Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In

Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In with Roy Harmon

Roy Harmon talks about the power of inbound marketing. Focus on what buyers need at each stage of the process. Don't underestimate just getting individuals into your funnel. They may not need your service right this minute, but they are in your pipeline where you can continue to drip them great content until they are in need of your product or service.

About Roy:

Roy Harmon is an experienced marketer with a demonstrated history of generating leads in the legal, political, automotive, higher education, software, and healthcare industries. His efforts have mobilized voters, enticed customers, and persuaded donors.

Advertoscope isn’t your typical lead generation company. Most of the time, business owners searching for lead generation services end up fighting for leads generated by third parties.

Those leads are sold to multiple competing businesses, and anyone buying them has to hope that:

1. the lead is qualified
2. their sales rep gets to the lead first
3. their sales rep closes the lead before the competition bombards them with other offers

You won’t have that problem with Advertoscope. We help businesses generate their own leads.

We’ll work with you to generate a detailed customer profile so you know the leads you receive are highly qualified and ready to close.

For more information, shoot Roy Harmon an email at roy@advertoscope.com.

www.advertoscope.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy, thanks for being with us. Uh, we try to bring a guest from all disciplines of business to help our solo preneurs entrepreneurs and small business listeners out there. So today we are, uh, we're grateful to have, uh, Roy Harmon, Roy, thanks for being with us. Uh, Roy is an experienced marketer with a demonstrated history of generating leads in the legal, political automotive, higher education software, and healthcare industries. His efforts have mobilized voters, entice customers and persuaded donors. Thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us. And, um, how's everything going this morning

Roy Harmon (00:51):

Going good. Thanks for having me. And thanks for, uh, reading out that long bio

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (00:55):

You bet. No, no, it's impressive. I'm glad that, you know, you've got a history across a lot of, uh, different industries, which that's always good to, you know, kind of know, I guess we could translate some work in, uh, some, some things work in one industry, some in the other, but it's always good to learn from different, uh, environments like that. So yeah, I guess we'll start with, uh, you know, kind of what brought you, what got you into marketing and, um,

Roy Harmon (01:25):

Yeah, so I started out, I actually went to law school and I thought I wanted to be a politician. And while I was in law school, I started doing political marketing, um, working with a, uh, with a consulting firm in South Carolina. And I worked for some campaigns and I found that I liked the marketing side of things even more than the political side. And I certainly didn't want to be a lawyer. So I graduated from law school and never looked back. I moved to DC, worked for, uh, the national rifle association doing social media work. And after a couple of years, when my wife would realize that we were going to have a baby, we decided we'd moved back here to be closer to home. And I realized that it really wasn't the political marketing thing. I liked. It was more of the marketing thing I got out of politics. And these days I'm, I couldn't be happier that I got out of politics. This is a good time to not be,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (02:30):

You got that ride. It's been brutal.

Roy Harmon (02:33):

And so, um, so along the way I, I worked for, um, an automotive ad agency, uh, some, you know, programmatic ad agency, but ended up in the software space, working with SAS companies and then startups more generally. And it's exactly where I want to be. So even though it have been nice not to pay off that, not to have to pay back a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt, maybe I wouldn't be where I am if I hadn't, if I had had to do that.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (03:09):

Right. Well, I know that one thing that you, um, that you focus on is lead generation, uh, correct. Right. Yeah. And that's so important. So what are some things that you do, excuse me for your current businesses that you work with? What are some, um, I guess some methods that are really working for lead generation. I know, you know, it's, it's always changing. You used to, you could send out some emails and people would respond. And now I think, you know, very few people check if they don't really know the name in the header of the email, usually you just get, uh, you know, deleted or pushed aside. So what are some things that are working?

