♥ Share this episode with someone you think will benefit from it. ♥
♥ Leave a review at Lovethepodcast.com/BusinessConfidential ♥
LEAD GENERATION
Who wouldn’t benefit from expert lead generation tips, especially if they’re designed to help you maximize results and minimize costs, right?
That’s why I’m so excited to welcome Josh Ramsey today.
What You’ll Discover About Lead Generation:
* The number one lead generation trap people fall into
* The most practical way to approach lead generation
* How to prioritize different social media channels for lead generation opportunities
* Using customer relationship management (CRM) systems to track leads and conversion rates
* And much more
Guest: Josh Ramsey
Joshua Ramsey, CEO of Strategic Point Marketing, has developed principles and strategies for businesses since 2001. During this time, Joshua has successfully created and executed more than 80,000 successful campaigns across the US.
Joshua is a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, author, and highly regarded speaker. As someone with experience in speaking since 2005, Joshua teaches executives and business owners exactly how to cut costs and improve their current business so they can continue to grow.
As a true Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, Joshua gives business owners unique executive experience, along with a fresh perspective, without having to pay the high salary of a full-time employee. He helps them to develop new strategies for growing their brand, increasing customer acquisition, and generating new sales.
Related Resources:
If you liked this interview, you might also enjoy our other Marketing episodes.
Contact Josh and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.
Josh’s book: How Some SEO Companies Disguise Laziness & Hide Poor Strategies
The DiSC profiler Josh referred to in our conversation
_____
Expert Lead Generation Tips to Help You Maximize Results and Minimize Cost
Who wouldn’t benefit from expert lead generation tips, especially if they’re designed to help you maximize results and minimize costs, right? That’s why I’m so excited to welcome Josh Ramsey today. Stay tuned.
This is Business Confidential Now with Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, helping you see business issues hiding in plain view that matters to your bottom line.
Welcome to Business Confidential Now, the podcast for smart executives, managers, and entrepreneurs looking to improve business performance and their bottom line. I’m your host, Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, and I’ve got another interesting guest for you today. He’s Josh Ramsey.
Josh has successfully created and executed more than 80,000 successful marketing campaigns across the US. He’s the CEO of Strategic Point Marketing, where he provides fractional chief marketing officer services focused on teaching executives and business owners how to cut costs and grow their business. He’s also the author of the e-book How Some SEO Companies Disguise Laziness & Hide Poor Strategies: It’s a Step-by-Step Guide to Winning Online. And therefore, it’s my pleasure to welcome him to the show today.
Welcome to Business Confidential Now, Josh.
Hello. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
I’m excited to chat with you about lead generation because this idea that “if you build it, they will come” generally doesn’t work. And I [Laughter] think many listeners recognize that. But since most of them are small and midsize business owners, they may not have huge marketing budgets to work with. And I’m sure they’re eager to learn more about your low-cost lead generation strategies. Please tell us about them.
I think the number one rule where people fall trap is that they jump all in with an agency, or they jump all in on one campaign that they’ve been sold by a salesperson. And the main rule that I teach people is a strategy that I created a long time ago called “Test Before You Invest.” And very simply put, it’s put a few dollars into something, try it before you jump both feet in. And it’s that simple in the beginning.
So, whenever we’re looking at campaigns, the practical way to approach it is going to be, first of all, identify your target audience. Where is your target audience? Who are they? What does the persona or the avatar look like? Once you identify that, then you look at the best media that they take in. So, whether that’s Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, Google Ads, that’s the next step is to identify where that consumer pulls information and knowledge, then leading to the buyer cycle of the timeline and how to grab the lowest hanging fruit with an easy action item, low risk.
So, when you combine all of this, it really depends on the industry that you’re going after but when you start with the persona or the avatar and identify what type of media that they’re going after, what they consume, that’s where the step, the first step can start, right? And now you go to inbound marketing versus outbound marketing.
Okay. Well, hold on a second. When you say, “what they consume,” well, you want them to consume your product or service. But I get a feeling that maybe you’re talking about consuming your ad. Can you clarify that for me? Or maybe give me an example.
Yeah. So, everyone consumes marketing, everyone consumes media. But when you look at the different personas and people that are out there, they’re going to consume information differently. A business owner is going to consume information through podcasts and probably books, magazines, online articles. So, that’s how a business owner entrepreneur will consume their media and their knowledge.
So, you’re trying to advertise to a business owner now, you identify where they’re consuming knowledge and that’s where you want to run your advertising. Because you’re right, as a business owner trying to sell, we’re looking for people to consume our product, whatever that product is. But advertising is all about putting your information with the best light in the place where people that will buy what you sell are consuming that media.
