179 | JINDŘICH JÍRA | HOW TO SET UP LEAD GENERATION TO DELIVER CONCRETE RESULTS
- Martin Hurych
- 11. 2.
- Minut čtení: 28
"Measure correctly. Do things that make sense. Find 2-3 channels and refine those. And occasionally try something new."
Jindřich Jíra | CEO @ Lead Magnet s.r.o.
Do you feel that orders are not coming in as you would like? It may surprise you, but the problem is often not that there are no customers in the market. Rather, the problem is how (and if at all) you can find them and attract them to you. This episode of Ignition is about exactly that - how to stop waiting for opportunities and instead actively create them.
Today's guest, Jindřich Jíra from Lead Magnet s.r.o., a specialist in lead generation in the B2B segment. He helps companies set up processes that guarantee a steady flow of quality inquiries, whether they sell software, industrial solutions or other complex services. But what makes Jindra special is his ability to combine his practical experience in sales and marketing into a functional whole. No empty theories, but concrete steps that lead to results.
In the episode, we broke down:
🔸 Why is it no longer enough to rely on references and known contacts?
🔸 What is a real "lead" and how to distinguish it from a mere contact?
🔸 How do you correctly target the right customers and the right market?
🔸 Which channels really work today - LinkedIn, Meta, or something else?
🔸 How long does it take to start seeing results, and when do you stop waiting?
If you want to find out why your leads don't look like they should or why business opportunities are slipping through your fingers, this is the episode that will open your eyes. And trust me, it won't just be about dry theories - Jindra will share concrete examples from practice that you can start applying right away.
HOW TO SET UP LEAD GENERATION TO DELIVER CONCRETE RESULTS (INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT)
Who is Jindřich Jíra
Martin Hurych
Hello. I'm Martin Hurych and this is another Ignition. Today we're going to talk about how to attract more customers to you. But before we do, let me make a traditional request. If you like what I do for you, sign up for My Notebook, which is my newsletter. I also want to thank you because I've said here for a long time that My Notebook is subscribed to by more than 1,100 owners and CEOs of engineering, technology and manufacturing companies. In that time, that number has moved up to 1,300, and I thank you for that. Today we're going to discuss lead generation, we're going to discuss how to do it and what lead magnets are good for. Since I'm talking about lead magnets, I've brought in one of the most knowledgeable people who just named his company Lead Magnet Ltd. and he's Jindra Jira. Hi.
Jindřich Jíra
Hi, Martin. Thank you for inviting me.
What Oscar-winning films has Jindra starred in?
Martin Hurych
What I've found out about you is that you're a history buff, and not just any history buff, relatively broad, military, eventhat you have some military cars at home and that you might be willing to do some military stuff.
Jindřich Jíra
Exactly, it's been a lifelong hobby of mine.
Martin Hurych
Can we see Jindra Jira in a movie, maybe a Hollywood blockbuster?
Jindřich Jíra
In the Oscar one, probably Jojo Rabbit. Then from the Hollywood ones, I guess there would be a little bit, for me it's a hobby, so more or less when the opportunity arises, I go for it. It's such a nice break from the business.
What attracts him to history?
Martin Hurych
What attracts you to history?
Jindřich Jíra
I'm interested in technology, in the rapid development and I'm interested in history in general, especially in the 20th century and in the level of research. It's such a relatively recent history that has affected everyone and all of our ancestors that we still have. Unfortunately, I think it's neglected nowadays, perhaps at the expense of other things that are historically much older and perhaps shouldn't be given as much space in schools. The history of the 20th century has shaped either Czechoslovakia or the Czech Republic.
Martin Hurych
It's true that you hear about dinosaurs or Neanderthals at least three times in your school career, but nothing about the First Republic. On the other hand, with technology, I guess you can always access some truth, because most things are exact. How do you access truth in history?
