Think “outside the box” - Online Lead Boxes!

By Jon Malach
Vice President ChampionsWay Inc.

As times change, so do methodologies…

If you are like me, you pay attention to other businesses when you are running your errands or perhaps buying lunch. I am always looking to see if there are unique concepts out there that I can borrow from other industries and use in my organization to improve performance. Everything from the way you are greeted by employees to the fine print at the bottom of the receipt is worth noting, but what I sometimes forget to do however is pay attention to the other patrons and the associated consumer trends.

I am not sure if this is happening everywhere, so forgive the lack of due diligence, but it seems that overall, lead boxes are emptier than they used to be. We have about 40 placed within 10 miles of each one of our schools, and although we are still acquiring leads, it isn’t at the level that it used to be. Now before you think to yourself that I am going to start talking about the artwork, size, and placement of the lead boxes – STOP!

Let’s take our thinking “outside the box” for a moment.

The concept of a lead box is great; it creates relationships with other business owners that will have residual benefits, it aids in branding our school in the community, and it generates leads. Rather than focus on improving our lead box campaign, I thought to myself – is there an opportunity to replicate this style of marketing elsewhere? The answer is YES!

At least once a week my sales team has a group lunch where we order in, and being that we recently moved to a new office building I have found myself online researching the nearest sushi restaurant, pizza franchise, etc. I was surprised to learn there was a lot of information available and it wasn’t hard to find, and many of these restaurants have their own websites now.

What does this situation tell me?

1)      The yellow pages book is nearing its death.
2)      Consumers go online for just about everything now.
3)      There is an opportunity to cross-promote here and acquire some leads with virtually zero marketing expenses.

Our front-desk software works with the websites we make so that when a lead is on your site and they fill out an info form to join your newsletter, be entered in a raffle for free lessons, or to sign up for your introductory special, the information is automatically downloaded into the software as a new web lead.

Because some of our clients already have a website they are very happy with, we needed to create a tool that can be placed on other websites so that the visitors can still fill out a form that will in turn create a new lead in the front desk program. We have had this tool for about 3 years now, and the concept I am about to introduce has been right under our noses all this time:

Online lead boxes.

The first step is to research what businesses around you have a website. Do NOT restrict yourself to particular categories of businesses, check them all out. You can do this by searching online, making phone calls, and paying them a visit – which is actually the best way; you would be surprised how many businesses you would overlook if you don’t take a look around.

Then, just as you would develop a relationship with the business owner to place a lead box at their front counter, you approach them about placing a link on their website. The best is a small image with a catch phrase summarizing your offer. When their visitors click on it, it will take them to a page that gives them a little more detail on the offer, followed by the online lead form which when completed is automatically transferred into your front desk program!

Now you can have a fleet of different websites, all attracting different demographic groups not only promoting your school, but generating leads that you can follow up with and book introductory lessons.

We just recently started doing this with our own schools in Vancouver and let me say this; we are already generating 1.4 as many leads online as our physical boxes, we are saving money on the printing costs for forms and displays, and we don’t have to waste our time typing forms and trying to decipher barely legible handwriting.  Online Lead Boxes have proven to be a very effective tool and it is definitely worth it to see if you can take advantage of it in your area too!

All you need is:

1)      A website.
2)      A strategy to make it worth it for the surrounding business owners to put your link on their website.
3)      A level 2 or higher ChampionsWay Technology Package.

We can assist you with all of the above so call 1-877-774-5425 to get started, and to help you enhance your marketing strategy early this year, we are offering a 20% discount to the first 30 callers that mention this article – Call Today!