Ask HN: How to find a lead gen expert?

[jimmygatz]

Hi HN,

I’m involved in a business called Coze (www.cozelinen.com), a luxury linens brand (towels, duvets, blankets, pillows, etc.). We are a subsidiary of a large UK wholesaler called Gailarde which supplies the likes of Travel Lodge, NHS and the Ritz.

We spent a lot of money on the design and build of the website but to our disappointment have done very little sales on it (under 10k). We tried some lead generation through Google, Facebook, influencers and print magazines and spent around £5000 for a £3200 return. However, we have very limited knowledge about online marketing and we don’t have any in-house specialists.

So, we’re looking to hire someone externally to help us with website conversion optimisation, funnel optimisation and lead generation in order to increase our sales. We want someone with experience and a proven track record. I'm considering trying Upwork but I've used it before and it's difficult to differentiate between different experts.

How do you guys go about finding lead gen experts or does anyone have any suggestions of someone you've used that you recommend?

[Wonsize]

There are a lot of scammers out there around this area. Unfortunately this is not an area that is easy to outsource. If you try, you usually end up paying somebody £5k, of which they pocket £1k for non productive ads. But fortunately it is learn-able with the old college try.

I run a very successful agency. I don't do consulting, but if you put your email address in your profile I'll give you a 5 minute assessment.

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What scope are you looking at? UK only, or other geo's too?

What scale is meaningful for you? £1m rev? £10m rev? £100m rev?

What are your #1 or top sku's in terms of popularity / profitablity ?

Who are your closest comparable companies? we have "Boll and Branch" here in the US. are there others that have brand awareness in UK?

[jimmygatz]

Hi Wonsize,

Appreciate the response. Here are some answers:

1. Our scope is currently only the UK, although we are looking at other brands.

2. Meaningful scale for us would be between £100-500k revenue in first year and growing that 40-60% every year.

3. I don't know the answer to this.

4. Close competitors are companies like: https://charlottethomas.co.uk/, https://www.frette.com/.

I've put my e-mail in my profile. Thanks very much in advance for your time and for the consultation!

[jimmygatz]

Also, I found this guy on Reddit and was impressed with his knowledge and results:

https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/4sbu78/im_a_22yo...

Here's his up-work profile: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01d666ef2195a368dd

Any thoughts on this?

[ParameterOne]

When you say funnel optimization, which side of the funnel are you talking about? And I am wondering if you really need lead gen or just a better idea of who your target customer is. Very specific target customers are usually easy to find....but you have to make sure you know how to talk to them, meaning, your towel page is selling "comfort and softness with upmost absorbency" but your customer might want to buy "looks great in your bathroom and the color won't fade"

[jimmygatz]

I agree and this is what we want whoever we hire to do as we currently don't have the skill-set/human resources to test out the different propositions.