Are you so busy trying to generate new leads that you have left the low hanging fruit dangling and ready for expiration? It is easy to get caught up on new digital marketing initiatives, especially if your marketing leader has put his focus on new technology.

A leader will try to produce the highest margins possible and if that means going low-tech and rolling up their sleeves, then so be it. While “low hanging fruit” implies that the task of harvesting will be easy, there is upfront work that needs to be done.

Most organizations have some sort of database of clients, prospects or leads. Leveraging existing contacts will help in three ways:

  1. Qualified leads – These contacts have had some sort of contact with your brand in the past. Segmenting them according to their needs will help to qualify them further for a sales follow-up.
  2. Shorter sales cycle – Knowing who exists in your database will make your sales cycle more efficient, reducing the time it takes to close sales, reducing the risk of the sale falling through.
  3. Increased profit margins – Your cost per acquisition drops dramatically by mining your existing database as well as the time and resources it takes your sales staff to follow up with leads. This frees the sales staff to pursue other initiatives and tasks.

Once the marketing director gets a routine going with existing contacts, you can begin to automate certain processes and maintain a steady communication with your contacts. Obviously, reporting will become a big factor in understanding your conversion rates, cost to acquire leads, and sales pipeline management, as well as the opportunity to identify new trends.

Added benefits include more capital to invest in other areas of marketing, sales, and operations, as well as cross-selling opportunities. Now you can set your sights on the “high hanging fruit.” This is the harder to reach fruit.

Now that you have more capital to invest in marketing technology and after you have given your marketing director a nice bonus, he can get to work on the more sophisticated tactics for acquiring new prospects.  The point is you want a leader who is willing to do the necessary work upfront; one who is hands-on, technologically literate, cares about managing costs and looks to serve other departments.

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