On a snow day like today and in between the frequent trips outside to shovel the sidewalks, I can’t help but watch the snowflakes fall from the sky.  It’s a very beautiful thing to admire and looks so peaceful when stuck to the tree branches.

As I watch the snowflakes and do what I do best (and that’s to try and relate my surroundings to how I do business), I cant help but think …  ”What if each of those snowflakes was a potential customer?”  There are many different shapes, different sizes, some fall faster than others and some just don’t make it to the ground, the get stuck on roof tops or tree tops and never get to the desired landing area.

The question I ask myself is … “How would I catch as many of them as possible with a bottle that just sits there waiting to be filled up?” (in this case, the bottle represents your web site)  If you think you are going to catch every snowflake, you are crazy. You will never catch all of them, and in most cases even the ones you do catch are not going to be the ones you had hoped for.

What’s the purpose of this off topic rant, you ask?  Well, in my ADD brain I can’t help but relate this to lead generation and targeted marketing strategies. When you develop a method to guide those snowflakes to the location you want them, you are creating an effective funnel that collects the snowflakes for you. Think of this funnel as your sales process, you can use targeted Google AdWords campaigns to reach out and guide these flakes towards the funnel. Once they land on the funnel they start making the trip down the tube into the bottle.  The tube being the “Auto Responder Campaign” that leads them into the bottle over a pre-determined time frame, and the bottle, being the website that encourages the sale or the conversion.

How well do you catch snowflakes?  Are you catching them with a funnel or are you catching them with your bare hands?

I will leave you with a final note:  Last time I cought a snowflake with my bare hands it melted within seconds!  WOW … that means (in my mind) I just turned that potential lead or customer into nothing.  No communication, co sales pitch, no conversion.

What’s your next move?

—————————————————————————————