Should You Avoid the Mass Approach to New Biz?

• Lead generation is incredibly important to how an agency wins work – but how do you go about it?
• Alex Sibille, co-founder at Future Factory, thinks a more bespoke, curated approach has much higher pay-off than mass emailing or automated messaging.
• Come along and share your thoughts and experiences with lead generation – there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

When it comes to lead generation, Alex Sibille likes to take things slow and steady.

“The way we do lead generation is considered very slow, curated, bespoke, and very carefully considered,” says the co-founder of Future Factory.

There are lots of people offering mass emailing or automated messaging services to generate new business leads, and while this is certainly cheaper, it comes with a few caveats.

• What kind of first impression are you making? 
• Might you damage your agency brand by spamming?
• Will a prospect even see your message – or will corporate spam filters block mass-emails?
• What about the minefield that is GDPR? (One unsubscribe means a door closed for life.)

“The mass approach can sometimes be a risky or lazy move for agencies. For most agencies, they’ve got a couple hundred prospective clients that are an ideal fit, and so to risk burning those bridges with spam, or closing those doors with unsubscribes is short-termist” Alex says.

For Alex and her team, the bespoke approach has a much higher pay-off.

“We never send automated messages or copy and paste emails,” she says. “We will have researched the person we’re targeting, how long they’ve been in their role, their specific responsibilities and goals, what campaigns they’ve put out, which agency partners they’re working with, and what their competitors are doing.”

“For example, if an agency would like to win a Fintech client, we don’t then email every brand in finance; we’ll pick out the ones we think the agency’s work will resonate with.”

“It really is cherry-picking brands and individuals. That’s how you improve success rate.”

Alex adds: “There is a time and a place for mass-emails, but lead generation targeting senior marketeers is not the one.”

How do you approach lead generation? Come along with your thoughts and experiences and share them with Alex – it’s not one-size-fits-all.