Lower Your Cost Per Lead with Web Conferencing As the economy recovers, many sales executives are discovering that the cost of selling is going up. The largest expense – next to the cost of the salesperson – is the cost associated with lead generation. In many companies, salespeople are asked to make cold calls, which reduces the amount of time they spend in front of qualified prospects and existing clients. Is that a profitable way to generate new business? If you require your salespeople to spend one day per week making cold calls, what is the cost per lead? If the salesperson’s gross salary is $100,000 a year, each working day has a $400 price tag. If the salesperson generates two new sales leads that day, the cost per lead is $200. Why do so few leads result from this day’s work? It’s because salespeople hate cold calling! How does the cost of cold calling compare to other forms of lead generation, such as advertising? An ad in a trade publication with a circulation of 50,000 will cost about $8,000. If the ad generates 50 leads, the cost per lead is $160. What about direct mail? A traditional direct-mail package costs about $500 for 1,000 pieces mailed. If you are mailing 50,000 pieces, the cost will be $25,000. Given the typical 0.4 percent response rate – or 200 leads – the cost per lead is $125. Web conferencing generate sales leads at a lower cost Here are the steps to generating solid sales leads using Web conferencing. The numbers used in this example are average results gathered over a period of two years of Web conferences. 1. Planning and preparing One month before the event, select a compelling theme that will attract new prospects to register to your event. For example, if you sell CRM software, you may promote a free Web conference on the subject of “How CRM boosts productivity” or “How Acme increased sales by 38 percent with our solution.” Get your marketing manager and your product manager to prepare a dozen PowerPoint slides, and create a persuasive presentation script to be delivered by your company’s best salesperson (usually the VP of Sales or the CEO). 2. E-marketing Three weeks before the event, send out an email blast to about 20,000 prospects. You may rent a list from a list broker, an industry magazine or industry portal site. You may also send emails to your existing prospects and customers. Depending on the quality of your invitation (give at least three compelling reasons for signing up), you can expect between 200 and 300 prospects to sign up. (Note that only 50 percent will actually attend). The cost for this email blast will run between $4,000 and $8,000. 3. Online advertising and viral marketing To boost your response, you may also place a special banner on your Website with a link to your Web conference sign-up page. It is also a good idea to add a special line below each employee’s email signature block: “You are invited to join our free online Web conference – click here.” On a typical day, each employee will communicate with about 20 people outside the company. If your company has 100 employees, your Web-conference-event message will reach 2,000 people each day. 4. Bonus offer Remember that your prospects’ time is valuable. They will ask themselves, what benefit will I get in return for my one-hour time investment in this Web conference? If you can offer your prospect a white paper, a free book or a $5 gift card, your registration numbers will increase dramatically. 5. Final Rehearsal One week before your Web conference, conduct a dry run of your presentation. Invite a live audience so you can get valuable feedback on the presentation material and the presenter(s). Sometimes it is better to have two presenters instead of one. Two days before the event, send out a reminder email in which you repeat the benefits of attending (and the lure of the bonus offer). 6. Web Conference Log on early, have hard copies of your presentation at hand (just in case you run into computer problems) and deliver your best presentation. Always welcome questions from the audience up front. It is a good idea to answer questions early on in the Web conference. This sends out a signal to the audience that the presenter welcomes questions. As a result, you will get a dozen or more questions during the Webcast. As the presenter, you may choose which questions to answer and which to ignore. The best part is, you can promise the audience that you’ll get back to each individual by email after the Webcast. The average cost of a Web conference (one hour) with 150 people in attendance is about $6,000. 7. Follow up After the Web conference, your conference provider will send you a complete list of every person who attended. You’ll get their names, company names, addresses, email and phone numbers. You will also know who registered and attended and who didn’t. It is a good idea to send every participant a thank-you email for attending. Send a special letter to those who registered but didn’t attend and include the URL that allows them to view your recorded Web conference. 8. Cost per Lead The promotion cost and Web-conferencing cost will be approximately $12,000. If the event draws 200 registrations, your cost per lead will be only $60. This is a significant savings over traditional forms of marketing. The best news is, when it comes to calling Web-conferencing leads, salespeople love to make these follow-up calls. They are especially motivated when they actually attend the Web conference.