Jindřich Jíra
I guess I'd say a really thorough study. Today I can't say interviews with memoirs, because unfortunately those memoirs are dwindling. In retrospect, I regret that maybe 15, 20 years ago, I didn't record some of the things that I did with veterans who actually experienced World War II firsthand. It's just that history in grade school and maybe high school is taught in such a way, what was good, what was bad. That's the way it is because it's the easiest, there's a lot of idealization of the First Republic, for example, how great everything was, but it doesn't really get down to the nitty gritty of what it was like in reality. Of course, the truth is never black and white in the context of that first republic. On the one hand there was a huge development, on the other hand there was an economic crisis, the singling out of some minorities and so on, so it wasn't exactly the sunny period we know from those black and white films.
What does Lead Magnet s.r.o. do?
Martin Hurych
We will conclude this historical section by stating that you have before you Jindřich Jíra, Hollywood and Oscar-winning actor and specialist in the history of the First Republic. But I have invited you for a far more mundane and materialistic reason. I hear more and more that we are no longer satisfied with references, that we know that times are not the easiest, that we need to get moving, that we need to take care of business ourselves, and that we need leads. You've got the business to do it, so first let's tell us what you do, how you got into it, and then we'll take a look at the kitchen, how it's really done.
Jindřich Jíra
I've been in B2B my entire professional life. First it was as a B2B salesperson, then I moved into B2B marketing, I was in charge of product. Then I also got into management of some companies, where I had the opportunity to manage either the marketing department or business development or linking the marketing department with just the sales department. So I have quite a strong background. I learned it at a when there were no tutorials and it was more of a trial and error method, so I have some path, some options, I have some experience with it and I decided to capitalize on it in the form of Lead Magnet. I originally started it as a purely my consulting brand with the idea that I wanted Lead Magnet to become a full-fledged B2B agency that would specialize in working exclusively with B2B clients. This has been successful and we are continuing somehow.
Martin Hurych
There are a ton of full-fledged digital agencies out there. Imagine I'm the owner of a software studio or production company. If you had to tell me in three words what you would do for me, what would it be?
Jindřich Jíra
I'll bring in quality leads. That's our claim.
What is a lead?
Martin Hurych (Moderator)I know this will be a trivial for a lot of people, so just to sort of standardize our vocabulary, what is a lead?
Jindřich Jíra
We do that with a lot of clients in the beginning, that we're exactly aligning our vocabulary, because everybody has a slightly different idea of a lead. When I take that imaginary funnel, that marketing funnel, it's definitely important to establish target segments at the beginning. Those target segments are companies that are in a certain area, have a certain turnover, number of employees and so on. These are all possible criteria that we can use for segmentation to find out what is almost 100% the size of that market, if we are talking for example in the context of the Czech Republic. We call these companies or people in them potentials, some potential clients. They may never become our client's customers, but they are the potentials where we know that if they did, it is a relevant business.
Then we have the prospect level, which is somebody just from those groups of potentials, because of course there are more of those segments usually and it's somebody who has shown some partial interest. That means that maybe they came to the website and through some kind of prospect magnet, like an ebook or a checklist, our client captured that person's contact and deanonymized that visitor.
Then comes the level of ice. We think of a lead as someone who has shown a real interest in the services or products of our client. We further divide the lead into marketing qualified and sales qualified.
Someone even outside of marketing, outside of sales looks at that lead, it's a company that falls under that group of potentials and they don't want five rolls from us, they want something that we sell. At that point, he's marketing qualified. Then, of course, the sales department takes it on and there's some initial follow-up where they get to know the client, they find out through qualification or BANT if they have the budget, if they're the right person, and they sales-qualify them.
From that sales-qualified lead then comes an opportunit, which is already a realistic sending of maybe that sales offer or some trial period. Now I don't mean a 30-day trial, I mean really some kind of already hard test. That business opportunity then ends up being either a closed win or a closed loss and then we have that level of that funding or that level of what flows into that company.
