Stop depending on trade fairs and referrals
Rasp International builds export lead generation systems that produce qualified buyer enquiries month after month instead of in bursts around exhibitions. Most Indian exporters have exactly two lead sources: a trade fair twice a year, and repeat buyers who found them years ago. Both are fragile. Lose two repeat buyers and the year is in trouble.
Lead generation is the work of building channels that produce enquiries whether or not you are on a plane to Cologne.
What export lead generation involves
1. Channel selection
Not every channel suits every product. High-value engineered goods with long sales cycles reward LinkedIn and direct outreach. Commodity products with price-led buying reward trade portals and search. Consumer products with brand potential reward ecommerce and social. We pick two or three channels that fit your product and margin, rather than spreading thin across eight.
2. Inbound infrastructure
Search visibility, trade portal presence, and a website that converts. An enquiry that arrives because the buyer went looking for a supplier is worth several that arrive because you interrupted someone. Inbound is slower to build and far cheaper to sustain.
3. Outbound campaigns
Direct buyer outreach running in parallel, because inbound takes months to compound and you need conversations now. The two channels feed each other: buyers who received your outreach later recognise your name when they search.
4. Lead capture and routing
Every enquiry lands in one place with the source recorded. Website form, WhatsApp, portal enquiry, email, LinkedIn message. Exporters routinely lose enquiries because they arrived on a channel nobody checks daily.
5. Qualification scoring
Not every enquiry deserves a quote. We build a scoring approach around country, order volume, product fit, and buyer type so your time goes to the enquiries that can close. Most exporters treat every enquiry identically and exhaust themselves on tyre-kickers.
6. Attribution and measurement
We track each enquiry back to its channel, and where possible through to order. Without this you cannot know whether the trade fair, the portal subscription, or the ad spend produced the revenue, so you renew all three out of superstition.
What usually goes wrong
- Every channel at once. A little SEO, a little Alibaba, a little LinkedIn, none of them properly. Two channels done well beat six done thinly.
- No follow-up on inbound. An enquiry answered on day four is usually an enquiry that already got a quote from someone else.
- Treating all leads equally. A 20 foot container enquiry and a sample request should not consume the same effort.
- No source tracking. Spending on channels because they feel productive rather than because the data says so.
- Confusing traffic with leads. Website visitors are not enquiries. Enquiries are not orders.
Who this service is for
Export lead generation suits exporters whose pipeline is unpredictable, who depend heavily on one or two repeat buyers, or who spend on trade fairs and portals without knowing what any of it returns.
Fast channels and compounding channels
Every export lead generation system needs both. Fast channels produce enquiries within weeks: direct buyer outreach, paid search, LinkedIn ads, trade portal enquiries. They stop the day you stop paying or stop sending. Compounding channels take three to six months to produce anything meaningful: international SEO, AI search visibility, content, organic social. They then continue producing without incremental spend.
Exporters who run only fast channels have a pipeline that collapses the moment the budget pauses. Exporters who run only compounding channels starve for six months waiting. We run one of each, funded so that the fast channel keeps the business alive while the compounding channel builds underneath it.
What the numbers should tell you
After two quarters of proper tracking you should be able to answer four questions without guessing. How many enquiries did each channel produce. What did each channel cost. What percentage of each channel’s enquiries were qualified rather than noise. And what order value came from each channel.
Most exporters cannot answer any of the four. They know roughly what they spent and roughly what they earned, with no line connecting the two. That is why the trade fair budget gets renewed every year regardless of whether it produced a single order, and why a portal subscription runs for a decade unexamined.
Frequently asked questions
How long before export lead generation produces enquiries?
Depends entirely on channel. Direct buyer outreach can produce conversations within three to six weeks because you are contacting a qualified list rather than waiting to be found. Paid ads produce clicks the day they go live. International SEO, AEO, and content typically take three to six months before meaningful movement. Most exporters need one fast channel and one compounding channel running together, because the fast one keeps the business alive while the slow one builds underneath it.
How many channels should I run at once?
Two or three, properly. The most common mistake is a little SEO, a little Alibaba, a little LinkedIn, and a trade fair, none of them done to a standard that produces results. Two channels run seriously beat six run thinly, and they also give you clean data about what works.
What is a realistic cost per qualified export enquiry?
It varies enormously by product, market, and channel, and anyone quoting you a figure before understanding your category is guessing. What matters more is the ratio: if your average order value is significant and your margin holds, a higher cost per enquiry is fine. If you sell a commodity at thin margin, most paid channels will not work and you need inbound and outreach instead.
Why do I get enquiries but no orders?
That is a conversion problem, not a lead generation problem, and buying more traffic will make it worse rather than better. The leak is usually at sample follow-up or quote follow-up. Fix the funnel before increasing the flow into it.
Related services and resources
- All export growth marketing services
- Buyer outreach campaigns
- International SEO
- CRM setup for export enquiries
- Sales funnel engineering
- Google and LinkedIn ads
How to engage Rasp International for lead generation
Tell us your product, target markets, current lead sources, and roughly what each produces. We will confirm scope within one business day and recommend which two or three channels fit your product and margin.