Generate Qualified Leads That Are Ready to Book
One of the hardest parts of growing an events business is generating qualified leads. How do we find good leads without wasting a lot of time sending estimates to customers who aren’t going to book our services? Below are four tips to help you make it rain new clients!
Four Pillars to Building Sales
Branding- Does your target demographic like your style
Marketing- Are you targeting the right people
Pricing- Are your services within the client’s price range
Trust- Does the client trust you can meet their expectations
Branding
How you present your business online is more important now than ever. From your Instagram profile to your website, you are telling a story about your brand. First impressions are everything, so the content you share online should be an eye-catching thoughtful representation of your brand. If your content and website aren’t on point, you’ll lose a ton of clients and possibly never even know it. The easiest way to track how your website is performing is by understanding your conversion rate. To determine your conversion rate, divide your website visits into the total number of events you booked for a 30-day time period. For example, if in one month you had 500 website visits and booked 15 events, your conversion rate would be 3% (500 / 15 = .03). If your number is lower than 3%, you need to examine why you aren’t converting more leads. This could be due to multiple factors. Are you targeting the right audience? Does your content match your website? Is it easy to book your services online? Once you identify the problem, you’ll be one step closer to perfecting your marketing funnel and growing your business!
Marketing
In order to generate qualified leads, you must have a basic understanding of marketing. The most important aspect of marketing is understanding who your customers are. If you don’t know who is most likely to purchase your services, you’ll waste more money than you need to acquire a customer. Once you understand who your customers are, then you can start thinking about where their attention is focused. If you are looking to attract corporate clients, running ads on LinkedIn, cold calling, and/or delivering samples are some cost-effective strategies. If you are targeting consumers, you can run targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram. Also, constantly work on your SEO via website optimization, blogs, online editorials, and listing your business on sites like Yelp and The Knot. If you need strategies on how to target on social media, check out our past blog post Tips For Posting Ads on FB & Insta. The takeaway, understand who is most likely to hire you, where their attention is focused, and how to capture that attention.
Pricing
Not being a good pricing fit is really out of our control, but wasting time proposing these clients doesn’t have to be. By offering a pricing guide or packages on your website, you can easily weed out clients that aren’t a good pricing fit. I know a lot of event professionals like to extract as much money as they can from each client, so they don’t like to list pricing on their website. But, if you look at how much time you spend proposing clients that don’t book vs that do book, is it really worth your time to not provide transparent pricing? If you spend less time proposing events that aren’t going to book, and more time marketing towards your target demographic, then it only makes sense that your sales will increase.
Trust
Developing the trust of a potential customer is the most crucial part of booking a new client. This is partially how we earn their future business and referrals. But, how do we develop that trust before they book and experience our services? Having thoughtful branding and a comprehensive website is the first step to developing a customer’s trust. From there, once a client reaches out, it is all about customer service! When a client inquires about my events company, my team responds immediately with direct links to pricing. You would be surprised how many events we book over our competitors, just because we offer instant pricing. More times than not, we’ll have the event booked before our competitors even get a proposal to the client. Oftentimes, my company ends up being more expensive than my competitors, but our clients appreciate how much we value their time. In this day in age, time is our most valuable commodity. Put developing the client's trust first and you will quickly convert more leads into sales.