The well-known web resource Marketo claims that only 4% of site visitors are ready to make a purchase right away. In our opinion, this is a very low indicator. Is it possible to somehow boost it? Our marketing experts say ‘yes’ and insist on the important role of the correct b2b lead generation campaign. Let’s learn how to create such campaigns.
What Channels Can You Use In B2B Lead Generation Campaigns?
Typically, in traditional b2b lead generation strategies, marketers use the following channels:
- Google Adwords campaigns;
- SMM;
- website ads;
- landing pages;
- targeted ads;
- presentations, exhibitions, and other events;
- email marketing;
- media;
- SEO;
- telemarketing;
- blogs and forums.
What channels are the most effective for outside sales?
Some of these channels demonstrate great efficiency in attracting potential customers for outside sales, and some are hopelessly outdated (for example, telemarketing). Below, we’ll explain to you how to engage the best techniques using email, mail, social media, and telephone channels.
Cold Email Campaign: Cheap and Сheerful
Cold emailing is one of the best and cheapest b2b lead generation methods. You should do your best to bypass the spam folder and end up in the inbox of the receiving end.
Now let’s look at a few steps to create an effective cold emailing list:
- business leads selection. Before sending out cold emails, you should build the potential customers list and avoid the addresses that might automatically put these letters into the spam folder. Therefore, the process optimization will consist of setting up targeting and filtering by topic and location. To get potential customer data, just use social networks (for example, LinkedIn);
- letters personalization. To ensure a high rate of opened emails, you need to personalize them. For instance, the letter should be written in the most unobtrusive format, without direct advertising context. Also, you should understand that the email opening rate depends on the subject of the letter since this is the first thing that the recipient sees. It’s best to include the recipient name and the company name in the topic. Be short, polite, ask questions, and try to stimulate curiosity;
- call to action setting. Just sending a letter is not effective. You need to urge the prospect to take certain actions. That’s why each letter should have a specific purpose. This can be a callback or an email response. This strategy is implemented through hyper-personalized emails that include a call to action in each part of the email and explain why customers should take these actions;
- no templates. You can hardly expect positive results by sending the same email to thousands of potential customers – this creates a negative impression. On the other hand, sending a personalized email to every lead is inefficient and time-consuming. Therefore, the best solution is to add personalized fields to the letter template, such as recipient’s name, company name, and industry vertical. This makes your clients feel like you care about them by analyzing their tastes. Subsequently, this increases their interest in your product.
The major thing to watch out for in any email marketing campaign and related newsletter is the email deliverability rates. It indicates whether potential leads and customers receive your offers and see they are about at all. To check and manage email deliverability in the most efficient way possible, use Folderly – a specialized deliverability optimizing software tool.Â
LinkedIn: Social Network for Career and Business Professionals
Today, it’s not enough just to know your customer’s name. You also need to know the name of his or her company, their occupation, interests, etc. Social media and especially LinkedIn are a great source of personalization.
There, you can learn enough about potential customers to create the correct strategy for attracting them. That’s why you should track b2b leads accounts, react to their activity on social networks, comment on the same posts on LinkedIn, etc., use other social networks (Facebook, Twitter) to collect as much information as possible.
Telephone Communication: Remembering the Good Old Days
When implementing this strategy, you call your TA representatives and attract them as customers with the help of pre-prepared scripts.
You will probably even need to expand your sales department and open two new divisions:
- call center or cold call specialists;
- sales managers.
To save the budget of the company, you can put newbies on cold calls who will follow the previously written algorithm of actions. Even if you have high staff turnover, it will be easier and faster for a new employee to delve into work processes with such scripts.
This approach helps to optimize workflows for managers because they do not waste their energy and potential on cold calls. Instead of this, they start working with already interested potential customers. At the same time, they get additional possibilities for more detailed client analysis. Thanks to this, the chances to make a deal successfully increase.
Paper Mailing: Maximum Unobtrusiveness
Companies still use paper mailing for the b2b lead generation, even though this may seem like an outdated marketing channel. Here’s what you need to do to generate leads in such a way:
- target your campaigns. Paper mailing principles are very similar to those of email marketing. On the other hand, it is very important to select the right groups of potential customers to avoid ineffectual activities (there are groups that never check their inbox at all);
- give clear instructions. It is important that customers who receive mailings understand that you present an online business, and they have the opportunity to interact with your representatives further;
- make your newsletter visually attractive. Appearance for direct mail is very important. Thus, when creating a flyer, coupon, or leaflet, make sure you use quality paper material and professional printing services.
- measure, test, improve, repeat. Good marketing always requires regular performance measurement and testing, improvement, and repetition. This means that you probably need special tools to monitor the effectiveness of the particular channel to attract leads. As for the parameters you need to measure, business and web analytics have their own criteria. Web analytics is rated according to the following metrics:
- number of views and clicks;
- time the user stayed on the site;
- quantity of pages the user visited on the site;
- number of abandoned clients;
- click-through rate;
- conversion rate and others.
Business efficiency is determined by other parameters:Â
- the number of registrations;
- calls through social networks and by phone;
- the number of questions asked about the price, etc.Â
Pre-Targeting: a Decent Alternative to Retargeting
Pre-targeting is a more sophisticated alternative to retargeting. Instead of creating marketing offers based on the analyzed customer portrait, it allows predicting the TA preferences. In particular, this approach helps to determine which users want to purchase the product or service that you provide, and who is interested in your eCommerce website.
Data required for pre-targeting is collected in almost the same way as in the case of retargeting. Only the end result is different: while retargeting is about ads created on behalf of your website, pre-targeting consists of advertising campaigns development based on the topics of sites that have already been visited by a specific consumer.
B2B Lead Generation Techniques: Conclusion
As you can see, cold email, LinkedIn, phone calls, paper mailing, and pre-targeting can greatly increase the percentage of real buyers to the total number of all visitors to your website.
If you are interested in the services of one of the best European lead generation companies – contact us at  Belkins. We look forward to new cooperation opportunities!