The #1 Tip for Getting Better Advertising Leads

Imagine you have an unlimited budget for an unlimited number of ads. You could place your ads in every imaginable location, taking up all the ad space on Google and Facebook, and all the commercials on TV... but would you do it?

Unless you're selling Coca Cola, probably not. While it sounds nice in theory, your advertising leads would be useless. You would be generating so many leads you would never be able to focus on the ones that really mattered. You'd be better off dialing a random phone number and trying to sell to whoever answers.

It Starts with "Smarketing"

Going down this route, your marketing team would start to think they're the greatest team ever assembled. They'd produce tons of leads but your sales team would be completely overwhelmed. To prevent your sales team hating the leads they get from the marketing team, the two teams need to work together to find your company's specific niche, and then define MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) that your teams can agree on. This teamwork between sales and marketing is called "smarketing".

Smarketing, as defined by HubSpot, is the "alignment between your sales and marketing teams created through frequent and direct communication between the two." The ultimate goal of smarketing is to make your advertising produce high-quality leads. These leads are turned over to the sales team who is able to quickly slam dunk them for the close.

The #1 Tip: Target Your Niche

Most products or services (more so in the B2B marketing world) only apply to a specific group of people. More often than not, this small niche is plenty big for multiple successful companies. The point here is, advertising leads need to be hyper-targeted to your niche. Once you've found your niche and you know you able to target it well, focus most of your efforts on this area.

The whole purpose of advertising is to generate leads. If you're getting those ads in front of the right people, they'll surely turn into great-fit leads. For years, I had the misconception that getting in front of as many people as possible was the right answer. Now that I have seen multiple advertising campaigns in action, it's clear I couldn't have been more wrong. The right answer is to carefully select a niche, create an ad that resonates well within that niche, and then get in front of that niche and only that niche.  

Now get out there and get nichey!