Monthly Archives: September 2022

Having more leads isn’t always a good thing if those leads aren’t good leads! One of the most crucial things in B2B lead generation is to be able to tell a good lead from a bad lead. This is important because if you can distinguish between good and bad leads, it can save you a lot of time, efforts and costs.

So what are the advantages of identifying good leads?

• Utilize the time and efforts of resources in the right direction
• You can invest time in nurturing the good leads with good results
• It’s easier to convert good leads into business quickly
• You can shorten the sales cycle
• Utilize data to decide the strategy ahead
• You can achieve good and expected ROI as per your plan

How to tell the difference between good leads and bad leads?

Good leads are more prepared to buy from you or they at least have shown some interest in your services. If a prospect has downloaded a content asset and is further interested in contacting you, it could be a good lead. On the other hand if a prospect has only visited your website or only downloaded the content asset but hasn’t taken any further action or isn’t responding to your communication, it may be a bad lead.

Having more leads isn’t always the best thing to happen if the leads aren’t good leads or even worse, if the leads are bad leads. Getting those quality leads into the funnel is one of the biggest challenges of lead generation. If you get bad leads into the funnel, then you may end up spending millions of dollars on bad leads and waste your time and efforts in nurturing them with no results.

Here are some ways to get those good leads into the funnel-

Focus on the buyer persona-

You have to generate good leads and the first step is to know the prospect very well. You must create the ideal customer profile and focus on the buyer personas. This will help you to create the right messaging for your leads. If you send the right offers and messages to leads, you are actually generating good leads. If you offer them what they are looking for, you can then generate interest and these leads will then respond to you thus becoming the good leads.

Nurture leads-

Nurturing them with the right content assets and messaging is an important step in creating good leads and driving those leads into the sales funnel.

Nurture them with email marketing and initiate response to generate good leads. Generate demand for the leads which are not able to take a decision on their own. These leads need hand-holding and some help in identifying the best solutions for their challenges. Be their guide, advisor and problem solver.

The MQL factor-

MQLs or Marketing Qualified Leads are already qualified to be in the funnel and these are most definitely the good leads that are ready to be Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). MQLs need nurturing and even though they are likely to buy from you, eventually they may or may not. Hence one must also focus on SQLs as they are most likely to convert into business.

Conclusion-

It is not very difficult to tell the good leads from the bad ones and if you use the above techniques it will reduce your lead generation challenges. You can also assign values to leads; segment the audience, implement lead scoring to create more possibilities of lead conversion.

In today’s digitized world, buyers have multiple options to choose from when it comes to finding solutions and selecting vendors. They are ready to move on if they do not get the perfect solution to their problems and they also rely on their own research to reach a buying decision. In such a scenario, B2B marketers need to up their lead generation and demand generation game and make it more buyer-driven.

Orchestrating your multi-channel hustle could be a way to get those leads into the funnel. You can ramp up your ABM strategies, focusing on content syndication to amplify your chances to be a known brand to the niche` audience and other things could also pave way to more leads and conversions in B2B. But nothing will work at its best if it’s not buyer-driven.

Your leads are your customers who decide the fate of your business. So as a B2B marketer, aligning your solutions with customer needs and making all your marketing efforts buyer-driven can help you to create more sustainable results with long term benefits.

So how does one create buyer-driven strategies?

Data is the one thing that can help you to adopt a buyer-driven strategic approach for better results. Poor quality leads is the result of poor quality data!

Duplicate data, invalid formatting, lack of email validation, siloed data are some of the common factors that can affect lead generation and demand generation. Lead data management is the need of the time.

Data can help you to understand the prospect and his needs, where he comes from, what are his core pain-points and what kind of a solution he is looking for. Without this clarity it is difficult to feed good leads into the funnel.

With good and verified data it is easy for marketers to segment the leads. You can even implement BANT more effectively and categorize leads as per their budget, authority, need and timing. This is an important step in lead qualification.

Data can also help enhancing the quality of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL). If you hand over the right MQLs to the sales team, they can qualify to be the type of SQLs that can convert quickly into business. This has an impact over the sales cycle and over revenue generation.

Quality of data is the precursor on which you can build your successful lead generation and accelerate sales and revenue.

Conclusion-

Data verification, data management and data optimization are the three pillars of successful lead generation and demand generation in today’s crowded and digitized world. Better leads will make your customers happy and you can develop long term business relationships with them. In short, data can help you to create sustainable lead generation business which can ease the challenges of B2B marketers.

It’s never too early to plan your next lead generation strategy. Converting leads into business is the one goal of B2B. To make it easy and less challenging, marketers can plan ahead and create workable lead generation strategies by analyzing the past and present trends and also continuing with the strategies that have worked best so far.

Let us check some lead generation trends that will continue to prevail and drive more sales in 2023.

B2B marketers focus on MQLs and SQLs when it comes to converting leads. Marketing efforts drive MQLs and these leads are then passed on to Sales. SQLs are leads that have shown enough interest in your services and are ready to talk and engage in making a buying decision. Lead generation isn’t a one-size-fits-all process and it needs to be customized or tailored to suit the type of business. Here are some top techniques that will continue to reign in 2023 and can impact the goals of most B2B businesses.

Content

Content is the fuel for lead generation. Today, with the right messaging and content assets you can attract, delight and engage customers. It is one of the best tools you can use to build robust relationships with prospects.

B2B market has already seen the importance and critical role of content in the past few years and it continues to stay at the top of the list when it comes to attracting and nurturing leads into business.

Get the best resources onboard and create outstanding content that is relevant to your audience, Create meaningful and helpful content through e-books, white papers, infographics, email content and you can attract leads and generate demand too.

You can create content for each stage of the funnel as the interest level of the target audience in each stage of the funnel varies. Understand the prospect and generate content that will interest them and eventually drive them to making the buying decision.

Social media-

We have said this before and we are saying it again- Leverage the power of social media and optimize its use as per your target audience. When in B2B, enhance your presence and online interactions through LinkedIn. Make sure you are using the channel or platform that aligns with your business type and audience. You can continue to engage through social media posts, sharing insights, infographics, sharing downloadable assets and building effective social media communication skills and networking. It can have an impact on the long term business relations that you can develop through conversational marketing and influencing your target audience through insights. Have a comprehensive strategy that can work the best for your business.

Trade Shows-

It’s a comeback of sorts for trade shows and face to face interactions and it is already showing a positive impact on sales for B2B companies. Though trade shows are catching up slowly, this must definitely be on the top of the list of strategies for B2B sales and leads now and in the near future.

Before your competitors meet your target audience you need to grab the opportunity to be present in trade shows and interact face to face with your prospects to delight and engage them.

Conclusion

As we move on to the next half of 2022, it’s important to analyze and monitor the past and present outcomes of lead generation campaigns and also know the upcoming trends, the dynamics of the market and what your competitors are up to. These insights will help you carve a stronger and more result-oriented lead generation strategy for the coming year and more.