Monthly Archives: October 2020

Lead generation can be simplified by changing the approach and by taking a few steps backward to analyse some of the underlying and subtle factors that could be working against your goals. Looking closely may help, and you may be surprised to find out how some of the not-so-obvious factors can actually play an important role in converting leads.

In one of our recent blogs, we talked about ‘Reasons why B2B Marketing leads fail to convert.’ This blog talks about some more reasons that could be responsible for failed lead conversions.

Lack of quick response:

The market situation is unpredictable, the competition is tougher than ever before and the customer is digitally active and well aware of what he wants and where to get it from. In this situation the last thing any B2B marketer would want to do is a late response to the customer. Any delayed response can lead to lesser conversion.

If you respond immediately you will most likely be able to keep the customer in the loop and retain his interest and thus successfully engage him

Being prompt is as good as converting a lead, so that way you could only be a response away from converting a lead! And it’s true because a response will not only impress the customer, but further encourage him to communicate and even be interested in setting up a meeting. This is the golden chance every b2b marketing person would wait on for and a quick response might just do the trick.

Inefficient lead nurturing

• Lead nurture emails get a higher response as much as between 4 to 10 times (source: DemandGen)
• Companies that do focused lead nurturing have 50% more chances of generating sales-ready leads that convert (source: Forrester research)

These figures are proof that lead nurturing is a quintessential strategy for converting leads and why not? Any sales person who is adept and is aware of the sales and market climate would know that nurturing is indirectly about acquiring sales, because at the end of the day it’s all about building long term relationships.

Any lack in nurturing is pushing the customer away rather than taking him forward towards conversion

Nurturing gives the scope for any sales team to develop a rapport, offer what the client needs in terms of outstanding content and other offers and keep at it proactively to maintain interest and further engage the lead. Many marketers have a tendency to focus on the top of the funnel that can definitely produce positive results; however if you want the results to keep coming in consistently; then focusing on nurturing the leads is the way to go about it.

Inflexible price models:

This is probably the non-negotiable part of the sales deal; but it can change the game if the prices are made agile and are customized as per the lead and as per the need to convert the lead.

Having price models that are inflexible can make a customer go to your competitor who might be offering the same service at a different price. This is where customization plays a vital role and a flexible price model will definitely help you convert more leads. 

Apart from the above, there are other reasons such as producing high quality content in a strategic manner, having at least a few highly experienced sales people in the team who have dealt with different types of customers earlier and can guide the team for better results etc. These things can change the way you convert leads and the way you do sales.

Conclusion:

Each business is unique and each customer wants something different. Agility and versatility plays a big role when it comes to sales success. There isn’t a better time for cultivating long term relationships by being empathetic than it is now. So, as a marketer you can make the best of this opportunity and tune into your own strategies in a better way to see where things can be fixed for better results.

Everyone knows how effective email marketing can be a boon to B2B sales and marketing. While there are number of ways to optimize email marketing; it is the finer details that one needs to look at to make email marketing really work for any b2b organization.

This blog discusses some of the best ways to leverage the power of this email marketing channel to augment b2b sales.

B2B can get increasingly challenging at times; especially when the need to get more and more good leads increases over a period of time. Owing to the changing climate of the market and the complexities of B2B; marketers should avoid making the mistake of putting all the eggs into one basket when it comes to creating a strategy. The plan should be to take into account several touch points to make the plan work while creating a more comprehensive sales and marketing strategy.

Email marketing is instrumental in creating positive sales results and more and more marketers are keen on using it:

• 35% of marketers choose to send 3 to 4 emails every week to their customers
• An average of 80% of marketers have experienced an increased email engagement in the past 12 months
• By the year 2024 the average email users across the globe is estimated to increase to a whopping 4.48 billion users (according  to research from Statista, 2019)

Here’s how you can make the best out of your email marketing campaign:

Define the ideal target customer:

This is one of the best ways to start off any of your email marketing campaigns. It’s creating a strong foundation to facilitate a smooth take off. If there’s any ambiguity in this area; chances are that it might hamper the results of your email marketing campaign. Hence having maximum clarity in knowing and defining an ideal customer is the first step towards effective email marketing

This can help in many ways:

1. You can effectively segment lists for your campaign for better results

2. Having a clearly defined ideal target customer list is a great opportunity to personalize all your e-mailers and communication. Giving them exactly what they might be looking for with relevant offers and services can increase your chances of getting your customers engaged and also for creating long-term relationships

3. Addressing key pain points and challenges to provide specific solutions and thereby creating good leads that convert

Segmenting your email lists:

Segmented email lists always bring on the best results when it comes to creating successful email marketing campaigns. Segmenting always increases the relevancy with appropriate customization. It further breaks down the list into sub-sections to make it more specific and thus helping you to narrow down the list for better results. The sub-sections can be based on various segments of the industry, the role of the decision maker etc.

Conclusion:

There are various techniques of email marketing that can help you accelerate sales or even reduce your sales cycle. But a lot also depends upon your business goals and how you want to align your email marketing campaign with your business goals.

