Filling the funnel

The show frames lead generation as the permanent condition of the job rather than a campaign: it is something constant, because you always need leads. Asked what comes to mind first, the answer on the show is unglamorous. Email. Then LinkedIn messages. Those are the first moves, before anything more elaborate.

There is a second channel this industry underrates, and it is physical. The same episode is bracketed by an industry mixer the hosts were running in Houston, where the pitch for attending was networking with peers and maybe meeting some leads. In energy, the room is a channel.

None of this works as a burst. The reason to keep the target list from the last lesson short is that email, LinkedIn and showing up are all repeatable weekly, and a list you can work every week beats a list you admire once a quarter.

In energy, the room is a channel.

Source: Strategies for Lead Generation, episode 10 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.

Email and LinkedIn only work as channels if the message is targeted, and the show gives its own real numbers on both sides of that. Done with the research up front, targeted cold email or social outreach can run about a 75 percent conversion rate, 7 out of 10 emails getting a reply. Done without it, the same channel drops to zero.

Targeted, it is a 75 percent reply rate. Untargeted, it is zero.

Source: Strategies for Lead Generation, episode 10 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.

On LinkedIn specifically, the show cites a data point worth building a habit around: 5.2 percent of people on LinkedIn are content generators, which means roughly 95 percent only consume. Posting consistently is a small pool to compete in.

Source: Strategies for Lead Generation, episode 10 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.

Sooner or later, though, somebody has to pick up a phone.