“Traditional demand generation…just simply isn’t working,” writes Joe Hyland in The State of B2B Lead Generation 2019[1].
Gone is the belief that increasing leads will pave an inevitable path to sales and revenue. Today’s marketers must acknowledge that B2B buyers switch off to “automated spam”, become irritated by lax data cleansing and prefer to research their purchase options in private. Coupled with the new responsibilities imposed by GDPR and a seemingly ever-growing number of decision makers to satisfy, lead generation is one of the biggest challenges facing B2B marketing.
B2B Lead Generation Guide
That’s why Think Beyond’s CIM backed marketers have put together the following B2B lead generation short guide. Let us take you through the what, why and how you can create a lead generation strategy that works for you, your team and your business’ bottom line.
Prefer to speak with a member of the Think Beyond team direct? Call 01565 632206 for a friendly, no obligation chat.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation (or lead gen for short) is the means by which a business generates interest in their products and/or services. Fuelled by top-of-the funnel marketing activities, lead generation’s aim is to initiate contact opportunities in order to collect prospect data and hopefully convert this data into sales won deals.
Driving traffic to your website via Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising – that’s lead generation; sharing blog posts on social media – that’s lead generation, exhibiting at a business expo – that’s lead generation too. The examples of lead generation abound and are not limited to a particular medium, channel or device.
Why you need to invest in a B2B lead gen strategy
The importance of lead generation lies in creating a strong sales and marketing pipeline.
A successful B2B lead generation approach will help you to not only attract leads but to attract the type of leads that matter most to your business, matching that all-important quality with quantity to deliver a premium ROI. Within competitive markets, such as technology, this could mean the difference between break-even, profit or exceeding targets.
Combining lead generation with an effective lead scoring strategy and lead nurture programme as part of your lead management can also accelerate your conversion rate and increase revenue.
How can I drive more quality leads to my business?
To increase your leads, take a look at these B2B lead generation best practices:
Know your audience
Have you defined your buyer personas? Who is your ideal customer? Personalise your content to answer how your product or service answers a particular pain point for your audience.
Make use of technology
Live chat and chatbots can help your business achieve 24/7 availability and capture leads no matter what time of day or night.
Invest in CRM
Consolidate prospect data and automate your lead nurturing strategy across channels to achieve the right time, right content, right prospect mix.
Examine the basics
Is your call to action prominent? Is your telephone number clearly displayed? A broken button on a form or a missing number can spell disaster for your digital acquisition plans. Similarly, ensure you have ample contact opportunities throughout your website such as pop-up windows or footer forms.
Utilise lead magnets
Add data capture to downloadable content such as whitepapers, e-books and video.
Let Think Beyond help take your lead generation plans further
Estimates show that 50% of B2B marketers are set to increase their budgets for online lead generation over the next 12 months[2]. This is despite only 47% of companies believing that they have a clear understanding of ROI based on sales data[3]. Yes, less than half of businesses are able to articulate their marketing return on investment to demonstrate a lead’s worth.
At best this inability to calculate MROI could lead to inefficient spend, at worst it could set in motion a total marketing budget cut.
The right approach
Think Beyond is a marketing management consultancy that aims to offer a true marketing ROI. Our Chartered Marketers help businesses across Cheshire, Manchester, the North West and beyond. Take control of your sales strategy and budget with science-backed marketing solutions that can be tracked and measured according to the metrics that matter to your business.
Think Beyond provide full sales and marketing strategy support to maximise your conversion rate. Our range of services include: sales funnel identification and analysis, marketing training workshops, sales and marketing alignment, sales enablement and lead generation.
Contact Think Beyond today
Find out how Think Beyond can help support your business development by calling 01565 632206.
Similarly, you can request a free 1 hour marketing consultation by completing our contact form.
Finally, check our range of marketing training workshops or read what our clients have to say about working with Think Beyond by viewing our testimonials.