Step 2: Research Your Target Customer

Step two of deploying your lead-generation tactic is researching your target customers to find out what makes them tick.

One important advantage of each lead-generation tactic is the ability to reach out to your specific target customers. The golden rule of thumb is that the more targeted, the better. For trade shows, this means picking the right trade show, where your target customers are most likely to show up. For e-mail marketing, this means sending your e-mail offer only to the people who are most likely to click through on the offer.

But targeting your customers means doing research so that you know who your target customers are and where to find them. You have to be very specific in defining them. As mentioned, you want to avoid as much as possible what I call collateral damage, that is, wasting your lead-generation efforts to reach out to people who have no intention of buying your products.

For example, if you are conducting an e-mail marketing campaign to sell products for cats (toys, vitamins, etc.), you want to send your e-mail creative to a very specific list of cat owners. You don’t want a list of pet owners because many of the people on that list will own dogs, parakeets, fish, etc.

Doing research gives you the opportunity to determine the right target audience for your product, and how best to go after them. Each of the seven lead-generation tactics involves some component of research to help you find your target audience. I’ll get into the specifics of how to research and discover your target audience in each chapter on individual tactics.