No one can deny that to grow your business, you must attract new potential customers (or leads). It’s how you generate these leads that’s important though.

STEP is a lead generation acronym to help you generate quality leads without pointlessly blowing your marketing budget:

S = Strategy T = Target E = Efficiency P = Process

Strategy = your bigger picture plan.

What are your long-term goals for your business? Do you need lots of new customers or will you focus more on selling additional services to your existing customers? Are there better ways you can grow your business without chasing new customers, i.e. should you focus on developing your strategic partnerships? Document your strategy and goals in an annual plan that you update quarterly and refer to monthly.

Target = your target market or your ideal customer.

Your customer selection criteria should not be customers who have a heartbeat and a wallet. Who will benefit most from your offering? Who do you want to work with and what specific services do you want to offer them? Finally, where do these future customers hang out in the greatest numbers?

Efficiency = how much does it cost you to generate a new lead?

For example, if you spend $500 on a radio campaign and get two enquiries, then the cost of each lead is $250. Or, if you spend $5,000 on advertising and marketing per annum and generate 100 new leads per year then each lead has cost you $50 (plus the time taken to generate these leads). There are bound to be much cheaper ways to generate new leads.

Process = the system and software you use to track the effectiveness of your marketing activity.

Carefully develop a process and ensure it’s followed consistently by your team. Having an up to date CRM (or database) is essential. You should also review your website analytics and produce reports to help track your marketing spend efficiency for continuous improvement.

Here are 10 cost-effective ways ideas to generate new leads:

1. Ask your existing customers for referrals.
2. Develop a referral reward system.
3. Nurture your customers by sending newsletters and blogs (that they can forward on to others).
4. Publish eBooks and resources on your website for prospects to download (after providing their contact details).
5. Be active on social media (with a focus on education not selling).
6. Create an online forum.
7. Identify strategic partners so that you can refer each other work.
8. Speak at networking events and webinars (this is educational marketing).
9. Ask customers to complete Google and social media reviews.
10. Book a complimentary meeting with us to discuss more ideas specific to your business.



"You attract what you are, not what you want. If you want great, then be great." – Tony Gaskins