Roy Harmon (03:51):

Yeah. So the big focus is inbound marketing and that's been the way to go, honestly, even before digital, the best way to go was to offer people value and to be very focused on what does the buyer need at each stage of the buying process rather than what you need, because you may need people to sign up for your email list that doesn't help them. Well, maybe it does, but if it does, you need to, you need to make sure that it's going to help them and you need to let them know how it's going to help. And I think a lot of people kind of feel like, Oh, I don't have time for inbound marketing because they think inbound marketing means that you're just waiting around for search engine rankings. Right. But the, what I do and what I find to be most effective is to take those inbound marketing principles and then apply those in your advertising efforts as well. So you can still provide value through an ad and, and that's where you're really able to supercharge those inbound efforts.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (05:01):

Yeah. And I think you may make a good point. Uh, you know, inbound is, um, just to me, inbound is on the buyer's time. They, if they need you at this point in time, because w as salespeople, as marketing people, you know, we have a need to make a transaction today, or we need to the, um, you know, we need the lead to come in today, but if you're not in the place to buy right at this moment, um, you're not, you know, nothing is gonna happen. And so I guess I take it from on the other part, when, when we're doing outbound, if you're not interested, you could be a potential customer, but I could pester you so much that, um, you know, I kind of turn you off. So I think that's a good distinction between the two, especially in this day in time, it, you know, outbound, I'm not going to say it doesn't work a of people still swear by it, but, um, it's gotten much, much more difficult.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (06:03):

And I think if, uh, you know, I'm like you, if we focus on these, uh, inbound opportunities, I think we not only make better customers and, uh, have happier people, but we can also, it's easier to build a pipeline. Would you say, because just like, if you saw my ad, if I keep it in front of you or whatever I'm doing to promote myself, if I keep in front of you and you're not ready today, you may not respond, but tomorrow, next week in a month, when you're ready, if I'm still in, that's the consistency of this is that if I'm still doing it, you're like, Hey, I've seen this guy's ad or whatever I'm doing. And, you know, go ahead and reach out and get ahold of me.

Roy Harmon (06:45):

Yeah. And w and S and the big thing that, that a lot of people sometimes miss is the, the value of just getting somebody into your funnel, getting them onto your email list. So having some, you know, for instance, if you're a, um, you say you're doing outbound sales, if you can get them to opt into something, right. Instead of just going right for the sale, or if you have an ad, and you know, that this ad is being sent to a very broad base of, of potential customers, people who somewhat matched your, you know, your ideal customer profile, but they're not, you don't know that they're ready yet. Right. Well, rather than focus on, Hey, get a demo when they may not be ready for a demo focus on something, the more people are going to be more likely to need or want, so that then they at least give you their email address. And then you have the ability to build a relationship with them, to send them more value through email. Right. Uh, and then instead of, instead of doing cold email, then you're doing warming, then you've got them, you know, you're, you can use your marketing automation to see what are they doing on your website. And when they do visit your pricing page, for example, well, then you send that over to your sales team and you say, Hey, these, these people are ready for you to make a pitch.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (08:12):

Yeah. I think that's important to monitor, um, you know, where w what people are trying to gather from your website, so you can target your next contact to that instead of just, you know, and I probably beat this to death on this show, but instead of the, Hey, you know, you called me last week, or I saw you hit our website, are you ready to buy yet? And you know, that just, I still get that today. And it just kind of, you know, it irks me a little bit. It's like, let's build this relationship. And, you know, I'm, I believe in value that we need to provide value instead of just a, Hey, are you ready? Because if they were ready to buy, they would have called us already. We wouldn't have to be reaching out to them. So, you know, even if we're doing those, uh, drip email campaigns, it's to, you know, to educate them, Hey, I saw this, this might be important for you, or, you know, you, and this is the other thing about having those conversations is we can hear what's important. So we can say, Hey, I heard you mentioned, this are, uh, like you said, you were on our web page, but, uh, one thing I was going to ask you to do before we get too deep, though, is backup. You mentioned marketing funnel. And just for people that may not really understand exactly what that has to, you know, what the components of that. Could you just go over that quickly?