So, if you have – I’ll just use it for instance here, I’m working with a drug trial science company. We run a lot of different trials and some of them are for adolescents, some of them are for adults, some of them are for children in between four and eight years old. So, if we’re trying to reach the generation of four- to eight-year-olds, then what we’ve done is we’ve actually advertised on Instagram and Facebook, which is called Meta Ads, because we know that the parents are taking that they’re consuming the media through the digital marketing.
But if we go after adolescents, we’re looking at TikTok and we’re running TikTok ads. Now, when you look at the 20-year-olds, we’re advertising on Reddit ads. So, identifying where your target market is, spending their time and energy consuming any type of media or entertainment, that’s what we’re trying to identify because that’s built out through your persona or your avatar. Does that clarify?
Yes, it does clarify. I’m wondering, though, if you could give us a little insight because, I mean, the example you’ve given is social media and it is huge. We know that. And everybody tries to be – or I shouldn’t say everybody, but a lot of people think they need to be everywhere at the same time, which is impossible.
So, your clarification, I think, certainly helps them zero in on, I’m not going on TikTok if I’m trying to reach a CEO, right? But what about email marketing or referral programs or networking? I mean, there’s other types of marketing avenues besides social media. How would you rank those?
So again, I appreciate your direction there in this conversation. When you’re looking as a whole – I’ll give you another short story here, works with a fence company, they did garage doors and fences. They looked at all of these different types of marketing. They did emails, they did social, they did paid ads, they did SEO.
The business owner was always frustrated because he would see the spend and how much the phone calls were costing him, but if he turned off pay per click on Google AdWords, his phone would die, so he wasn’t getting the leads in, but he was saving budget money. His SEO was actually the best generation of leads out of all of them. So, you have to then identify what your cost per acquisition is, cost per lead, cost per sale by each tactically placed marketing.
So, emails will cost you one price. Then you have Meta Ads or social ads costing you something different. SEO will be different. AdWords will be different. Not all lead gen will be equal, so each one will cost a different price point. So, while you would love to have the lowest one, now you hit law of diminishing return.
So, with this gentleman he was paying about $20 per lead and sale generated through SEO. So, every $20 he would put in SEO, he would make a sale, but he was paying $80 for pay per click. He was frustrated whenever pay per click was so much, but he was also even more frustrated that his phone wasn’t ringing. But in the end of the day, I explained to him it wasn’t a good idea to spend more money in SEO because of the market size.
The area that he wanted to go after, it was going to cost him too much. Therefore, law of diminishing return. So, now when we look at “test before you invest,” it becomes “let’s fold our money in as many places as possible.” So, we’re going to lay out our dollars into whether it’s email or funnel campaigns or paid ads, social ads, television, transit advertising. But now tracking that has got to be a whole other level of conversation of how do you track, what are you looking for, how do you generate these reports? Does it start to explain it?
Well, the tracking – well, yeah, the tracking just leads me right into my next question because it’s one thing to track it. But going back to where we started this conversation about low cost and high returns here in terms of lead generation, right, maximizing results, and minimizing costs, it’s one thing to generate leads, but they have to convert. So, what are some good mechanisms for tracking all that stuff and helping you decide where you then want to put more of your marketing dollars?
So, there’s a lot of different ways to track but the first thing I would say is you need to identify how a consumer is going to consume that media. So, on social, it’s easy to set a funnel campaign. On pay per click, it’s easy to set that. A couple of notes when it comes to tracking online and doing digital is number one, I tell people make sure that you own the account. Never let an ad agency own the account. It should be run through you and you the owner. Then you set what are called the acquisition numbers. And those are triggers inside either Google or Meta or other online consumption of platforms, right?
So, Google AdWords will track whatever conversions that you set. AdWords does the same thing. I’m working with another company right now who’s running transit advertising. With them, we’re putting them through a QR code. The change that I’m implementing is when I started with the company, they were running QR codes, but it was just driving to the home page of the website, so there was no call to action. There was nothing to track other than we got a QR code scan, someone went to the website and that’s it.
So now we’re changing the strategy that if they scan the QR code, they actually go to a page that says, “You saw one of our busses.” And again, I’m kind of paraphrasing here, but “You saw one of our busses, you just scanned a QR code, you’re now going to win this,” and we give them an extra percentage off to get their email. So now at a minimum, because we give them that first time buyer or we give them that QR code experience, we’re now working with them and giving them something to get something back from them.
So, wherever you advertise, you want to try to use a different price point. You could do 22%, you could do 8% off. Whatever your percent off is then can be tracked as someone scans the QR code or clicks on the site through a lead gen source, and therefore it starts to go through. Now your funnels are a whole different world. Your funnels become wherever you put your content, wherever you put your data, such as the CRM. Now you can set up the new CRM to actually generate reports and automate that system.
