Lead generation is not a new topic in B2B sales and marketing. What is new is the circumstances in which companies operate as they fight to acquire and retain customers. How do you prepare a lead generation strategy and what are the new tasks of marketing and sales departments in a world where the customer knows almost everything about the brand before they even meet with the salesperson?
From the article you will learn, among other things:
how to prepare a B2B lead generation strategy,
what indicator to choose to evaluate sales-oriented marketing activities,
how to define and categorize leads in an organization,
how to determine the cost of acquiring a lead.
Unlimited and continuous access to information has dramatically guatemala business email list changed the way customers learn about products and decide to buy them. Business customers as well. Although the described social phenomena are universal, in B2B the decision-making process is more complex.
At the beginning, it is worth considering what actually happened and why rebuilding your customer acquisition strategy based on the so-called digital is your most important task at the moment.
Customers are already online , sellers are just getting there
Now think for a moment, where do you start looking for products or services for your company? In a search engine, of course. Sometimes you don't even know if such a product exists. You simply type in a question, sometimes a description of the problem, and search.
Your potential customers behave in the same way. They search the web for solutions to problems or answers to questions about their company. When they file their taxes, they ask about what can be included in the costs. If they have lost their phone, they ask if it can be remotely tracked, etc. Of course, there are also questions about specific products, but there are fewer of them and they usually concern well-known brands.
This is why cold calling has stopped working. Customers don't wait for someone to call them. They initiate the purchasing process. If they're planning a purchase or investment, they start with some initial research online. Whether they're a decision-maker in a company or buying something for their home, the first source of information will be the web.
It is estimated that B2B customers acquire 50 to 70% of their product knowledge on their own, before they even meet with a salesperson. You could add that if they ever meet. No matter how good your salespeople are, if your company is not online, the meeting may not even happen. So what can you do to ensure that customers who are doing their research end up with you? Start by understanding them.
Don't give up on analog if it works, but support it with digital activities
Digital marketing activities do not mean that you should abandon traditional tools if they still work. However, it is worth integrating them with digital marketing so that they are part of a single process whose effectiveness you can control.
Example: In the case of a conference, it is worth having the registration and follow-up activities after the conference take place in digital form. This will allow you to send participating clients a digital newsletter, survey, or materials from the meeting.
Generating B2b leads is more about listening and less about talking
No one likes to be flooded with intrusive ads that distract and disrupt their sense of aesthetics. However, there are too many such messages. If you want a customer to notice you, you have to become relevant to them. You have to offer them something that is of value to them. But how do you do that on the Internet? High-quality content works best in this case. It's not about pretty product brochures. It's about sharing knowledge that will be valuable to potential customers.
But how do you know what knowledge will be valuable? There are many ways to answer this question, some are simple, others require a little preparation. Even if you only use these simple methods, you will gain an advantage over most of your competitors. I'm not kidding, most of the companies I observe have never checked what is really important to their customers, what problems they have, what they discuss, what they would like to know.
The first step towards understanding your customers can be taken without major costs.
Tip: Use Google 's Keyword Planner (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) to see if the topics that relate to your business are searched for frequently and what the competition is like in that field.
You can learn a lot of interesting things from it, such as that the words you use to describe your company or offer are very rarely used in searches. For example, instead of "weatherproof phone," potential customers will use "waterproof phone." This allows you to describe your services in language that customers understand, and identify those queries that could lead customers to your website if they find valuable answers.
A very effective, but demanding method is described by Adele Ravella in her book Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insight into your Customer's Expectations, Align your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business. There are also specialized agencies that will be happy to help with such a process.
AdeleRevellaBuyerPersonas
Why am I writing about this? Because the first step in a new lead generation strategy in a company should be to identify what interests potential customers and to prepare content that will make customers land on your website and ultimately become interested in your offer .
In many B2B organizations, marketing functions as if on the sidelines of the company's business life. Sales reports, production explains itself based on results, service also has its own indicators, which it is accounted for, and marketing? I know, I know, not everything can be measured and put into a table, but it would be good to know if marketing in your company or you as a marketer are doing a good job.
In many small and medium-sized enterprises that I know, the marketing department reports directly or indirectly to the sales director. Sometimes their title is changed to sales and marketing directors, which does not make them experienced marketers. I have had dozens of conversations that showed that such people do not fully understand what the marketing department should do and how to evaluate its work. As a marketer, I will break the ice, but I will try to suggest how marketing can help a B2B company and what goals it is worth setting for this team.
