How to Increase IT Sales through Proven Lead Generation Systems

I spent the afternoon reviewing several tech clients’ marketing plans in preparation for meetings later this week. As the economy continues to inch forward, many of my clients have become overly dependent on one or, maybe, two ways to grow their IT business. I thought I’d share some of the ideas I’ll be giving them later this week and get your thoughts. Since many IT software and consulting companies have become focused on one or two methods of marketing their business, just adding a couple more marketing tools to their toolkit will jumpstart their growth.

To increase the number of customers in your sales funnel, you must increase the way you generate leads and clients. Here are a few ways to increase your lead generation for your technology business:

• Referral systems
• Initially decrease cost of product or service to get new clients
• Offering a better than break-even guarantee
• Remove risk from potential clients buying decision
• Find new clients through new partnerships
• Create lead generation website or blogs
• Use direct mail
• Create email marketing campaigns
• Use telemarketers to create new leads
• Get leads through your business partners
• Create special events and webinar programs
• Purchase qualified leads
• Develop new products for new markets
• Move your product up the quality chain through client education
• Use public relations to create more visibility for your business
• Go back to prior clients and reengage with them to uncover why they haven’t been buying from you recently.
• Create a lead nurturing system that will bring clients along at their pace
• Use social media to better understand how you can help your clients grow their business.
• Use social media to identify people in your markets who are unsatisfied with their current vendor.
• Use social media to engage your clients at all stages of the client development cycle
• Create healthy partnerships with organizations who can introduce you to their clients and influencers.
• Increase perceived value to customer by increasing exposure to successful projects and customers.

Which methods are you using currently to generate leads? When looking at this list, you have to decide which ways your organization can best use to increase your leads.  Not every idea will work for your company.  But beware, I have found that most technology organizations use the same ways of developing leads as other companies in their markets, so everyone is trying to get noticed by the same pool of clients. By adding several additional lead generation processes to your marketing mix, you’ll begin to get higher quality leads and better clients. Which of the ideas are you going to use to build your lead pipeline? Which ways will provide you with better relationships in your market?

Over the next several months we will be talking about many of these lead generation systems in our blog including having experts share how they generate new leads and clients for their IT software and consulting companies.

Tripp Braden is an IT sales and marketing consultant who specializes in developing seven figure partnerships and businesses.  He is also the editor of Market Leadership Journal.  Discover how to grow your company through extraordinary partnerships by visiting http://www.HighGrowthBusiness.com where you can find resources and products to increase your success.