All right. I think you’re jumping through multiple hoops at the same time. I want to make sure everybody can follow here. When you’re talking about setting up your CRM, tell me more about that and what it stands for, because not everybody is familiar with your marketing acronyms.
Sure. So, CRM is where you – it’s considered a database of all of your leads and contacts. So, there’s a lot of them out there. You have the basic ones like HubSpot or Salesforce. So, this is where all of your contacts go. They have what are called “tags.” And when you automate your system, you can tag a lead by the lead generation source. So, there’s a lot of complication to it. And I don’t want to [Laughter] necessarily drag us down into the weeds. So, I am trying to stay somewhat high level.
But the CRM will then be able to track all of your information. I think many business owners make a mistake. In my experience of working with a lot of different business owners, they make a mistake that they just use QuickBooks as their content manager system. So, their CMS or their CRM, whatever you want to call it, everyone calls it something slightly different, it seems. But wherever you keep your leads and that information is your gold.
So, getting the email addresses to then email them, which I can talk about emails because you brought it up a minute ago of how to do newsletters and engage people better, but putting people into the CRM and then creating the trickle effect is really important. So, find the CRM that works for you, whether it’s a HubSpot or a Salesforce or something similar.
There’s a lot of them out there. They’re all built slightly different based on whatever industry that you work in. So, some of them are better for others, right? But in the emails, I’ll touch on that if that’s okay. Real quick.
Yeah. I just want to clarify because we keep talking about CRM, meaning Customer Relationship Management, whatever platform you use for customer relationship management. So, everybody’s on the same page in terms of our definitions here. But yeah, go ahead about email.
So, a lot of people when they trigger emails to go out, it actually becomes more annoying for two reasons. One, they either oversaturate the market with their emails or two, they write a ton of material thinking that it’s relevant to the consumer that’s going to read it. But 90 plus percent of business owners that get these emails, they never read these emails, they never engage or click. Therefore, the open rate, the click through rate is extremely low and the unsubscribe rate is extremely high.
One of the best strategies that I’ve seen put into place is writing a four- or five-line email and giving them a simple reason that they should click to go to a web page to consume all that information. What that also does is for your online presence that shows Google that you can generate volume to your website which will increase your overall rankings online as well.
Well, that’s an interesting, yeah.
So, simple little trick but really effective.
That’s an interesting point about generating the clicks in order to improve the overall ranking and using email as a vehicle. But I don’t know about your inbox, but I know looking at my inbox, there are some things where I look at the subject line, I look at who sent it and I delete it. Very simple. [Laughter]
I especially like the ones like, “Do you have time for a meeting this afternoon?” It was like, “Hell, no, leave me alone.” And there seemed to be more and more of those, like they think I got nothing else to do but wait for their email and set up meetings this afternoon. But what tips do you have about subject lines?
Well, email marketing is always a tricky animal. People have gotten better, but back in the day, it was interesting. I started doing this before [Laughter] anyone that I saw did it where I would put the “re: and then a subject” and that used to get people to open because they would think, “Oh, I’ve already responded to this person or they’re responding to me.” So, that was the old [Laughter] school way about 10 years ago to get people to open and read an email.
But subject lines really just – again, they have to be relevant to your user. So, whatever’s going to click their reticular activator to make them want to engage. So, reticular activator is a psychological term which means we are constantly, as humans, we’re constantly scanning the world for information that is relevant to us. Either solves a problem or creates a better solution, or puts us in a better spot mentally, physically, or what have you that is relevant to us.
So, it’s kind of like you go buy a car and you think, “Oh, I’ve never seen anyone out here with a purple Toyota.” So, you go buy the purple Toyota and you pull out onto the street, and the first thing you see, three of them drive right by you. [Laughter] And that’s your reticular activator because you’ve never paid attention to it. I was talking about a business owner that’s running transit advertising. When I joined this company and started working in consulting, he [Laughter] brought up that he is on the back of busses, on transit, and he said he didn’t know if it really worked or not.
Well, when the contract came up for a renewal and he went to go sign it, I said to him, “I don’t think you should sign that.” We talked about why. And for the next three weeks, while he made a decision to buy or not buy the renewal, he saw it everywhere. Everywhere he went, he saw his signs. So, he’s fallen back in love with it and saying he thinks that we should do it.
But his challenge to me was show him whether he should or should not do it. So, instead of doing a yearlong contract, when I talk about – from the beginning test before you invest, instead of him doing a yearlong contract, we’ve changed the strategy. We become agile and made a shift in how we approach it to see if we can become more engaged.
