"A Lead Is Someone Who Has Expressed An Interest In Learning More About A Product Or Service."
™
It is estimated that 90% of B2B companies engage in some kind of lead-generation marketing activity. They make phone calls, roll-out direct-mail campaigns, send-out e-mails, post websites, run Google ads, and harness social-media sites such as Twitter, all in an effort to identify potential clients and customers for their products and services.
For these B2B companies, lead-generation is B2B Lead Generation an absolute essential for effectively targeting their marketing campaigns. By generating leads, companies are better able to narrow their playing field and sales efforts. Thus when a company runs a lead-generation campaign, they're basically saying to a group of prospects, "Hey, who's interested in learning more about our products and services?" Those prospects who raise their hands are leads.
In essence... it's simply casting the bait/special offer into the market with the intent of hopefully getting a whole lot bites. Once those bites are turned into leads, they're all diligently follow-up on until a percentage of those leads are eventually converted, and landed as sales.
Some companies drop the ball when it comes to lead follow-up,which is surprising. Study after study reveals that about 25% of leads become a new client or customer - for somebody. Unfortunately, if a company doesn't follow-up on a lead, that somebody could be the competition!
But what is a successful lead-generation campaign anyway? What makes it successful? And how do they get prospects to react to a sales-pitch or promotion and then ultimately land all those sales?
Of course there are many ways of effectively creating a successful lead-generating campaign. One that will have new, and current customers or clients beating a path to a business's products or services.
Effective ways of generating a greater number of leads is to...
• offer a time-limited reduced special price; Saving money is the name of the game in difficult economic times. The limited time offer will prompt them to act now on this deal before it's too late.
• offer a free Special Report, or White Paper they can download; A well written document convinces customers that what they'll be getting in exchange for their money is the solution to their problem. And by choosing this product or service over all others - have not only purchased a great product - but have gained a life-long mutual partnership in service and commitment.
• offer a free monthly e-mail newsletter that is informative, and at the same time promotes your products or services; Familiarity builds greater confidence and trust over time. By targeting and personalizing e-mail messages, a professional rapport can be established.
• offer a discount on a future purchase of a product, or use of service; This has also been proven to be very effective in generating long-time repeat customers. Always give a little more than your competitors and customers will always beat a path to your door.
Depending on the type of business, there are numerously effective ways of generating solid leads that ultimately result into greater sales. One sure way has always been to offer free stuff. People love to get things for free. It has always been a great lead-generator for businesses.
Business-to-business marketers use a wide range of lead-generation offers in their quest to find "raised hands" among their target markets. Here is a list of the most popular:
• Case studies
• White papers
• Special reports
• How-to guides
• Webinars
• E-newsletters
• Product demonstrations
• Free trials
• Brochures
• Free consultations
• Information kits
• Checklists
The best B2B lead-generation offers anticipate the specific information that a prospect wants to have, then provides that information in a compelling way - whether it's in the form of a demo, video, report or presentation.
Creating the right kind of B2B lead generation offshoring relationship with an external agency might seem like a tough ask. But the fact of the matter is that today's world of digital innovations has created a giant portal, so to speak, of buying information and data. There's a plethora of content available just at the touch of a finger of a user with an internet connection. Market research shows that more than 85% of B2B purchasers start buying online and nearly 60% of the purchasing process is completed before even speaking with sales. So, it's important that the team needs to adapt its B2B lead generation offshoring process as per the changing trends.
The most recommended buying process should comprise of the following:
- Getting found by buyers
- Initial engagement with such buyers
- Conversion to contacts
- Nurturing contacts into leads
- Engaging the sales team with leads
- Converting qualified leads into revenue
- Client engagement/upselling
The absence of such a refined process in conjunction with B2B lead generation offshoring will lead to many adverse effects. The first of these being the fact that the productivity of the sales team will decrease. A significant amount of time will be spent on chasing unqualified leads that are not ready to purchase, and the cost of sales will rise. There is also a chance of increased funnel leakage, which means that if one fails to achieve a clear path for the prospect to follow, there are going to be leaks in the sales funnel when the buyer will more from the mode of 'I need a solution' to 'I have a list of options'. This will eventually result in lower revenue growth.
Also, fewer leads via B2B lead generation offshoring would mean that the team would have to work harder and for lesser numbers. So the first thing to ensure this doesn't happen is to create a clear path for the prospect, i.e., strangers to visitors, visitors to contacts, contacts to leads, leads to customers, customers to brand evangelists. Next, it's necessary to understand that targeted content is the lifeblood of business, without which customers will not transform into loyalists. So the content should initially educate customers and help them deal with their problems, and then talk about specifics that may or may not be connected with the brand offerings. Just by focusing on these two points, brands can drive great results.