That's some basic marketing funnel that we use. What we do is mostly try to fill the top of that funnel, to deliver those marketing qualified leads to those companies so that their sales department will take them on. Those salespeople can then de-qualify those leads and work with them further in their sales process.
Martin Hurych
Did I understand correctly that marketing qualified is at a level that I am actually sending an inquiry already?
Jindřich Jíra
It's on the level I'm interested, I'll send that inquiry, or it could be that I just sign up for a 30-day trial or something like that. The principle of the prospect magnet is that I'm going to offer that prospect something that's not directly related to using that service of mine or that product of mine. If they're a carpenter, I'll offer them an ebook on how to have a minimum of scraps. But as far as the lead magnet, if
I want to get them into that marketing qualified lead stage later on in the funnel, I have to offer them a lead magnet. That's ideally really a taster of those services. In the case of a service business, I'll give them some free consultation, I'll give them an audit of their current status, in short, I want us to establish some kind of cooperation so that they can try it out and ideally in a non-committal way. They, on the basis that they see the interaction, they see that the company is not spouting nonsense about itself on the internet but has really given them some benefit, they will go ahead and try their services or products in a paid way.
Martin Hurych
I like the fact that you've taken it up at least one level my opinion. I very often hear that marketing qualified is any email we get. But you're really going very deep in that qualification. Then what's the conversion rate between marketing qualified and sales qualified, for example? How much does the sales department really take from you?
Jindřich Jíra
This is very much a client by client basis. I don't really like to give generic advice because every client is specific and you can't give generic advice like, do LinkedIn. What you can definitely say for the Ignition audience is, feel free to use a similar system because I think that's bulletproof and it's applicable to basically anybody. Think of it through the lens for 9 people out of 10, it's not going to be like that for that 10th person and I'm not saying that everybody has to have 100% like that for those stages. I often see companies addressing leads and only the marketing directors are interested.
That's bullshit in real life. If I take our example about a year ago, when we had some companies enquiring about us, we were enquired by about 7 fairly large companies that had a turnover of a billion or more. Out of those 7 companies, we were queried once by the marketing director, once by the owner, once by a person completely outside of marketing, and 4 people were marketing specialist and marketing manager level. Once it was even a marketing trainee. This is just to illustrate that they all have a bit of tunnel vision for me that we only need the C-levels, but in the end it doesn't have to be that way at all.
Martin Hurych
So what we're saying that you need to be precise in how you stake out that garden and know who you're actually targeting, because sometimes you have to go to the commander and sometimes you just have to go to his assistant.
Jindřich Jíra
That's . Often the door opener is someone completely different than the decision maker, in companies this big. Again, I don't want to downplay it or take it in a blanket way, but that's basically it.
What does good segmentation look like?
Martin Hurych
At first it seemed like everyone was sending some generic emails to hundreds and thousands of email addresses as part of lead generation. Then de facto the same thing transferred to LinkedIn because there was a big wave of LinkedIn. Then they said there had to be personalization, so the same email came just, Mr. Novak, today is super personalization, so it comes, hello Mr. Novak, how are you doing at Lead Magnet Ltd. What's it gonna look like in 2025 so I don't get a coat of shame?
Jindřich Jíra
A lot depends on how big the field is. What we always do in the beginning is we stake out the pitch, as you rightly pointed out. For example, you have a cabinetmaker, a furniture maker, or some furniture dealers and you find that you have a lot of cabinetmakers, but you have a relatively low number of opportunists that you can close out of them, plus it takes time. So you choose some semi-automated set of things where you're not going to invest a lot of human time in it and you're going to be able to acquire those cabinetmakers across the board in any way you want. Then you have the furniture makers, which will be very few, because a lot of furniture is made in Poland and China and there are relatively few Czech manufacturers. For you at that point, it's going to be a more account based marketing method, so it's going to be less hit and miss, more targeted. You need to discover the company, you need to get the company in front of you in some way, and you can use LinkedIn for that.
