it and has any questions.

Trade shows provide a venue for obtaining a large number of leads in a short amount of time. Whether you have a booth or table at the show or ware a visitor, you can exchange business cards with others at the show. Write key information on the back of each business card to help you remember something about each person.

The quickest way to assemble hundreds or thousands of sales leads is to buy a sales lead list. There are dozens of direct marketing companies who collect and sell specialty lists for certain business and consumer sectors. The advantage of these lists is that a salesman can get instant access to thousands of names and numbers for a few hundred dollars. The disadvantage is that all these names are unqualified leads, meaning they haven't been analyzed individually to see whether or not they're a good match for the salesman's specific product or service.

There are many ways to generate sales leads, but the most important thing to remember is that it all starts with excellent service. Your best clients tomorrow are ones that are happy with you today.