Likes Aren’t Leads

Leads lead to the bank!

Creator and Author: Mike Boatman

Some principles are constant.

One of my clients asked me to attend a large sales meeting of potential franchisees in San Antonio Texas. He asked me to give a 20-minute presentation on the necessity of advertising to a group of 200 people. It sounded like a fun trip, so I agreed to participate. I titled the presentation, Leads Lead to the Bank.

The 20-minute presentation became the longest I’ve ever given.  Following my talk, the question and answer time went on for almost 2 hours and continued during the cocktail hour and dinner later that night.

A sales lead is nothing more than an opportunity.

Your product, the needs of the potential buyer, and a host of other considerations are the determining factors to whether a sale can be closed. But without the lead there’s no opportunity to go to the bank.

On the other hand, likes are generally not opportunities. In social media, likes tend to be a measure of entertainment value, celebrity status, or popularity. The real question is, “What is the reach of my social media?” Without likes, you can still have a tremendous reach. Likes may be an indicator of your social media influence, but the question becomes, “What are you selling?”

Let me provide some background.

I’m a commercial advertising photographer specializing in custom advertising images or photographic illustrations. Early in my career my client mix was 90% advertising agencies and 10% corporate in-house marketing departments or sales managers. During the 1980s there was a significant recession during which many US corporate middle-management employees lost their jobs. Large advertising agencies lost clients and became midsize. Midsize agencies became small. Small agencies went out of business. I recall a news story of a middle manager who had previously earned a hundred thousand dollars a year. After losing his job and being evicted from his home, he was living in a cardboard box under a bridge. Another news story told about commercial photography studios in Dallas closing at a rate of ten per week.

Personally, the recession caused all my advertising agency clients to cease buying new photography. Instead, they started running old campaigns to minimize expense and capitalize on what profit they could get from media buys. After 40 years in the business, I look back and realize that the mere 10% of my corporate direct clients are the reason I continued working as a commercial advertising photographer. In order to stay in business, my two corporate direct clients were obligated to create new photography every year to introduce and advertise their new lineup of products.

Squeaking through a very lean year, I made a significant change in my own sell strategy and started soliciting corporate in-house marketing/advertising/sales departments. For the next 30 years of my career my client mix was 85% corporate direct in-house advertising departments and 15% advertising agencies. This doesn’t mean that I don’t love working with ad agencies. Some of my best and fondest memories are of location shoots with creative directors. But having been exposed to the philosophy of corporate marketing and advertising strategies for thousands of products from Jimmy Dean’s sausage to Tyson chicken, Wise Boat Seats to gift wrapping paper has been invaluable.

On my website, there’s a quote by Tim Ransom. He said, “Mike has photographed everything.” I don’t think that’s really accurate, but I certainly have been exposed to a huge variety of products, marketing strategies and sales strategies. I’ve been exposed to hundreds of corporations and have been part of their strategy team, designing images to accomplish particular tasks for market penetration. Based on this experience, I believe that likes are not a sales opportunity, but rather a measure of popularity and entertainment, and possibly education and reach.

Some principles are constant.

In advertising, you cast a large net in order to pull in a few sales leads. The bigger the net you cast, the more sales leads you’ll catch. It’s important to keep in mind that just because you have leads doesn’t mean you’re going to close sales. But without the leads, there are no opportunities for sales.

I believe it’s safe to say that social media in 2019 is somewhat equal to traditional advertising as far as influence. Having said that, without reach you’re not influencing people or generating leads. Then there’s the question, “Am I influencing the correct audience to generate leads? Does my social media have sufficient reach?”

Some principles are constant.

Before you can influence people, you must capture their attention! This was primarily my job, the role that I played, in those thousands of corporate strategy meetings. I was designing images to deliver to a specific audience or to influence a specific group. It was crucial for me to deliver a specific visual message at first glance.

People see images first. If the image doesn’t get their attention, they’re probably not going to bother reading the text. Algorithms read text. For today’s social media you need both the text to move you to the top, and the photographs or the imagery to capture the attention of people. Simply put, people become leads who then become buyers. It is about your advertising reach, then capturing people’s attention. If you’re doing this properly it’s easily measured with ROI (return on investment) or closed sales. I’m all about generating sales leads through creative impacting imagery. If you’ve got reach but you’re not getting leads, I would suggest you’re not capturing the attention of potential buyers.

It’s not uncommon that my images have generated sales for my clients measuring in the hundreds of millions. Of course, I have small business clients as well. What I often hear from new clients after I’ve worked for them is similar to what Kim Rice recently stated: “Mike, your ROI is worth every dollar I spend with you.”

I could write a book about what goes into creating images that sell products. There is that much that needs to be considered. And it’s a team effort. Without the image that’s going to compel people to buy you’re going to fail. Without the delivery distribution advertising vehicle, regardless of how compelling the image is, you’re going to fail.

Imagery is the first impression – for good or bad. It sets the expectations for excellence or disappointment. It can convey enthusiasm or boredom.  So … what is your imagery conveying to the audience you are reaching?

ROI is the measurement…. If you’re not happy with the ROI of your imagery/photography………  Call Me!