Lead generation has evolved and so have the customers. Each customer is different and therefore marketers today have to tailor or customize their sales and marketing strategies with the needs of the evolving customer.

There are number of reasons why certain b2b marketing leads do not convert and the answers are deep-rooted at times. A deeper analysis of each and every aspect of your sales and marketing plan can reveal the solution.

Here are a few reasons that throw light on the factors that can be responsible for the failure of lead conversion and how you can fix them.

Broken Landing pages and lack of call-to-action:

Lead generation is a team work in the sense that there are various elements that are working in the background that are responsible directly and indirectly for both success and failure of lead gen. A more comprehensive sales strategy almost always works in favor of the results of lead generation and amid other crucial elements of lead gen such lead nurturing, use of right content etc. landing pages and call to action can make or break a deal too.

As much as the site architecture is important; a flawless landing page never fails to impress the prospect. After all, a landing page is like a launch pad for your prospective buyer and a golden opportunity for you to convert those who have chosen to land on your page. A malfunctioned or broken landing page will only  give the impression that you are using outdated services and are not investing enough in your own products  and services, thereby making them assume that you would probably fail in delivering results to them too.

A call-to-action is actually going to reduce the sales cycle. How? Well, your call-to-action is going to encourage your prospect into taking a quick action or make a quick buying decision. Hence having a strong call to action is a must for leads to convert.

Less elaborate data:

A lot of marketers have had to give up their dream of having good leads and having good leads convert because of their broken or lack of quality data. If you have done everything in your capacity to get those leads converted without success; then the problem might be in the data. The more intricate and elaborate data you have; the better the results! In B2B; the data is pivotal when it comes to lead generation; because it’s really worth knowing your audience well.

Incorrect buyer Personas:

If your data is incorrect it will naturally affect the buyer persona details. Buyer persona is paramount in all communication or in any lead generation strategy. Personas are used not just for direct sales activity but also for creating various other entities such as the collaterals, content, communication, landing pages and much more. Therefore a very well-defined persona is almost like a foundation to a rock-solid lead gen campaign and demand gen strategy. In order to engage with sales rep effectively; one needs to have accurate buyer persona. One can have a great mix of fiction-based and fact-based persona that can lead to a better response.

Conclusion:

This may not look like the most obvious reason; but disconnect between sales and marketing can be one of the other crucial reasons why the leads may not be converting into business. Many more reasons can affect your efforts, so it’s best to have a comprehensive analysis to fix things on many fronts for better lead generation results.

Amid all the changes in the market, what has also predominantly changed is the buying process of the customer. With most businesses operating virtually and leveraging tools to have a better outreach; the customer too seems to have adopted new ways of buying and purchasing. Today’s customers are not only tech-savvy; they are also very well aware of what they want and they have ample amount of information available on digital platforms to a make a well informed decision.

Today’s customers make their buying decisions way before their first contact or communication with you! This means that as a marketer and a lead generation evangelist; you need to know the customer journey very well and have enough data with you about the customer to help him navigate and encourage him to make a purchase from you.

This is where the best lead generation tactics help! This blog discusses 3 such practices that will sway the customers towards buying from you.

1. Accurate Buyer Persona:

Since we talk about customers and how to sway them into the direction that you want them to while making the buying decisions; the first question you need to ask yourself is, are you well equipped with the right knowledge based on strong data support about a particular buyer persona. And the answer to this should be a definitive yes if you want to succeed in lead generation.  When you know what to offer to your buyer personas and when they realize that you know them well; they will most likely prefer to make the purchase from you.

2. Perfect identification of success metrics:

Your past lead generation strategies and most importantly the results, offer you an opportunity to fully know where you are headed and if the direction you are headed is right or wrong. The metrics and the analysis can give you a deep insight into what’s working and what’s not!

So how do you measure the success of your lead gen campaign?

There are several ways to do that. One of them is identifying the organic traffic; something that can help you to understand how many people have found you rather than you having to find them. There are also other ways to measure the effectiveness of your efforts such as the cost per lead, bounce rate, click through rate etc. These are small entities that have the power to define the bigger picture when it comes to lead generation.

3.Clear Objectives and Goals:

This one probably comes first, but sometimes when you have outlined the process or a roadmap, it’s always best to go back to the pre-defined objectives that you have outlined at the beginning of the process. This helps in perfectly aligning each step of the process with the goals.

Having clear and well-defined goals is highly essential for successful lead generation. So having clarity about what exactly do I want to achieve out of this campaign, what numbers am I looking at to be able to say I am achieving what I set out to achieve, how is my strategy road map aligned with the objectives, are the sales and marketing teams on the same page, are the goals and processes in-line with the budgetary allotment, is the management agreeing with the goals and how much time do I have to reach my goals.

These are critical questions and the answers to these questions is the best strategy you will ever have, as it will help give you a more realistic picture of the lead generation goals that you would be striving hard for to achieve!

Conclusion:

Best practices can be different for different organizations, but if you make sure the above three practices are a part of your lead gen campaigns; you can be sure of the results.