But then the individual channels are just a partial thing in the overall context of the whole game on that particular pitch. Then, for example, you find that you have another target group, joiners, but you find that there are relatively few joiners in the Czech Republic and that they have the same potential as carpenters. So you're not going to split the two segments in two, because that doesn't make in the context. But you'll find that there are furniture manufacturers and there are custom architects, and those are two different target groups, and both of will have relatively enough companies in them, so then that particular segmentation is worthwhile.
The tools you'll use to engage them in 2025 may be LinkedIn, but LinkedIn has a medium-term momentum. That means that if someone says, let's do LinkedIn, but I expect us to get 10 leads a month out of it in two months, I'm going to tell them we're not going to do it. Meta has become very interesting in the last year and a half. I've always thought of those Meta networks as B2C where our customers aren't and I didn't want to pursue them. Then we started testing it with clients because we like to test new things and it started to work. If we take our an illustration of the carpenters, I certainly wouldn't be afraid to target them. If you have a target group that is larger, where you don't want to give them a lot of care in that presales phase and you want to automate it a little bit and maybe personalize that follow-up communication, I would recommend Meta.
Martin Hurych
Does this also apply to larger companies? I see a woodworking shop as a very specialized place or a relatively small place, a few people, where the owner is probably still in charge. I can see that happening there. Would you take Meta if you were targeting a larger company where 5, 7, 10 people in the company decide on that potential purchase of taking you on as a custom software vendor?
Jindřich Jíra
Honestly, it would probably depend on what kind of software it was and how big the target group was. For example, we use a lot of the Meta for more physical stuff. It might be some products that are for a B2B group. But we're also testing it for different services, and we have our own ads on Meta as a Pipedrive distributor that generate leads. I have to say that it doesn't mean that it's only generating small carpenters for us, but we've had companies definitely with a billion-plus turnover drop through there, for example. In some ways they were interested in our creative and they filled out some contact form and converted. If you regularly evaluate the value of that lead, how much it costs you, in that calculation in terms of cost per lead or cost per opportunit that Meta comes out in a very favorable way.
On the other hand, if I have a target segment of those potentials who are in the level of, say, 500 companies in the Czech Republic, then of course I won't catch up with these people at Meta, unless it's a specific industry. If I want to use performance marketing or if I want to use some performance channel that will directly generate leads for me, then in this case it is worth using LinkedIn Ads. LinkedIn Ads are expensive, they're more expensive than Google Ads, but what I can do within LinkedIn Ads is I can take those 500 companies, I can upload a list of those companies, and LinkedIn will only target that ad to those 500 companies. If I have 2,000 of those companies, I can even combine that with saying I'm only interested in the CMO role. At point, I know I'm putting out an ad that is relatively expensive, but again, in the context of that target audience of mine, it's relatively cheap and I'm only targeting exactly the companies that I need to target. If there's good creative, if there's a good magnet, then all of a sudden I'm targeting very specific businesses with very specific advertising and I think that's a big advantage then.
How to be an equal partner to an advertising agency?
Martin Hurych
Now you've started a few branches that we need to support in some way. I'm too big for you, too small for you, you're not going to have time for me or I'm not going to have money for you and I'd like to maybe start one myself and I'm in a situation where I've heard of the lead gene and I'd like to get a taste of it myself in some way. I understand that advertising is to a completely cold audience, but that's actually the very first step. What should I then theoretically do next with these people, what should some process look like to take this person from a stranger to a prospect and from a prospect ideally to at least an MQL? Because from what I see and we talked about it before the shoot, that's the general awareness, you have to be everywhere, everybody says omnichannel nowadays. The amateur translation is that if I'm not on TikTok, I've lost because I'm not omnichannel. At the same time, I don't have time for it, so I'd rather not do anything. Nobody anywhere has seriously said what to use where when, in what sequence, to really get these people warmed up.
