So, you want to generate leads huh?
There are a lot of amazing ways to do that. The two biggest in the digital marketing space are probably ads and SEO.
Now, don’t get me wrong. These are incredibly powerful tools used by huge players in the industry. But the problem is that there is so much competition in both of these spaces.
Should you even listen to me?
But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. I am sure you are wondering (or at least you should be) who is this guy and why should I even listen to him?
You need to always be skeptical of the advice you receive online. Bad advice is worse than receiving no advice at all. It can lead you down approaches that can waste months of your time.
Further, never take advice from someone who is too afraid to show their real name and face. I am always amazed by people on Twitter following some supposed SaaS Guru who has a fake name and a profile picture of a monkey.
My name is Timothy Bramlett. If you want here are my LinkedIn and Twitter links.
In my day job I lead a software incubation team for a major tech company. Before that I was a senior software engineer.
I have spent the past decade though on my own time building failed side projects. And doing that has taught me a lot.
When I started Notifier I was not a great marketer. But many of my customers were and are. Everything I will share with you now comes from my talks with them.
My Goal in writing this
It’s incredibly important to always understand the motivation behind the information you get.
Let’s be honest my goal here is to get you to try out Notifier. However, even if you do not I would still like to leave you with information that is valuable to you.
Some of the greatest content I have ever read was written by someone trying to get me to try out their Product or Service.
Keep in mind also that these techniques work regardless of whatever tool you use or even if you do it manually.
Why social listening is so powerful for leads
Social listening is so powerful for generating leads simply because that is where your customers hang out.
If you reply and DM your customers and social media they will definitely see it and will also likely reply.
The reply and the DM are the two most powerful buttons on Social Media.
You just need to know how to use them properly.
The best companies use it
The good thing is that you do not have to take my word for any of this.
You can simply look on Twitter or Reddit now and you will see that the most successful companies are using social listening.
Stripe for example monitors Twitter for any issues it’s customers have! Here is Stripe responding in minutes to when my friend Maxime had an issue with his Stripe account that Birdy.so (A Twitter AB testing tool uses).
One Simple Framework
- Identify words your target customers mention
- Monitor them
- Reply or DM
That’s it!
That’s the process. And ultimately that is how simple it is.
Later though we are going to go into a lot of tips that my customers have given me on how to make this process more effective.
How to find your words
This is the part that so many people get wrong. You have to find the words or keywords that indicate that someone might be a good potential customer for you.
To do this it’s very simple. You need to get on Twitter or Reddit (or whatever) and look at people you have probably already identified as in your target customer group.
Then you need to look at what they saying. What patterns do you see?
Here are some examples to help illustrate what I mean in the format of
who they are: what keywords they could search for to find leads
Accountant: accounting AND help
Marketing Agency: marketing AND help
SEO Agency: SEO AND help
Lawyer: legal AND advice
VPN Software: vpn AND recommendations
Copywriter: copywriting AND help
I think you get the idea at this point.
Spend some time researching and build your keyword list each day.
It sucks but you are going to need to spend some time initially do build up your keyword list.
Save every single comment, post, or tweet you see that you think is a good potential customer and refer back to it.
Important: Do not choose words that are too specific
I see it all the freaking time.
People start with something too specific like “looking for good video creators in austin texas” and then they wonder why they are not getting results! 🤣
Really? How often do you think someone says that exact specific phrase on Reddit or Twitter?
Instead you need to cast a wide net initially. You may want to even just start by inputting something like video AND creators. Then scan through your results and find ways you can make them more relevant.
If you find you got too specific then you can always click on “Reset and Edit”
Continually refine and update your keywords
Make sure you continually update and refine your keywords!
Try new ones all the time.
For example when we originally started generating leads for Notifier we started off with just searching for:
social listening
Eventually we realized that it might be better to search for people that are looking to actually generate leads. So then we started ALSO searching for
generate AND leads
Then we also find examples where people were mentioning something like “Hey how can I find leads?
So then we also started searching for:
find AND leads
I could go on and but I think you get the idea.
Can’t think of what to Search for?
Always feel free to shoot me an email or even just send me a DM on Twitter.
I’m always help happy to help you brainstorm some ideas of what to search for!
The DM is more powerful than cold email
One interesting thing that a lot of customers have told me is the power of the direct message.
Many marketers seem to think that direct messages, when done properly, are much more powerful than cold email.
They also are obviously so much simpler. If you have never setup a cold email campaign there is a lot of complexity there.
You have to warm up the domain. Properly set up DKIM, SPF and DMARC records. Then you have to find the emails using a tool. Make sure the emails are valid and not bouncing. Craft an amazing subject. Vary the text you use in emails. Stay out of the spam box. It’s a lot!
DMs are much simpler.
However, you have to do them right!
You may not want to go straight to a DM
You may want to consider not direct messaging someone right off the bat.
Now of course keep in mind it depends a lot on your strategy.
With marketing there are two general approaches in many ways. The numbers game and then more highly focused and targeted campaigns.
Both can work great!
What this customer did is he first would reply to five comments by a potential lead before he then went in for the DM.
He would actually keep a spreadsheet with a record of everything. He would use Notifier to identify the new leads and then add them to the spreadsheet. Once he got up to five comments of the lead that he had replied to he would then go in for the direct message.
People only care about two types of DMs
He also said that people only care about two types of DMs:
- Those that increase their money
- Those that increase their knowledge.
So it can be helpful to send a DM that does one of these two things. Here are some examples below:
Increasing wealth
“Hey, John. I noticed copy on your landing page that could be improved. My customers on average see a 200% increase in conversions. Can we jump on a quick Zoom call tomorrow?”
Increasing knowledge
“Hey John, I noticed you tweet the other day about how you were looking for good examples of email marketing. It made me think of this article that goes through 10 examples of the best campaigns. Here it is: linktoamazingarticle.com”
Let me know how things go and feedback is always wanted
so that is it for the ultimate guide to generating leads using social listening!
Please keep me informed on how things go for you. Even if you do not use Notifier I want to hear about your story, what you’re doing, and how you’re generating leads and acquiring customers!
Always feel free to shoot me an email or even just send me a DM on Twitter.