5 Simple Ways You Can Improve B2B Lead Generation & ROI
Leads – everybody wants them, not everyone is getting them and it’s easy to get fixated on them; why not, revenue generation is the lifeblood of your business. Yet when we’re busy, it’s easy to miss a trick and some of those tricks might be a simple change that improves your whole lead generation formula.
There are a number of different challenges that need to be addressed to help get your lead generation on track and the volume of leads might be the motivator, but it’s not the place to start.
Here are 5 ways you can improve your lead generation.
Challenge 1 – Does your messaging show that you understand your ideal client’s pain points and what they need?
You know what it’s like, you respond to marketing that reflects what you need. You want to look like a super hero, so you click on a muscle supplement or you need to improve how you track all your inventory and there’s a software that helps you do that by scanning your stock. Click. Buy.
If people aren’t responding, you need to start with your message and you need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. What do they need? Think practical, operational, financial, time and importantly emotionally. How will your product or service answer what they need? And remember, even if you’re talking about solutions at a business-level, there is a still a human with personal needs that’s making the decision.
Regularly review your messaging as a part of your message. Look wider. What else is going on in the market? What are competitors doing and what are people googling for?
When there’s a benefit or a need (particularly an emotional one) people tend to act. Get this right and you’ll raise the quality and value of your leads and then the process can follow on from that.
Top Tip: Show n Tell! Demonstrate how you’ve solved their problem for other people. Use case studies, testimonials, reviews and how-to guides.
Challenge 2 – Do people know you exist?
Let’s be fair. Advertising and all marketing activity requires investment and B2Bs or small businesses often don’t have the comparatively luxuriant budgets enjoyed by big brand B2Cs.
So, how do you do it? A small business doesn’t have a massive sales team, so you need processes in place to help you get it done.
- B2B – Create and nurture an audience on Linked In: Tools like Dripify can help you build your Linked In connections automatically with follow-ups, allowing you to get on with your day job.
Top tip – segment by business type/need, make it specific and make sure the message sounds like a human and is true. More on that in another post!
Learn more about Dripify> - Use social media messaging to answer their burning needs and to start discussion: These will be in the pain points and needs you’ve uncovered in Challenge 1. Make sure these messages are shared on ALL your channels, web, blogs, socials and newsletters.
Top Tip: Get your team to share your content on their Linked In feeds. - Optimise your website: do the foundation work, make sure your blogs are pages are optimised for SEO and that other channels and referrers have the correct website and business details to refer to.
Your website is also a great source of market data. Use Google Analytics (or similar) to learn which content and products your prospective buyers interact with most and if it’s converting. - TALK to people: call and develop relationships. This is most important for B2B where the age-old pick-up-the-phone strategy still wins through. It’s hard but with the right prep and strategy, it’s easier. For B2C, make sure you have that human connection too. Clients are won and kept through the value of a human relationship. Digital is clever, it can cover more ground but it will never win over human connection.
Challenge 3 – Do you make it easy for people to enquire?
This might seem like a no-brainer but leads get lost easily, like sign-up forms that end up in a black hole and not with sales teams (yes, this really happens). Ideas to make it easier
Automatically channel leads into a contact funnel, so they get automated responses, tasks are sent the relevant people to follow up and they get added to the marketing funnel.
Book a meeting on your email footer (using tools like Calendly).
Chatbot on your website
Calls to Action on content
Telephone numbers that work 🙂
Add other channels they might find easier to use, e.g. What’s App or Facebook Messenger (but make sure they are monitored and/or automated).
Calls to Action on adverts and social media.
Just as importantly, if enquiries are dropping into an inbox, make sure there is a process to follow them up. All too often sales are lost because enquiries simply aren’t followed up. A CRM can make it easier by building automated funnels for follow-ups and assigning tasks to specific people. This can help ensure that none of your hard-earned enquiries are lost through the bottom of a leaky bucket.
Challenge 4 – How do you generate enquiries?
You need a marketing engine. In B2B where your competitors are in constant contact with potential clients, ad-hoc emails twice a year won’t cut it.
The age-old statistic is that potential customers need to see and consume more than 8 pieces of content across all your channels before they consider interacting. Some people now suggest that is now more like 20 touchpoints…
So how do you target cold customers and get them to engage without it seeming like climbing Everest?
Email – properly segmented and cared for data is an important part of your marketing mix but works best with a call follow-up.
New prospects – Try tools like Apollo.io which are brilliant at helping you create lists and do automated targeting for new cold prospects, as well as existing ones.
Make your interaction meaningful – in an online world most people try to swerve interacting before they have to because they don’t want a hard sell before they are ready. Tools like Scoreapp are brilliant because they collect prospect data while delivering value. Scoreapp creates quizzes which can help people identify their business problem and how they can start solving it (with your help of course!). They get a report that shows them where to start.
Do freebies still work? Yes, if they are worth it but you might not have huge buyer intent. You might need to work the relationship for a while.
What about downloads and white papers? Research suggests that the number of whitepaper downloads has fallen. This is probably due to most people being canny that they are giving their data away, and that many downloads weren’t worth the ‘paper’ they were written on.
Should I create educational content? Yes! Whitepapers and educational content fall into the ‘top of the funnel’ category where people are still learning about what they want and need. If you want early stage leads that you can convert, you need these people. It’ll mean you’re not competing for them via PPC at a later date which is a lot more expensive.
Challenge 5 – What’s your system for managing your enquiries and pipeline?
It’s not uncommon for companies to be so fixated on what has to land now, that they lose the value of all the leads generated because they end up cast aside when they don’t convert straightaway. Yes, some leads will be lost but if you’ve done your targeting, segmentation and messaging right, they may come back. To bin the leads is to waste the investment. Build relationships instead.
Use a CRM system to score your leads and schedule follow up for a better time in their buying cycle.
Use email marketing to send personalised emails, newsletters and content to draw your prospect along the buying funnel.
Follow and interact with them on Linked In (there are tools to help make this easier).
Use your CRM system to help you plan strategic and timely phone follow-up to build a relationship.
Review your strategy. Look at the data from your enquiries. Why are some leads not converting? What can you learn and change regarding your product, service, messaging or sales process to generate an improved conversion rate?
You Need a Marketing Plan & System
In an understandable desire for revenue it’s easy to be hynotised by needing a large volume of leads but if your process is up to scratch, and your targeting is delivering ‘qualified’ leads, you’ll start achieving higher conversion rates and reduce the cost of sale. Your marketing plan should include a system that means you’re not having to manually manage every step.
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