Roy Harmon (09:32):

Sure. So the, the ideas that just like the funnel, you've got your people at the top of the funnel where it's a pretty broad group of people. And then by the end of the funnel, you're going to have less, so it gets narrow. So you've got your top of the funnel, which if you subscribed to HubSpot's, uh, explanation of the, of the buyer's journey, then the top of the funnel is where they're starting to realize they have a problem. They're starting to maybe look up, you know, what is this weird growth on my face? And then like that, uh, then, uh, in the middle of the funnel, they're actually starting to research things that they can do. This is a consideration stage, what they call it. And then finally, there's the bottom of the phone where they're trying to make a decision about whom or with what I'm ready to make a purchase. And the top you kind of bought in for, uh, so pump the flywheel on them. And, uh, I don't know if they'll have much success with that because the funnel's been around forever. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (10:48):

Yeah. And that w uh, uh, uh, the little bit I've heard about the flywheel effect is basically it's that once, um, I guess a little effort and momentum to get the flywheel turning the less effort, it keeps to make it turning faster and faster,

Roy Harmon (11:05):

And it get, it is a good illustration. And I don't think it's actually original to them. I think it's really just, they had so much success owning the, the term inbound marketing. Yeah. I mean, that is, if you look, I've been Mt. Marketing, HubSpot's coming up, and I think they're, I think they're you, they want to, they realize that it's hard to, harder to own the funnel while in fact, they're probably on the funnel tube at this point, if you want to an example of, uh, of marketing that works for them, but could not work for anybody for most people, HubSpot writes about everything these days, they're going to start writing about sports scores, uh, probably before long cause they're writing about things that are so out from what they do, just because they've got the budget, they've got the, the marketing automation in place that they don't care how high up you are in the funnel. If you, even, if you do anything involving marketing or sales, they want to get you in. And then there, they know that they can, they can convert you eventually. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (12:11):

No, I think that speaks basically to the power of content as well. I didn't, I guess that their theory is that, uh, if I'm not searching for, um, CRMs or, uh, you know, and then they do a lot more than the CRM, but I, I do use them for that, but if you're not searching for their particular product, um, if you're reading something else they're writing about, then they can, uh, you know, they make that connection where, you know, at least you start having some name recognition. So I think in, let's talk a little bit about the, the, the importance of content and good content in this whole process.

Roy Harmon (12:52):

Yeah. It's, it's huge. And it's really, I, you can see the, if you start out with maybe some thin content, I worked with a company called fusion web clinic. And when I started out there, there was, it was, there were, there was content that was clearly designed to check those boxes of, you know, here, let's talk about the problem here. Let's talk about some solutions. Let's try to rank for this keyword, but they were all very short. They were very unoriginal and so nothing was really happening. Yeah. Then as soon as we started to create this content that spoke to each stage of the buyer's journey, multiple personas, multiple, um, you know, decision makers, influencers, different people who would be, uh, potentially making a decision. We saw huge growth. Um, I mean, obviously we're doing other things as well, but our, we made a huge focus on content marketing and the, uh, ARR went up by 245%.

Roy Harmon (14:04):

Oh, wow. Of course, here, as we were building out this content and then marketing the content based on the buyer's journey. So instead of just saying, let's find some broad Facebook audience and send all our content to that, we would have a broad audience that was, uh, people who we thought they may, they may be a good fit. Then we'd have an another, uh, campaign within that. That would be remarketing only to people who had actually visited our website. And then within that remarketing for people who had visited the website, but then also our consideration stage content. So they, we knew there were a little deeper and once they went to our pricing page or signed up for a demo or, you know, things like that, then we knew, okay, let's start really promoting our product in the, in the ads. Let's start pushing them to, to sign up for, um, sign up for a demo or push them to get on a phone call, discovery, call, whatever.