Jindřich Jíra
When I'm alone, the first thing I would focus on is the business card. I don't mean just the website, but can be any business card. If 's a freelancer, it can a profile. The business card, for me, is very key in that it's where those people will convert and those people will go if they want some references. Those specific action steps then, if someone is really this small, wants to do it themselves and is starting out, I would maybe use the potential of groups personally.
Martin Hurych
He's not necessarily small, but there was an episode with Pavel Cahlik that came out about the state of local marketing and a lot of those people were disappointed. They want to understand it and they want to be a partner in it a lot of times, so they don't necessarily want to do it themselves, but they want to understand it, to be a partner in the discussion with maybe your agency, to feel like they're at least remotely in control of what's going on. Then they're much happier handing it off to you because they have more confidence in you. If I was in the situation of considering something like that and I had to check if what you were saying made sense, how would I think about it? In what sequences should I be thinking about those steps so that at the end I believe that the number we agree on and you generate will actually come up?
Jindřich Jíra
That's a slightly more complicated question. Generally, we don't commit these clients to anything substantial, so we don't have some one-year contracts with three months' notice, but at the same time we don't want to guarantee anything. Often those clients, especially when we deal with, for example, traders, tend to sell themselves to us. They don't tell us the reality, they sell themselves to us, which is great, I appreciate that, but then the truth is a bit twisted. We then, when we come out of that truth that is twisted, that reality is basically pretty bad or may not live up to those expectations. Someone will tell us that they have one competitor in the whole of CEE, and they are more likely to target awareness in the industry so that people know that there is such a tool. We then roll out certain activities and now all of a sudden we find out that there are not two tools, but 10 tools, which is of course a big dent in the strategy or in the steps we are taking.
If the person wants to understand it, I always try to explain it to those people in a logical way. I will tellthem some of the concepts that we said at the beginning, but we will also relate it to their situation, how they are currently doing, what they should expand. Then, for those individual steps, I'm not looking the company to outsource all of their marketing to us right away, but to tell us what we're going to start with, set those goals, and have them really measurable. Within the first month we want to achieve this, within the first quarter we want to achieve this and have really measurable goals there and give that client feedback. I getthe impression sometimes that these clients are trying to tell us that they've somehow educated themselveson this marketing or they've done some reading and they're trying to keep up with us.
They're trying to tell us what to do, which doesn't necessarily mean success afterwards because they tend to meddle too much. I tell them that feedback is needed, but we don't want to go into some sort of clash.If we go into something like this, they don't take our recommendation and we bend over a little bit because we're still just a contractor, then it might not turn out so well. So what I would try to do is not to learn how the marketing works and how to do it, but rather I would do a precise preparation there in terms of what I want, how much money it's going to cost me, and what channels we've already used, for example. It's good to really do that preparation, to do that warm-up, and to have clear measurable goals. Not all channels can be measured by lead counts, but they can be measured by some specific sub-metrics, which then folded back into that overall picture. The point is, so that there aren't unreasonable expectations of some ridiculous budget and then on the other side of it, the tears that it doesn't work.
Martin Hurych
You have to laugh or cry when a client comes in saying their company is going out of business and they have to have 5 new clients onboarded within 3 months with a minimum of a million a month in billing. That's actually saying that education in general about pricing and what costs where and some cost per acquisition is not here at all. So I understand that I need to have some sort of digital house, web site, whatever, where I have some sort of presence in the open.
Jindřich Jíra
I'll add to that, lest anyone think they have to have millions a month in marketing budget again. It doesn't mean that if you have 20,000 you can't do anything with it marketing wise or you can't use the services of an for example. Of course you can, but you need to have those realistic goals set, which expanding into three countries really isn't.
What does a good lead magnet look like?
Martin Hurych
The basic prerequisite is to have a well-tuned idea of where I'm going to these people and where these people will believe,that I can somehow deliver what I'm telling them in that commercial. Then I've got this commercial for something that's the lead magnet, and you said I needed a good lead magnet. What does a good lead magnet look like?
