Back to Basics – What is lead generation?
It is the process of educating and creating interest in target prospects for products or services of your business. B2B lead generation is for companies who deal only with other businesses.
Who are the target prospects?
Target prospects are the important stake holders (who are involved in decision making) in the target companies with the potential to purchase your product or services.
Target companies are primarily filtered by:
- Geography
- Target industry – Prioritize the industries as per the market size and growth/penetration possibility
- Annual revenue
- Other custom characteristics
What is a lead?
Lead is a qualified prospect who is interested in buying or knowing more about your product or services. A lead is qualified by asking few qualifying questions set by sales team. Example of the qualifying questions are: When are you planning the purchase? Do you have the budget for this financial year?
Some of the tactical methods of B2B lead generation are:
- Website optimization
- Tele-calling
- Direct mailing
- Event marketing
- Print advertising
- Referrals – Partner, Client
- Email campaigns
- Lead scoring and nurturing
- Internet marketing – SEO, Social Media, Blogging, PPC, Banner Ads,
Who should monitor your campaigns?
Small and mid-sized companies have limited marketing and sales resources. The solution to the management debate, “Who should direct and manage B2B lead generation campaigns?” is an “Inside sales team”. Inside sales teams is responsible for pre-qualifying marketing leads, executing tele-calling campaigns, account profiling and research and finally delivering quality B2B leads to the sales team. An inside sales team needs lot of support in terms of training and campaign messaging from sales and marketing teams. Marketing team needs to make sure that it clearly sets mechanism for messaging approval, offers, campaign response management and campaign tracking. Sales team also needs to make sure that they give proper instructions to inside sales reps for reporting, appointment setting, calendar invite set up and prospect list/CRM management. You can also hire a B2B lead generation services company to manage your campaigns.
Setting goals for campaigns
Monthly/quarterly/yearly targets for qualified leads and inquiries should be set which should be in sync with sales revenue targets. It is important to consider sales cycle length and lead conversion ratio. Based on goals proper B2B lead generation methods should be chosen. Finally, all the marketing and inside sales expenditure should be tracked against set ROI goals.
Finally, 7 steps to generating qualified leads:
- Identify your target prospect
- Set campaign budget and goals
- Decide the method/channel for B2B lead generation
- Develop and design campaign messaging
- Personalize marketing collaterals and special offers
- Set up campaign tracking – Campaign can be tracked using tools such as marketing automation solution, email campaign software or CRM.
- Execute the campaign