Roy Harmon (15:10):

Right. Um, and so that's where the advertising comes in. So the content is, is key, but it's, you know, it's, especially these days, SEO is just getting harder and harder. Google makes is giving more and more space to ads and less and less space store Gaynor Russo. So you really have is that you can get eyeball and square feet. That's temperate, CHADS, all these different platforms. They give you a great opportunity to do that. And if you use the buyer's journey and you create your content in a way that's buyer centric and focused on getting value to your prospects, it's all going to fit together in a way that's going to increase your sales velocity because you're edgy. It was, they go, you're being people who are when they're actually ready to buy. Um, and then you're also generating more demand. So it really, it's gonna, it's going to help you out in every level.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (16:14):

Yeah. And since that content, uh, stays out there, you know, depending upon where we post it, it lives, you know, basically forever, it will keep working for you. And I think one thing that we had talked about, you know, uh, the other day is that, uh, the other nice thing about the, uh, the inbound and doing this is that we can meet the, well, not only meet the buyer at the stage of the journey that they're at, but we can meet them at the time of day where they're at too. And, you know, we were talking like, uh, you know, I was working kind of late the other night, and then I'm doing a little Christmas shopping. And so, you know, it was like 10, 10 30, um, on a, um, somebody's website, looking at something or reading this or that. And, and so if we have that content out there and we're, we have a really good inbound program that works 24 hours a day, versus, you know, if I would've gotten a sales phone call at 10 30 at night from this company, I probably wouldn't have been too happy with them, but, or, you know, w could they have hit me with an email at that right time.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (17:20):

So you know, that, and it needs to be a combination. I get that, but this is the importance of building that base with this. Uh, the, the inbound portion, you know, can work for you 24 hours a day. Right. The other thing that you mentioned, you know, Facebook and ads is it's important to know where your customer lives, I guess, you know, trying to build the back in the day. I don't know if they still say this, but the Abbey of you're an avatar of your customer, who are they? Where do they hang out? Because, um, and it changes it's changed a lot. I think that, you know, 10 years ago there was a younger crowd on Facebook. And I think the, you know, because of all the parents and grandparents are on there, I think some of the, some kids are in the, uh, you know, in the last few years they kind of moved away from it.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (18:17):

But then now I heard from a tick tock. Yeah. Yeah. It's all there Tik TOK. But I heard from another younger person, 22, 23, the other day that maybe that they're starting to come back to Facebook again. So it's always changing, but the point is that you really need to sit down and figure out where these people live. And we were just looking up some stats on Pinterest yesterday, and it's incredible, you know, like 70%, 80% women are who use that. And then, you know, all these different platforms, they can tell you who their main groups are. They can tell you education, income, a lot of information if you'll just research it.

Roy Harmon (19:03):

I mean, well, so, and that's a great point as far as the research goes, because any, you never know really until you do the research or even actually run a test. Uh, and just as an example, like, so Pinterest is primarily female, but at the same time, depending on what you're doing and, uh, you know, maybe you have it, you've really, you're looking for a new opportunity because you're already doing, you got all the low hanging fruit. Yeah. It could potentially work. Uh, but just as an example, I know my father-in-law gets on Pinterest all the time because a lot of people put home improvement projects and they'll like, or they'll build a deck or a fire pit and they'll have that on them. And, but then it, you know, kind of goes back, you got to prioritize, you usually want to start out with something like Google search, if there's, uh, if there's going to be Byron tin out there, that's the best place to go, go ahead and scoop that up.

