I help business owners scale past $1m/year by installing a predictable client acquisition system. Join my newsletter as I share my journey and lessons learned from entrepreneurship.
2026 predictions for getting leads & clients
|
The Chew Letter #53 The Chew Letter - Read, Grow, Improve Deep dives into digital marketing & entrepreneurship... My 2026 Predictions For Getting Leads & ClientsRead online version / Read time: 3 mins 2025 flew past. Before the year ends and before everybody heads off for New Year celebrations… I’m gonna write one last newsletter for the year. To quickly share my thoughts on what’s gonna happen in 2026 when it comes to getting more clients online (social media/ads/content). This is for any of you running ads or creating content online for your business. And it’s just my personal prediction after having interacted/coached several businesses on their ads and content. Prediction #1 - Cost to acquire a customer will continue to rise Because the cost per lead will rise across businesses running ads. Especially for certain industries like real estate where more agents are trying to run ads. In December alone, I have at least 5 realtors reaching out to me to help them on lead generation. If you’re in a less competitive industry, you may not see a huge increase in cost per lead. Still, I foresee an overall increase in the cost to acquire a customer regardless of what industry you’re in.. Simply because consumers in Singapore are more informed now. People are generally tired of seeing ads that have big claims or are too overhyped. That means less people will respond to ads, thus giving rise to more expensive cost per lead. Don’t get me wrong though - running ads on Meta can still be very profitable if you know how to do it. So what does that mean? Do we stop running ads if cost per lead rises? No. To combat increasing cost per lead, and to lower the cost to acquire a customer, it simply means your conversion rate must go up. You have to follow-up more consistently. You have to learn how to close your leads more effectively. You can’t just expect leads to be ready to buy. It’s time to put in more work in your conversations with your leads. Learn how to steer the conversation towards the next step of your sales process. Learn how to text so your response rate from the leads go up. At this point, getting a lead is just the start. It’s what you do after the lead comes in that determines if you can do well in this paid ads game. And it’s always back to mathematics. If you know how to spend $200 to acquire a customer who spends $2000 with you, you’ll never run out of cashflow and customers. It’s easier said than done. But it can be done. Prediction #2 - Business owners who don’t do content will start falling behind You can still survive as a business owner today without any sort of online presence. But my personal take is this: Creating content online is the most basic thing you have to do now if you want to survive. It’s like the basic entry fee you have to pay to enter this game of business. If you’re still relying on traditionals methods like cold calling, giving out flyers etc… It’s just not the best use of your time and resources. Simply because most businesses have already started producing some sort of content. And if you don’t, you’re gonna get left behind. When it comes to content creation, most people get the objective wrong. They think it’s about gaining more followers, getting more likes in hopes of hitting a wider range of audience. It’s more than that. It’s mainly about building trust with your future buyers. When I started building my own brand and putting out more content… I thought I had to get a lot of followers in order to get more clients. But guess what? When my Instagram had only 300+ followers… And when my email list had only 300+ subscribers… I was already able to make money and build towards a 5 figure income per month. You don’t need 1000 followers. You just need 100 supporters who are really aligned to you. Your mission, your story, your personality. This is how I see it: From the first day when a prospect chance upon your business, to the day they buy from you… There’s this gap. What do they do during this gap? Maybe they’re doing more research about you. Maybe they’re still checking out other competitors. Or maybe they’re still unsure. What you can do to shorten this gap, is to build trust, authority and authenticity. The best way to do it is through content. Every piece of content you create for your brand is an asset that will continue to bring value in the long run. So start putting content out on platforms. Don’t get overwhelmed, just start with one. I’d choose Instagram. Talk about your products/services there. Share case studies of how you’ve successfully helped people solve problems. Educate your audience based on common questions people always ask. I’d go for video content if possible - since by showing your face it helps to build rapport better. But if you’re camera shy, you can do carousel posts like this. You can see my content strategy here - I started doing it back in 2024, and I’ll still be doing it in 2026. If you can consistently put out content, you’ll be able to build trust faster with your cold audience. Also, leads will convert better. Which helps to combat my first prediction - where cost per lead will continue to rise. Prediction #3 - Those who use AI will really pull ahead in the game AI is a topic I rarely speak about. But it has become a very important part of my business life. (In fact, even my personal life.) I don’t even know where to begin telling you. From brainstorming, to coming up with proposals, to ad copy, to generating images… I basically can get things done in half the time, or sometimes even more. Today, I can churn out a high converting video script for a realtor in less than 3 minutes. And nobody else in the space can do it as fast or as good as me. Any ideas I have in my head get refined after I have a chat with ChatGPT. I get a clear path on what to execute step by step to hit a certain goal. So I’m genuinely surprised when I see people still not using any sort of AI in their work. If that’s you, you’re still not too late. I’ll give you a very simple prompt. Which is [Context] + [What I want to achieve] The problem I see when people use AI is they don’t give enough context, and they don’t specify the goals they want to achieve. So today, if you want to use AI to increase efficiency in your work, but you don’t know how… This is what I’d type: (Let’s assume I’m a personal trainer) I am a personal trainer and I specialize in helping people lose weight and gain muscle. I want to know how I can use AI to increase my workflow efficiency, and how I can get more clients using AI. You’ll see something like this: And from there, keep asking what you need to get what you want. If you don’t know, then use this prompt: Can you tell me step by step what I should do now. It’s really simple to use, but it’s seriously life changing. You’ll be amazed how everything you’re doing now becomes a “turbo” version once you use AI in your daily workflow. That’s why there is no excuse to not put out content now - if you’re serious about getting clients online. I basically just gave you the answer sheet to getting more clients in 2026. You can use AI to chart out your content type, and use it to generate images, so that you can start building trust and acquiring more clients. Once you do it, you’re gonna be pulling ahead in the game. Not like it’s a race with others. But in the new year, you’d want to outdo yourself in 2025. There ya go, hopefully what I’ve shared has been useful. Wishing everyone a happy healthy new year ahead!
|
Edmund Chew
I help business owners scale past $1m/year by installing a predictable client acquisition system. Join my newsletter as I share my journey and lessons learned from entrepreneurship.