Jindřich Jíra
A good lead magnet will come out of what the client is comfortable with and also has a high added value for that potential customer. So it could be anything, it could be an analysis of some initial status, it could be a consultation, it could be some assisted testing of that product.
Martin Hurych
So are we at the level of getting MQLs? You're really talking about services. You're running the first consultation campaign? What if no one knows me and I haven't built up the trust of that audience yet? You want to take over Switzerland, you've never been there. I think it's terribly ambitious to run a campaign in Switzerland right now for something they know 100% that I'm going to give them free consultations. Who am I to tell the Swiss how to do business?
Jindřich Jíra
If we are talking about expansion , it is of course more complicated.
Martin Hurych
But it could be here, too. I'm in Dejvice and I want to go to Ostrava and I have a company for 14 days.
Jindřich Jíra
If it's a newly established company with no references, that's obviously a problem. That's where I would recommend, if you really don't have any references yet, you need to get those references, so stake out that pitch, stake out those ideal customers, and take a shot at those ideal customers. Normally, in fairness, I would go to them and say, we're starting here, so we have to pay the deposit, but you're our ideal potential customer and we'd like to do some testing of our services. Are we really going to give it at a shaved cost or are we going to give it for free. I had the same thing when I started Lead Magnet. So, I was approached by some people because they knew I was leaving and I was going to start something of my own, but I had made some business cards and I had something that I had tried as an employee and it worked when I implemented it somewhere.
I didn't know if it would work across the board, so I found test clients that I gave a very low hourly rate, told them flat out how it was, they were totally fine with it, and off they went we got it. I gained experience, they were excited, they gave me references, of course, and that's how I got my first reference, I could start to move on and build on that, because the reference is of course very important. What's the downside of the whole consulting business that it's terribly cluttered now, there's a consultant in quotation marks every second one, and to find somebody in between who's actually good, who has experience, who has references, can be quite difficult. It's good to work with that segment again.
If I have that segment of that joiner and I decide I'm going to go into joinery on a consultative basis, then in that creative you have to say I'm an expert joiner, I understand the craft and I have those references. I know first , for example, I was just on a call yesterday with a potential client who was telling me what their situation was. I started explaining to her in normal human terms what the procedures would be and she praised me for speaking completely in her language.
Martin Hurych
On the other hand, if I'm a more established company, can I go straight from scratch, if I've never done lead gen for example, to advertising to offer that second tier? Because you said there's a lead magnet for a prospect, I'm collecting and building an email database. The standard thing to say, collect this, then somehow heat them up and they'll sometimes reach higher up in that funnel. You wouldn't be afraid right from the start to go that sharp MQL campaign where you say, I'm here, I've got references, I've got a business card, , you guys haven't stumbled on me yet, but I've already built that trust, so come on. Is that what you're saying?
Jindřich Jíra
It is to a certain extent, except I wouldn't say, come right out. We mustn't push these people into buying, we must push them into tasting, we must push them into thinking that we can help them solve their problem. We need to be able to identify that problem well, maybe within that creative, so that those people say this is what they're solving, this is their problem, they're short of leads. In our case, the solution is that you have a one- hour consultation with me and I tell you what and how. You said they don't do lead generation, I on the other hand I don't think I've met a client that doesn't do lead generation, they just don't realize it's lead generation. It's some sort of lead generation, whether they're over there at an event, at a trade show or they have Etsy. It all falls under that lead generation, except they don't have it named that and they probably don't do it conceptually.
What is the role of CRM in lead generation?
Martin Hurych
Most of the people who come to me take some consistent and often paid service for lead gen, which in their eyes generates more fields in the CRM, and that makes them happy. When we get to CRM, I'm making the amateurish assumption that you can't do without it because that pile of data has to be stored somewhere. Right?