Because right now, if they do scan a QR code, their average time on our website is about 12 seconds, which is terrible. It’s long enough to be there and then leave. So, now we’re making that shift. So, back to subject lines. It really has to be relevant to whatever you’re saying in your email message.
But what’s more relevant to the consumer? Are you solving a headache? Are you giving them a solution? Are you giving them more opportunity? And that’s what’s going to drive them. So, it’s hard to give a specific of a good subject line without knowing, again, the core of marketing, which is the persona or the avatar.
If you had to put in a nutshell this concept of maximizing results and minimizing costs, what would be your elevator pitch for that?
If you’re maximizing your results, it really just comes back to the tracking. So, when you – I think I’ve kind of said this before, but it is 100% knowing exactly what your cost per lead, what your cost per acquisition is, and what’s your closing percent. As soon as you know those details, everything starts to change because then you can make educated decisions.
Good.
All of data.
I wanted to distill that because I feel like, yes, you’ve mentioned it, but we also got distracted. I want to say into a couple other areas which may have diluted that message. So, I really wanted to sharpen the focus on that, but it makes a lot of sense. And I think sometimes people just don’t spend the time in order to capture that information and analyze it so that they can make the more informed decisions.
And I’m glad that there’s someone like you that can help them focus on it, because they’re not the marketing geniuses. Which leads me to my next question and my last one about, okay, if this is going to make my head explode, how do I find somebody like yourself who is an expert that I can trust? What do I need to ask them? What do I need to be looking for to know I’m getting the real deal, as opposed to every TikToker who thinks that, “Oh, I can do marketing?” Help us out.
Absolutely. That’s a fantastic question. I’m going to give you a very blunt, honest, direct answer.
Thank you.
There are two main personality types in marketing. You have the creative and then you have the data. The data person is the analytical. They’re a little bit nerdy. Sometimes they’re hard to understand. They’re hard to maybe get along with because if you’re a business owner, you’re much more like the butterfly.
You’re what they call the woo, where you want to talk to everybody. You want to be everyone’s friend, and that’s why you started the business, because you’re good at what you do and you like talking to a lot of people. The data person is a lot more like the accountant. They’re not always friendly. Sometimes they’re awkward, but they’re driven by numbers. They’re driven by data.
So, the answer, understanding that is I would suggest give them the “disc test,” D-I-S-C, the “disc test” and identify whoever you’re going to potentially hire and work with, what type of personality they have. And what I would strongly suggest is that they are much more about analytics and data, and they understand how to put that data together to track information, to feed the business owner the best information based on facts and data, factual data that is unfiltered and going to give it to you raw.
A quick example on that, just so everyone understands this, is that when you use a platform to feed you information, it can always be manipulated. So, you have to look at the real source.
So, understanding the type of personality that you’re working with, if they’re analytical and then diving in deeper with them and not just getting the surface level basic report, but knowing that they’re going to dive in deep and understand the data to its core, that’s what you look for. And that’s personally why I like the disc test. There’s a lot of personality tests out there, but I like that one as one of my top three, simply because it just tells you the type of person that you’re working with and therefore the data that we’ve been talking about on this call, you’re going to get if they are a data driven person.
Excellent. Thank you for mentioning that “disc test.” A matter of fact, I’m going to put a link to “disc” on the show notes at our website so that people can refer to that, because not everybody may be familiar with it. I know I took it many years ago, and it is kind of interesting even for yourself, just to see what it comes back with.
So, Josh, thank you. This has really been great.
I appreciate your time and your insights about how to maximize our lead generation and minimize our costs and being able to zero in on the data. If you’re listening and you like to know more about Josh Ramsey, his work at Strategic Point Marketing, and the link to his e-book: Some SEO Companies Disguise Laziness & Hide Poor Strategies, that information, plus the “disc” link is going to be available along with a transcript at the show notes on businessconfidentialradio.com.
I appreciate you folks listening today. Please be sure to tell your friends about the show and leave a positive review. We’ll be back next week with another information packed episode of Business Confidential Now. So, until then, have a great day and an even better tomorrow.
Join, Rate and Review:
Rating and reviewing the show helps us grow our audience and allows us to bring you more of the rich information you need to succeed from our high powered guests. Leave a review at Lovethepodcast.com/BusinessConfidential.
Joining the Business Confidential Now family is easy and lets you have instant access to the latest tactics, strategies and tips to make your business more successful.
Follow on your favorite podcast app here as well as on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Download ♥ Follow ♥ Listen ♥ Learn ♥ Share ♥ Review ♥ Comment ♥ Enjoy
Disclosure:
This post may contain links to products to products on Amazon.com with which I have an affiliate relationship. I may receive commissions or bonuses from your actions on such links, AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU.