Many moons ago, I worked for a t-shirt clothing / apparel company. As a company, we had brilliant marketing initiatives. We would send out amazing lumpy mail, we would perform crazy antics to get our prospects attention, we would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to show our audience that we were unique. We were at every major trade show and convention in our arena and had no problem EASILY gathering hundreds of prospects who actually filled and inquired about EXACTLY what they were shopping for….The fully self qualified leads were a sales person’s dream.  We would get leads for 8,000 shirts orders, leads for custom embroidery, leads for huge organizations.  We would get all pumped up, would high five and celebrate… The marketing team would gather the leads, assign them a grade (based on their potential value) and hand them off to the hungry sales team who were ready to jump right in.  Days would go by, weeks would go by, months would go by and the same stack of leads sat there collecting dust and post it notes. No calls, No emails, no snail mail, no carrier pigeons, ZERO communication efforts.

The end result: Marketing = FAIL : a colossal waste of time, money and energy on the company’s end AND an implied perception that the company just didn’t give a crap about those prospects OR their t-shirt needs.

To a business owner, leads are golden. To an average employee, they are simply a hindrance, or more work being piled on top of their desk thus interrupting their game of farkle or mafia wars. The average employee will never share your enthusiasm about new prospects or new leads and will therefore, never take the initiative to jump on those pile of leads or prospects.

Solution? What if you, the business owner called those leads yourself and personally thanked them for visiting your web site or trade show booth? What if you the business owner be-friended those prospects on facebook or started following and engaging them on Twitter? Will it take a huge chunk out of your day? Absolutely.  Will it require creating relationships with those prospects on the phone and through social media and email? Absolutely. Will it impact your bottom line and provide a sound ROI? Absolutely.

Bottom Line: THINK before you market. How will you handle these leads? How will you create a social media platform where your team can easily start engaging these prospects? How can you make your web site easier to get people into the sales funnel? A little bit of planning before any marketing campaign can yield a bountiful harvest. A lack of planning or a lack of a system in place prior to receiving leads is a recipe for disaster and can waste your marketing dollars quicker than poop through a goose. In fact, prospects will quickly get turned off if they don’t receive the attention from your company that they expect.  This can end up reversing any efforts your marketing team had done and giving your company a negative reputation.

Need help with your marketing plan? That’s what I’m here for.  I’ve been there, failed at it and won at it.  My company is here to help, sure, we focus on Internet Marketing, Web Design & Social Media, but I’m a business owner who’s been there, done that and worn the t-shirt.  Give me a call today: 407-830-4550 and lets talk.