This particular client from the waste management industry was spending $5,000 per month on Google Adwords but only getting mediocre sales leads.

It is their primary source of sales leads.

They told me that a competitor was spending $18,000 per month on Google Adwords!

No wonder Google is making billions!!

I first reached out to this client regarding our high Google ranking waste management lead generation website.

They have a website but it is not search engine optimised.

Although it is tempting to jump straight into Google AdWords and SEO, I first wanted to understand my client’s ideal customer.

If you have not identified your ideal customer, you can use the resource “EGuide: How To Identify Your Ideal Customer in 8 Steps” to get you started.

Who Is My Ideal Customer?

So I sat down with the client and went through the ideal customer process.

We worked out that their services are primarily focused towards B2B customers in the commercial and industrial space. Their ideal customer and therefore, will be a good source for sales leads, are in occupations such as “building managers” and “construction”.

The next step was to then to identify where their ideal customer hangs out and the best channels to reach them.

I drew this diagram for my client.

Diagram 1. Where My Client’s Potential Customer Hangs Out

To take it to the next level and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, in the next diagram I demonstrated to my client what they can do to run more targeted lead generation campaigns using the channels we have identified above.

Diagram 2. Where Potential Customer Hangs Out, How To Reach Them and How Much It Will Cost To Reach Them

General Observations

• The best lead generation channels are the ones that will generate the most sales leads with the least amount of expense.
• Google AdWords, SEO and Lead Generation Websites are inbound sales leads marketing.
• Potential customers going through these channels are already looking for your services. You just have to make sure that you are there when they are looking.
• LinkedIn and Warm Calling are outbound sales leads marketing.
• Each channel requires a separate strategy to reach out to potential customers.
• It is critical to have an in-depth understanding of each platform or channel, what market they serve and how to use them properly to generate sales leads.
• Otherwise, you can end up spending a lot of money for nothing.

Lead Generation Opportunities

1. Google Adwords

To better understand my client’s competitive environment, we used Semrush to do an analysis of the keywords relevant to his waste management business. Below are the results.

• The beauty of AdWords is Google will serve your ads to people who are actually looking for your services.
• For example, based on the above results, there are 480 people who were searching for the keywords “Waste Management Sydney” at a cost of $3.83 per click.
• This is a sizeable market.
• However, as the above table shows people also use different keyword combinations to search for a business like my client’s.
• And as a business, it makes sense for your ad to be served in front of those people when they are searching using those different keyword combinations.
• So you have to make sure that your keyword combinations are relevant and highly targeted. Otherwise, you can end up spending a lot of money on Google AdWords for nothing.
• After analysing their AdWords account, we found out that my client was spending a lot more money than necessary because of their low-quality score, keywords that were too broad, irrelevant search terms, their ads were not fully optimised and they had inferior landing pages.
• We went about addressing these problems one by one.
• As a result of the changes we made, we managed to reduce my client’s ad spend, raise the average position of their ad ranking and increase the number, quality and relevance of the clicks that they were getting for better quality sales leads.

2. Search Engine Optimisation – Client Website

• When we analysed our client’s website using Semrush, they had not done any SEO work on the website at all and as such, were not even ranking on Google.
• It takes around 12-18 months to get a site ranking highly on Google. Google has also redesigned its search pages so there almost no visual difference between the Adwords at the top of the page and the organic search results that follow.
• There are three main factors that need to be taken into account when it comes to SEO: Keywords, On Page SEO and Off Page SEO.
• My client had done a good job in using keywords that are relevant to his business. However, the website’s on page SEO and off page SEO were nonexistent.
• So we went about optimising my client’s website. This process takes time and the work is ongoing.
• For the amount of work we have done in a short period of time, we have so far managed to make the client’s website visible on Google with some keywords now ranking on pages 1 and 2.

3. Lead Generation Websites

• Lead generation websites are high Google ranking websites that are designed to drive traffic and generate sales leads.
• Lead generation websites are great because you do not have to spend all that time, effort and money to rank on Google. You just rent the site and immediately receive the sales leads coming from the site.
• It just happened that we had a site for waste management. However, after trialing the site for three months, we found that the inquiries did not align with my client’s core business.
• It would have taken too long to pivot the lead generation site so a decision was made to discontinue this channel for generating sales leads.

4. Warm Calling

• I pointed out to my client that there is a huge opportunity to engage potential customers through Warm Calling for a relatively low cost.
• The engagement process would focus on profile and rapport building, introduction and providing information about the company and medium-long term relationship building.
• Follow-ups at defined schedules are critical.
• It will not be focused on selling initially.

5. Business Referrals and Networking

• Business Referrals and Networking are also untapped channels that present opportunities and generally the cost is minimal.

6. LinkedIn

• With more than 6 million Australian users and 500 million globally, LinkedIn is the best B2B social media platform right now.
• LinkedIn, however, is a medium to long-term sales leads channel and requires a systematic and structured approach to get the most out of it.
• And my client will only get the most out of LinkedIn with a focused effort. Subscription to Sales Navigator cost $840 per year.
• Utilising the services of a professional company will also be too costly and eat into their monthly budget.

Final Words

The highlight – my client reduced their AdWords spend from $5,000 per month to $3,000 per month. From the $2,000 saved per month, they allocated $800 per month to search engine optimise their website.

Overall, they ended up saving $1,200 per month on their ad spend, got better and more targeted sales leads from their paid advertising and at the same time, build their organic sales leads generation channel!

By going through this process, my client crystallized their sales leads channel strategies which allowed them to build a more robust channels for their sales leads.

What do you think? Are there other relevant sales lead generation channels that my client can use?

If you want to find out more how we can help your business generate more leads, please get in touch. Coffee is on me!

About the Author

Robert Reynolds heads iSapience – a B2B & B2C Lead Generation & Internet Marketing, Business Process Outsourcing and International Business Consulting Company. Since 2000, he has helped numerous Australian and international clients across many industries including IT, Digital, Retail, FMCG, Advertising, Wholesale, Distribution and Logistics, Gaming, International Trade, Infrastructure and Governments.