Roy Harmon (20:03):

Yeah. But really eventually you get to the point where you, as you're building this lead generation machine and, uh, and nurturing the leads and closing leads. Well, eventually you get to the where, okay. We need more leads. Yeah. We, uh, it's kinda like, um, you know, who wants, you have to get out in the oil sands to get, uh, to get more oil, you know, when you've, you're, you're pumping it all out of the ground and stuff, but now it's worthwhile to go out and get it out of the sand. Um, that might make sense to you as being X there's. I don't know if everybody will get, get that reference, but, you know, it gets to the point where it makes sense to go somewhere where it's harder to get them, because at that point, that's where you have to go for growth. Yeah. Basically it just costs you a little

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (20:48):

Bit more to extract it into it, harder to, you know, you have to work a lot harder to find those leads once you get to that point. But yeah, you're right about that. So, um, yeah. And the, um, and that's the other thing I was gonna, I kind of lost my train of thought, but just think, thinking that, you know, these are always our strategies and processes. We always need to be looking at updating because we can't just, everything is not just always the same things are changing. Like you said, if we've pulled low hanging fruit from one place, then we have to kind of look around to see, you know, what is that next stop for us? And that's where, uh, you know, really having a plan and it being, you know, a plan is not like a railroad track with no room to move. I mean, you know, you have to be able to revise it, to keep it up to date. So, you know, that's an important aspect of this as well.

Roy Harmon (21:49):

Yeah. This is the marketing is definitely not an industry where you can sit back and relax.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (21:56):

Right? Yeah. Cause once you, uh, uh, my opinion is once you push a campaign out there, you almost have to, you know, rethink this, maybe not quite for the very next one, but you know, pretty soon you have to start really rethinking, you know, what is our next step here? And, you know, you can't just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and expect to continue to grow

Roy Harmon (22:21):

Well. And then they're going to keep coming out with new channels. There'll be new social media platforms for tweeners to dance on and all kinds of crazy things coming out, you know, who knows what it'll be, what will be next, but you've gotta be ready to leverage those opportunities and try. I mean, um, and I've been, I've been fortunate to have, um, a lot of clients who've been willing to experiment like when, um, Snapchat geofilters first came out, those sponsored geofilters actually had a, um, Alexis dealership group that was willing to do that and have a, uh, sponsored geofilter. And, you know, you find out in a lot of cases that didn't work for them, but it was, you know, we did it in a very controlled way and having those kinds of pilot programs and, and try things out, that's the way to really get ahead. Right. You know, once you've got your groundwork in place and you're, you're actually profitable, you can start trying to be, you can be the one to find the next big thing and try to get ahead of your competitors rather than just an neck and neck, or, you know, if you happen to be the Pepsi, to somebody else's Coke, you know, you, you need to be really on alert for new ways to get ahead.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (23:47):

Yeah. And that, that's a good point too, that we need to think about, uh, you know, as we're looking at the different channels and we're looking at content and we're, uh, you just have to think about all the noise out there already, and the people that are in your same space that, uh, you know, are bombarding consumers with the same information basically. And it's like, how do you differentiate yourself? Uh, you know, another thing, uh, talking about content is, uh, pictures, you know, pictures, videos, be sure, and, you know, implement them in your strategies because I've, I've always been told that, you know, you can write a text, let's just say, you know, you're doing a, a post on a Facebook, you can do text it's all right. But if you put a picture on that, it's like leaving breadcrumbs. And if you do a video it's like leaving chocolate covered bread crumbs.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (24:46):

So it, uh, you know, it just enhances it. You know, somebody pointed out to me not long ago, too, that not only is it just as it kind of the algorithms work better for you, but you just take up more space too. If you think about your little text box versus the picture and how it widens out that space to get somebody's attention. So they're just all, all those little things that we always need to remember, you know, to try to stand down in another, I guess I'll pose this as a question, but you know, what I always try to tell people to do is be authentic with those pictures and with the videos and to, um, make it, make them of yourself, of your company, of your equipment, of your stuff, where people can get to know you, people want to buy from people that they like, people that they trust people that they feel they relate to. And so if you, you know, if you're a big dog lover and you have a dog, it's, it's always good to put in there because dog lovers will relate to that. But so, you know, as again, I'm kind of posing that as a question. That's, that's kind of been the theory for me up to this point. So what are your thoughts on that?