Jindřich Jíra
I'm not saying it's impossible without him, but I think it's terribly difficult without him. When a company tells me they don't have a CRM, I think to myself how much time they must be burning on it and how terribly inefficient it is.
Martin Hurych
I would like to go a little further on what the famous hyper-personalisation is, but I have to keep the data somewhere. I'm a big fan of Excel, but I really wouldn't want to hide this after Excel.
Jindřich Jíra
That's right. I would also recommend CRM today to maybe people who are really on their own and have some regular flow of new business inquiries per month. Today, the possibilities of those CRMs and the number of CRMs in general is so big that it makes sense, except again it's not about now I've listened to Jira in Zazh, so that means I have to go into CRM. You obviously have to perceive the added value there, and the marketers must not perceive that they just have some other annoying system that they have to enter something into. It's not usually like that, if they choose a good CRM, the CRM is more of a sidekick that makes their job easier rather than giving them a hit.
When to use hyper-personalisation?
Martin Hurych
How am I supposed to imagine that glorious hyper-personalization on the level of, say, those carpenters? At the level of furniture makers, I it's still very much a semi-automated human activity because you have to go deep. But if I want to surprise a cabinetmaker, and there are maybe 10,000 of them, I can either pay an assistant to look for something and set it up somewhere, or I have to run it through some automated machines. Something tells me that with all the artificial intelligence that's available now, it should be more affordable. Am I wrong?
Jindřich Jíra
No, if I have, for example, those carpenters and I really need to operate them fully automatically, then it's a question of how much personalization I want to go to. The fact that I'm going to hyper-personalize means that I'm going to spend some time tuning it in to maybe take that output and ideally verify in some way, at least in a basic way, that it's not some bullshit. That's also changing a little bit nowadays with the new models that we have, but still at the end of the day, I should still ask myself how that hyper-personalization is going to help me. That is, if the extra time invested there is meaningful.
For example, I generally think that if hyperpersonalization, I personally would recommend it not where I go more randomly and en masse, but instead where I go very purposefully. For example, we have a client does various server solutions, and we had an there where we were sending some prospective clients an analysis of some of the speed of their website and servers. It came straight with a suggestion on how to optimize it, which again, by the way, is an interesting magnet that has a lot of added value for that person. Prospect magnet was some form of measuring that speed, lead magnet then an offer already for some testing or something like that. Then you can go in that direction as well.
Am I campaigning just to get people ready to buy?
Martin Hurych
It is said that in my ideal market at any one time there are roughly somewhere between 2-5% of people actually prepared to buy. Do I understand correctly that you're capturing that percentage with the advertising that you're targeting with those consultations, and that the vast majority of those customers who download that magnet are actually ready to go that stage further and be convinced to buy?
Jindřich Jíra
It's also important to say that although we offer those consultations for free, we don't do that internal marketing except for Pipedrive. Because we have the number of enquiries at a relatively decent level so we don't do performance marketing or any form of acquisition marketing that we sell to clients, we don't do brand building.
Martin Hurych
I was thinking more generally. I have this MQL magnet that targets either some consultation or some software testing or some analysis, audit, etc. Do I understand correctly that this magnet is targeting the 2-5% of the active ones that really want to buy, or is it also pretty much an across-the-board hit and I'm only getting the 2-5% that are buying from the database that I get?
Jindřich Jíra
It's a bit more complicated, depending on how long the sales cycle is. We have clients who have a sales cycle of half a year, a year. We are filling the top of the funnel for them, where through nurturing, for example, gradually those people move up. I always have to give myself clear boundaries at the beginning in terms of what pitch I'm in and what those KPIs are and then really only on the basis of that do I choose a specific channel mix. If I know that I'm getting those leads relatively quickly, that my sales process is maybe a month long, then I would use a similar model with some appropriate channel mix.
