You own fewer of your leads than you think. This is because many companies and individuals define their digital and social media success based on where they end up on search results and how many followers they have on various platforms. But are those leads really indicative of success?
I think of the internet as either rented and owned space. A personal or company website is an owned space. Databases of emails, phone numbers, or both are also owned spaces. Rented spaces are places like social media platforms and where companies appear on Google searches.
In the same way that owned spaces give us more security in life, they also provide more security on the internet. After all, if Google or social media platforms went away tomorrow, would search results or followers really matter? No.
Would you have any leads left?
I hope so… because you should be striving to own your leads anyway… but you wouldn’t if you’ve been relying on social media and SEO or SEM alone.
Instead of asking for follows, ask for opt-ins. Marketing 101 tells us that we are most successful when we ask a busy consumer for one thing at a time, so make it count. If you can get an email opt-in, a phone-number opt-in, or both, you own that lead forever. You can also take that lead through the relationship building funnel to consideration, conversion, and loyalty without having to constantly go back to social media advertising or search ads to buy them. In short, owning leads are cheaper in the long term. We also respond better to emails (and in some industries, texts), than we do information we get on social media. In fact, purchase rates are 2X higher on email as compared to social media in 2024. Yes, you read that right and I will say it again for the people in the back… we still open marketing emails from our favorite brands and respond to incentives better there than on social media.
Skeptical? Instagram’s Chief Threads Strategist Adam Mosseri even said that engagement is a better measure of success than followers last week. Engagement means that people take an action with a post, whether it be commenting, liking, sharing, opting in to a database, or even slowing the scroll. I recommend you try for as many opt-ins as possible. It’s as easy as saying, “Want more information like this? Opt into my weekly newsletter at my link in stories.”
Are you brave enough to let go of follower count and embrace owning your leads? I promise it will pay off long term.
