We had the pleasure of interviewing the bestselling author and entrepreneur Chris Smith for this week’s Q&A series. Chris is the co-founder of the marketing agency Cuyrator, and a highly sought after business and marketing coach.
Chris’s most recent book, The Conversion Code has been one of the most well received sales and marketing books released this year, and is on track to becoming the guidebook for anyone looking to create an effective inside sales team.
Drawing on his wealth of experience from years in the field of in lead generation and sales, we pressed Chris with 5 questions to help you and your team get down to business.
Q: In your opinion, what’s the most effective method for lead generation and why?
Right now just about any business can build a quality funnel of endless leads using Facebook Ads. The reason is due to Facebook’s scale. There are 1.5 billion users, but only 30 million business pages. And only 3 million businesses using ads. So right now the supply of eyeballs is way higher than the demand for ads. Best time to be in.
To get started with Facebook ads, check out The Comprehensive Guide to Facebook Ads for step-by-steo instructions on how to get going.
Q: I know you’re a big proponent of using autoresponders. Can you explain why they’re so important to the marketing process?
Because people have a microwave mentality. If you are not instantly following up with leads via email and sms automation you are leaving money on the table. And you don’t have to convert that way. You just have to communicate to the point where they know you are following up shortly.
Take some of the stress of responding immediately off of your shoulders by trying marketing automation in order to automate texts and emails as soon as users convert.
Q: What’s one marketing tool you’re currently excited about and why?
We have a blog with a lot of content being published so Contentacle has been a nice find for managing that. It’s like Basecamp for blog posts.
Check out Contentacle to to see how it can help you manage your blog.
Q: What’s one mistake you see marketers making in the lead generation process?
Using terrible design. If people don’t trust you they don’t buy from you. Design online builds trust.
Don’t try and reinvent the wheel. Start with a well designed template by purchasing one from sites like Themeforest, or use a free landing page builder like Wishpond that comes with high well designed templates. Starting with a professional design can often take you 90% of the way.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d like to leave with people trying to generate more leads?
Stop driving traffic to your website for a full month and try driving it all instead to well built landing pages with offers that are compelling enough to capture name, email and phone number.
Try out a landing page to see how it stacks up to your home page conversion rate. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
That’s a Wrap!
So what are you waiting for? Take some of Chris’s tips and get to work! If you haven’t done so already, check out his book The Conversion Code for an even more detailed explanation of the ideas discussed in this post.
Have a question for Chris? Find him on Twitter at @Chris_Smth
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