Roy Harmon (25:59):

Yeah, I think that authenticity, I think authenticity is great and part and parcel of that is having a, a personality, having a, a real, trying to be unique and your brand and not do what everybody else is doing. Um, one of my clients is actually a more serious product for, uh, basically for large resellers of, uh, basically it's for like huge IP companies. And, but the CEO of the company is a funny guy. He, he likes to joke around and what they're doing is they're replacing something that's very, uh, sort of an old way of doing things where people will cut copy and paste things back and forth from Microsoft word and XL. And now they're doing thing they're doing this, they're automating it. Okay. And so since this guy is a funny guy and he was, uh, another one of the clients I've had where I've been lucky that they're willing to try things, we did, uh, we must've done like 30 or 40 social media posts that were black and white graphics instead of cup because has been colored graphics and usually pictures of their product, which I don't, you know what I mean, offer product and that interesting look at.

Roy Harmon (27:22):

So we have black and white pictures and they were old pictures, like real pictures. And then we just would do stuff with them and ride something funny on them. And the engagement was huge and people would see them and ask about them, you know? So it, it makes people they're able to relate to your brand. And even if they're not funny people, or they're not, you know, whatever your personality is, it lets them know that you're a real, you're a real person, or at least it feels as though, you know, your company is made up of real people. And they're just going to give them a lot more of a warmer feeling towards your brand.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (27:58):

Yeah. And that's a huge evolution, you know, back in the day when the internet started, you know, it was buttoned up professional, don't let your personality show through. And I think that's one thing that has been a positive evolvement is that, you know, we're getting to know the people behind the, the business people, which, you know, that's awesome. Cause like I said, we want to do business with like people and we want to do people, you know, business with people we like, so it's always good to, you know, cause I was working with the company long, long ago that was redoing their website and you know, they had a bunch of these stock photos. I'm like, you know, just, just make it personal, take some pictures of, you know, the CEO, the staff, they have a lot of, you know, trucks and equipment in a warehouse take pictures that, you know, people would be interested to see how, you know, kind of the behind the scenes so important.

Roy Harmon (28:50):

You heard that story about, um, Oh gosh, now I'm not gonna be able to remember his name is the science of advertising guy. Uh, anyway, he had a, he's like a genius advertiser way back when, and he started figuring out how to like, if you're good in advertising, things like that. But he went to, uh, the Schlitz brewery and they were showing them out around the brewery and they said, you see, we triple distill this and we clean these, you know, three times a day, we do this and we do that. And he said, well, that's your advertisement right there. And they're like, why everybody does that? And he says, yeah, but they don't show people that people know that. And so it's like these things, the steam totally run of the mill to you, you know, you can go in and actually highlight those and say what we did.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Lead Generation, Provide Information of Value to Gain the Opt-In (29:44):

Yeah. Yeah. And there's some geeks like myself, I'm admitted that, you know, I always want to know what's behind the, you know, what's behind the curtain. I want to know how things work. So it's, it's of some interest just to, you know, do a pan of the, you know, of the brewery. I don't know. There used to be a couple here around in Texas that, you know, they had tutors because, well, I think the adults went there because they gave them free samples, but the, you know, the kids loved it because you got to see all the cool gauges and everything else. So yeah. And again, it's just being different. May, it may not work for you and your business, your industry, but you know, I think there's things that, uh, we need to try to be a little different and that kind of brings up one thing I meant to ask you earlier was, uh, the importance of AB testing and not, uh, you know, if you have a thousand dollar ad budget, you don't just have an idea and just lay it all out there and do one thing. But can you talk a little bit about the importance of AB testing?

Roy Harmon (30:45):

Yeah. So I've got a little bit of a, maybe not an unorthodox opinion on AB testing. Um, so when it comes to AB testing, I think that it's so difficult to reach to the sample size that you would need to reach to get meaningful results. And there are so few opportunities batch E um, do that in a way that's not gonna lead to sample pollution. Like for instance, if you run a Google ad and I remember when I was working at an ad agency, there were like, you have two ads for every single one. And I would say, well, okay.