I would always have some option 1, option 2, ideally maybe that lead magnet and then secondarily that prospect magnet alongside that. The moment the person gives me feedback that it's not quite relevant to them, even maybe within some initial call, then give them that option to then stay in touch. It's very individual and it varies a lot from client to client, so I don't want to completely give blanket advice that this is how it works for everybody.
Martin Hurych
I guess we'll have to have a rehearsal on warming up the clientele sometime, because I suppose that's as hot a topic as the generating thing. If there were 3-5 recommendations left in the information noise from today, what would they be for you?
Jindřich Jíra
Measure correctly. The beginning of the conversation where I talk about the division may be instructive.
Martin Hurych
Does that mean you'd put quotas on the different levels of the funnel?
Jindřich Jíra
I'm sure. If it makes sense, I'd stake out the field. I'd figure out how big the market potential is, I'd break it down into segments so it makes sense, I'd have the numbers to do that. Then I would match the marketing to that, then I would match the magnets to that, and I would get the right measurements. So it's not just at the level of leads, leads, won opportunistic, but like I said at the beginning, really break it down a little bit more detailed if that makes sense.
The second thing would be that you can't do everything. A lot of clients always say the competition is doing it, so they do it too and then they're in this vicious cycle of doing something that doesn't make any at all. Do things that make sense and that you really feel like either the target audience is there or it's meaningful to you, it's generating something for you.
The third thing, find some two, three main channels that maybe you already have today, and just refine those channels, don't let them go completely to sleep. This is generating leads for us, so we don't deal with it at all and let it take its own life. Really focus on it, give it some minimal time to analyze it and refine it.
Fourth point, try new things. Some would say that this may contradict what I said, not to do what the competition is doing. Try these things and don't try it in the sense of, we're going to be here for six months developing something, then we're going to launch it with great fanfare and find out it's useless and we've invested a quarter of a million in something that doesn't generate. Go a little bit down the road of some minimum viable product, even though it's poorly put, but the process is the same. I'll start small, I'll test, I'll get the data, and once I get the data, maybe I'll start expanding the channel or I'll close the channel and it's kind of a wasted investment, but I know I'm not going to go down that channel.
Martin Hurych
Quite often I see that these people are so fast and so fickle, on the other hand, that they try, you can't even get that return. So it takes how long to try, six months, three months? If the sales cycle takes a year or more, how long should I give to testing some new channel?
Jindřich Jíra
That's advice worth a million. I don't want to say a year because that's stupid, but I should give it at least half a year and probably not invest such crazy money in the beginning.
Martin Hurych
But you can see that you're picking up relevant MQL much faster, right?
Jindřich Jíra
But it takes time to generate the prospects and to convert the prospects into MQLs. You generate some prospects, then you talk the prospects out of it in terms of at least an initial call and they tell you that it's relevant for them to deal with it in 2 because it's a big system. On the other hand, we're talking about companies that don't exactly sell buns on the shop floor, but that sell mostly some huge software solutions worth tens of millions of crowns. So they won't have a budget of CZK 5,000 a month to test these things. But if they measure well within the funnel, they will see right from the start that something is falling through. But it's also about the fact that generating those leads is not such a problem, it's about making sure that those leads are valid and that those companies are able to close those leads, because then the work makes . At the end of the day, if that dollar is there, that money is there, then I can say to myself that client has gotten a return, 's a return, and of course that return can sometimes take time.
Martin Hurych
As I said, we'll have to look at that another time, because it's not exactly a simple matter and we'll have to interview Jindra here in some historically short time. Thank you very much, we didn't mention it in the episode, but you've got a bonus for us as well, so check around for instructions on how and where to watch the bonus. Basically, what we've been talking about here today will be there in materialized form. To you, thank you so much and I wish you don't need custom lead magnets for your leads and that the only magnet you have is the one in your title. Thanks so much for participating and may you have a great time.
Jindřich Jíra
Thank you very much for the invitation, greetings to all the viewers and good luck to you too.
Martin Hurych
(automaticky přepsáno Beey.io, upraveno a kráceno)