From List to Revenue: What to Do With Your Leads
You’ve got a lead list packed with names, phone numbers, and emails ready for your next marketing campaign. Now what? For many business owners, turning a list of potential leads into paying customers can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
Whether you purchased your lead list, compiled it from a form, received it from a referral, or even scraped it from online sources, knowing how to use that data effectively is the key to turning it into revenue.
In this article, we’ll break down actionable strategies to help you engage your leads, automate your outreach, and leverage advanced tools like lookalike audiences to maximize your lead list’s potential and grow your business.
Cold Outreach
Reaching out to your leads directly is one of the most common, and often the most effective, ways to start turning your list into revenue. Whether it’s through phone calls, emails, or even SMS, cold outreach allows you to connect with potential clients and present your services directly.
When working with a cold lead list, remember that these leads are often unqualified or have shown minimal interest in your offerings. Reaching out to them might feel like knocking on doors, but that’s perfectly okay! If your lead list is well-targeted to your niche, you’ll likely find interested prospects who are ready to engage. In fact, research from HubSpot shows that targeted cold outreach can achieve response rates of up to 20%, meaning one in five leads could express interest in your business.
To make your cold outreach efforts more effective:
Personalize Your Approach: Start with a tailored message that speaks directly to the lead’s potential needs.
Offer Immediate Value: Highlight a clear benefit, such as a free consultation or exclusive offer, to capture their attention.
Use Different Mediums: Don’t just stick to email or text-only campaigns. Try reaching out to the same lead multiple different ways to drive home your message.
Automate Your Outreach
Thanks to the rapid advancement of AI and automation tools, reaching out to your leads has never been easier, or more efficient. Automating your outreach not only saves you hours each week but also supercharges your ability to engage with leads at scale.
One of the best ways to leverage automation is by creating a multi-step outreach sequence. Instead of contacting leads just once, an automated series allows for multiple touchpoints across various mediums like email, text, and even voice notes! This multi-channel approach keeps your business top of mind while guiding potential clients through your acquisition pipeline. You can provide valuable information, answer common questions, and deliver customized pitches at just the right moment, all without lifting a finger.
Using tools like Zapier, CRMs , and landing pages, you can automate everything from initial contact to conversion. These systems allow you to scale your outreach seamlessly, running hundreds or even thousands of leads through the same process.
Below is an snapshot of one of our cold outreach systems we use to automate lead process and improve results:
Automated cold outreach system built using JackerCRM
Automation isn’t just about saving time, it’s about creating a consistent, scalable process that nurtures your leads and moves them closer to becoming loyal customers.
Advertising with Your Lead List
Believe it or not, your lead list can be a game changer for improving your advertising efforts across multiple platforms. Advertisers like Facebook (Meta) and Google allow you to directly import a list of generated leads to create targeted ad campaigns.
When you upload your list, platforms like Meta will do their best to match information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or names, with users in their database. However, match rates can vary widely from 20% to 70% depending on the quality of the data you import.
Uploading a customer list in Meta’s advertising platform to create a custom
Once your list is uploaded and matched, the real magic begins, you can create highly targeted advertising campaigns that can help you:
Further Qualify Leads: Use your ads to nudge leads who are on the fence by providing them with valuable information or limited-time offers.
Move Leads Through the Funnel: Tailor ad content for different stages of your acquisition pipeline, such as awareness, consideration, and decision.
Send Regional Content: Use lists of people who live in the same region to send specific sponsored content or promotions based on their area
Advertising with your lead list also offers valuable insights. If leads engage with your ads, you’ll gain data on their preferences and behaviors, making it easier to optimize future campaigns. Whether it’s clicks, likes, or conversions, these interactions validate your leads' purchasing potential and help qualify them for the next step in your sales process.
With the right tools and strategy, your advertising campaigns can turn a static lead list into a powerful driver of business growth.
Build Lookalike Audiences
One of the most effective ways to maximize your lead list for advertising is by creating lookalike audiences. If your lead list includes individuals with similar characteristics or behaviors, you can use that data to target new potential customers who are likely to be interested in your business. This strategy not only expands your reach but also improves your chances of attracting high-quality leads.
Building a lookalike audience in Meta using a custom list
According to Facebook, advertisers using lookalike audiences see up to a 70% increase in conversion rates compared to traditional targeting methods. By analyzing the characteristics of your existing leads, such as demographic information or purchase behavior, these platforms can identify similar users who may not yet know about your business. This ensures that your ads reach people who are more likely to engage with your brand, moving them one step closer to becoming paying customers.
It’s important to remember that while lookalike audiences are highly effective, the success of this method largely depends on the quality of your original lead list. A well-curated list will yield more accurate results, helping the platform create a more precise audience match. Additionally, because lookalike audiences are composed of users who haven’t directly interacted with your brand, the messaging and creative elements of your campaigns will need to be adjusted. For instance, introducing your brand’s value or showcasing customer testimonials can help establish trust and resonate with these new prospects.
Using lookalike audiences is a powerful way to stretch your advertising dollars while maintaining a highly targeted approach. By leveraging this strategy, you can scale your marketing efforts effectively, drive new interest in your products or services, and turn cold leads into warm prospects with far less effort than traditional outreach methods.
Conclusion
I hope this article has provided you with ideas and strategies to effectively utilize your lead lists. While a new lead list can feel like an exciting opportunity, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed when figuring out how to turn that hundreds or thousands of datapoints into results.
Remember, not every lead will convert immediately, and some lists may require additional nurturing or targeted messaging. Others might serve only as a foundation for building lookalike audiences that expand your reach. Don’t be quick to dismiss a list with quality data once you are “done”, get creative and explore new ways to turn it into valuable opportunities for your business.