How To Have Clients Come To Your I.T. Business (instead of chasing them).
Do you want more clients coming to your business?
Do you need help attracting customers who need your I.T. services?
Well, there is a way to have clients come to you that does not involve cold calling, knocking on doors, or sending aimless emails.
That approach is inbound lead generation.
It's a method that changed everything for me.
Selling I.T. solutions took work to me when I started my development and I.T. services business.
The reason for that was that I was an out-and-out I.T. guy.
I was great at creating good software products and services.
But, I needed to gain experience in selling. So, getting new paying customers was a challenge.
I tried various things to solve this problem.
One experiment involved creating a list of 150 people I could sell my software to. It was a spreadsheet showing their; name, position, email, and phone number - nothing too fancy.
I planned to call each person on the list and determine if they wanted what I had to offer.
(what salespeople would refer to as direct "cold outreach". I.e., contacting people who have yet to hear from you via email or call)
"It's a numbers game," I thought to myself.
If I called enough people, someone would buy, was my logic.
But, my logic needed to be revised.
My experiment left me disenfranchised the cold outreach approach. I wasn't even a quarter of the way through the list, and I received a complaint. That put a halt to my initiative.
I was emotionally drained from the process, also. The reason for that is that I had to deal with cold and skeptical people. People detested being the target of cold-calling campaigns, after all.
So, I lost my faith in cold outreach.
I knew I needed a different approach.
It was then I discovered inbound lead generation.
And that changed everything for me.
What Is Inbound Lead Generation And Why Are Inbound Leads Are The Best Quality Sales Leads
"Inbound" lead generation means clients come to you.
You push out marketing content, and clients contact you, in essence.
That marketing content might be;
social media posts
email newsletters
lead magnets
advertising
videos
That is akin to "outbound," where you reach out to clients via email, calls, and direct messages on social media.
"Inbound lead generation is a marketing strategy that involves attracting leads to your brand. Unlike outbound lead generation that involves you reaching out to customers, inbound lead generation is permissive. That means your prospects initiate the conversation and permit you to send them marketing material." - Hyperise
The most significant benefit of inbound leads is lead quality. Inbound leads are "warmer" than cold leads, in my experience.
Inbound leads are:
less skeptical,
more receptive to what you do,
more open to what you have to offer,
more qualified, I.e., they have the resources, and,
convert to clients better (one-call closes are typical).
Inbound leads have all the above characteristics because they come to you when they are ready to buy. They are "in the market," in other words. You give them the freedom to go to you when they are ready. Inbound lead generation is permissive, in other words.
permissive: giving people a lot of freedom or too much freedom to do what they want to do
So, if you had the choice, you almost always want to deal with an inbound lead versus an outbound one. Most outbound leads are not in the market for your solutions and are not ready to buy.
In fact, at any given time, only 3% of your market will buy now. That means they're ready to open up their wallets and buy.
Knowing this, if you could contact 100 people, 97 people would want to avoid buying from you right now. But only a mere three people from this group are ready to buy. So, you can see why cold outreach is low yielding. I compare it to spearfishing - it works, but it's tough to pull off.
But, hope is still possible because forty percent of this group needs what you offer. It's that the timing is not right for them. They are not ready to buy from you right away. They need time.
And this is where the inbound approach proves its efficacy. Inbound marketing keeps your business top of your customer's mind, always.
So, when clients are ready to buy, your marketing message will be in front of your customer when they are prepared to buy.
That results in the following:
warmer leads,
greater volume of leads,
better sales call conversion, and,
enjoy speaking with prospects more.
How To Get Inbound Lead Generation Working In Your I.T Services Business
1. Find Your Pond Of Buyers.
To catch a fish, you must fish where the fish are. So likewise, to get new clients, focus your marketing on the channels where your customer hangs out.
Many business owners either:
waste time on sub-optimal social media channels, or,
spread themselves thin by focusing on too many channels.
The best solution is to choose one to two social media channels.
That way, you can learn the algorithm and maximize your success.
You'll also experience more significant results with less time and effort.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.” - Confucius
2. Engineer a Magnetic Presence
You'll get more views on your profile by posting content. But more is needed to get inbound sales leads.
Engagement, in the form of likes, comments, and shares, differs from new paying clients. Many social media influencers with considerable followings can attest to that.
It would help if you had a profile that gets people interested in what you do and want to learn more about what you have to offer.
There's a concept in marketing called "A.I.D.A."
It stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. It maps the journey of a customer, from when they are unaware of you to them buying from you.
So, in the beginning, when they are unaware of you, social media allows you to gain attention. The first step in the A.I.D.A process.
But, to get people to take action and contact you, you must first get people interested in what you do. You do that through your social media profile and brand message.
3. Prepare “Client Getting” Content
Do you get crickets when you post on social media? Or, do you get good engagement but have yet to contact you?
It is becuase you need to push out the proper posts to have people reach out and contact you.
For example, on LinkedIn, you can create many different posts. Each can have different structures, angles, imagery, formats, and flows. They can be native or non-native—video, text, carousels, etc.
The sequencing of these posts is essential, also.
If you post many promotional posts, that's a gauranteed way to have people tune out and not engage with you.
But, if you tactfully use promotional posts amoung many value posts, there's a higher probability of profitable action. For instance, prospects booking a call or contacting your via DMs.
“you can’t land a solid right hook if you don’t set up the punch with a series of good jabs…” Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World. - Gary Vaynerchuk
You could spend a year or two trying to figure it all out. But the best way is to learn from someone who has already figured out the formula. We have this down to a tee. We booked over 15+ B2B calls over 24 hours last December (see the screenshot from my inbox below). So, if you want to do the same for your business, please feel out the application form and schedule a call with me personally here: https://www.kieranmoloney.com/start-your-journey
4. Make An Activity Tracker for good cadence
Lack of consistency is why people don't get inbound lead generation to work.
They don't stick with an approach long enough to: (1) master the new approach to a point where they are competent, and (2) have that approach start to yield results, I.e., new leads, sales, and paying clients.
People try a new strategy for a few weeks. Then, life gets in the way, and they get sidetracked. Or, they get "shiny object syndrome," where they see a new appealing approach. Or, they start doing too many things at a time, which are unfeasible to execute.
It's human nature.
It happens to the best of us, myself included.
What I do to combat this is to make use of activity trackers. Activity trackers allow you to build good marketing habits to help you achieve your goals.
I plan my activities and keep them the same for one quarter.
It helps a great deal to stay consistent.
Closing Statements
So, that's it! How to attract more clients for your I.T business, through inbound lead generation.
Finally, do you want to get new clients for your I.T services business? Then, join our free I.T business owners' Facebook group. We cover best strategies to get new clients and increase revenues for your I.T business. Here’s the link to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/growthstrategiesfortechfirms/