#lead_generation_process

B2B lead generation is the beginning of the sales process where the consumer starts to exhibit some interest in services or products offered by a business. Therefore, a lead is an individual or an organization that has the ability to become a customer. Lead generation can be understood as the initiation of the buying cycle. However, whether or not the prospect converts into a customer depends largely on how they are handled along the way, which is why it is important to qualify a lead before pursuing them.

Qualifying a Lead

Lead qualification parameters will be different for each organization. It is recommended that you must have a system that will help you to identify the potential of each lead and differentiate them accordingly. Here are some guidelines to help you qualify a lead:

·         Define your customer qualities.

·         Have a system in place to track their browsing behavior and conversations.

·         Take a close look at hurdles that are preventing them from converting.

·         Identify their preferred communication channels.

·         Collect all the data at one place for better analysis and engagement.

What changes to make in lead generation strategy in 2019?

The era of digital marketing is upon us and every sunrise sees something new in the business landscape. The rate at which advancement is occurring has changed the whole marketing process and hence, b2b lead generation companies have to change their strategies too. Here are a few suggestions to help you stay at the top of your game in 2019.

1.     Improve your communication strategy.

Marketing is all about how better you communicate. An effective lead generation process benefits significantly if you have a seamless communication process in place. The modern-day communication requires live interaction. A good tool to achieve the same is live chat support or video call or co-browsing facility.

 2.     Focus on Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

There is hardly any business in the modern world that is not using a CRM system. It is one of the vital requirements for any business to flourish today. CRM is a multi-layered system that makes it easier to track leads and opportunities. A typical CRM will include customer satisfaction, response, needs, loyalty, retention, and service.

 3.     Do not ignore email marketing.

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing and B2B lead generation. It is one strategy that has stood the test of time. Some marketers still consider it the most effective tool for acquiring and nurturing leads. Data accumulated over the time suggests the same. It is one of the best lead generation and nurturing tools and used together with a CRM, it brings exceptional results.

 4.     Organize speaking events.

Some industry experts believe that speaking events are the most effective psychological tool for lead generation. Therefore, it is suggested that you organize your own speaking event to interact with your audience. However, it must offer something of value like a new product launch, new changes to your brand, or some important announcements. Also, make sure you don’t take up much of others’ time.

 5.     Diversify your content marketing efforts.

Content is the basis of almost all your B2B lead generation strategies. Users only buy content that is well-researched and valuable. In addition to making your content informative and valuable, diversify the type of content that you create. This means you need to create more than social media posts or advertisements. Create webinars, videos, infographics, and slideshares.

 6.     Use support instead of sales.

Another effective strategy to improve your lead generation efforts is to replace the sales by support. For instance, instead of sending promotional content, choose co-browsing and help your customers make an informed decision. This strategy has proved to improve sales statistics considerably.

Lead generation has always been there in the business world. While it was subtle before the internet era, it has taken relatively a fierce form lately. Businesses of all sizes are actively deploying lead generation strategies to boost their profits.

What is it about lead generation in the world of late that makes it critical to business growth? In this article, we will briefly discuss reasons that make lead generation a must-have for any business. Albeit, each business is different and so are their lead generation strategies, there are few basic targets that remain the same for businesses of all types and sizes.

1.     Helps prospects know your brand

Actively using the lead generation strategies increases the visibility of your brand and more people come to know about it. Brand awareness is successful when you are well known within the target markets. In simple words, lead generation enables the customers to think of you when they are about to make a purchase in your product category. Increased brand awareness means a bigger customer base and therefore, more profit potential and brand value. Also, it educates and informs your prospects about your products and how it fulfills their needs.

2.     Better ROI and profits

A huge amount of investment is made by the B2B marketers for lead generation. The reason that over half of the marketing budget goes into lead generation is that it results in increased sales, profits, and a positive ROI. Statistics suggest that businesses that tap into the benefits offered by lead generation strategies are more likely to turn leads into customers. This leads to an increase in profits and a better ROI.

3.     Easy to target desired customers

Using lead generation tactics, it becomes relatively easier to target your desired audience. You can choose to pursue your customers from different demographic locations, sex, age groups, and other factors. This refines your strategy by differentiating a clear target audience. Therefore, you are in control of deciding how and what to do in order to make more sales.

4.     Less expensive than other modes of advertisements

Lead generation is comparatively cheaper than other modes of advertisements. While most advertisements are broad, lead generation is a marketing strategy that is convenient, cost-effective, and more result-oriented. It’s refined and researched methodology makes it better than conventional advertising.

5.     Benefits seller and buyer alike

While the seller has the benefit of reaching out to their desired audience and promote their products, the lead generation strategies present the buyers with the best of products and services in the market. Further, they can have detailed information on the products and services they want to buy. For sellers, it makes them look more credible and people are more likely to buy from a company that is easily giving out the information.

6.     Increases your online presence

You can count on lead generation strategies to increase your online presence significantly. When a B2B marketer is deploying lead generation strategies for you, he will make sure that he exploits all available channels, both online and offline. In a bid to reach your target audience, a huge amount of content is promoted across all social media channels and other modes of online communication.

7.     Increased number of conversions

All the benefits listed above ultimately lead to the one benefit that all businesses want out of their marketing strategies – the increased number of conversions. When lead generation is successful in establishing your brand and its credibility, your prospects are highly likely to convert to customers and the existing customers have better chances of staying with you. More conversions mean more sales and a successful business.

Lead generation has always been there in the business world. While it was subtle before the internet era, it has taken relatively a fierce form lately. Businesses of all sizes are actively deploying lead generation strategies to boost their profits.

What is it about lead generation in the world of late that makes it critical to business growth? In this article, we will briefly discuss reasons that make lead generation a must-have for any business. Albeit, each business is different and so are their lead generation strategies, there are few basic targets that remain the same for businesses of all types and sizes.

1.     Helps prospects know your brand

Actively using the lead generation strategies increases the visibility of your brand and more people come to know about it. Brand awareness is successful when you are well known within the target markets. In simple words, lead generation enables the customers to think of you when they are about to make a purchase in your product category. Increased brand awareness means a bigger customer base and therefore, more profit potential and brand value. Also, it educates and informs your prospects about your products and how it fulfills their needs.

 2.     Better ROI and profits

A huge amount of investment is made by the B2B marketers for lead generation. The reason that over half of the marketing budget goes into lead generation is that it results in increased sales, profits, and a positive ROI. Statistics suggest that businesses that tap into the benefits offered by lead generation strategies are more likely to turn leads into customers. This leads to an increase in profits and a better ROI.

 3.     Easy to target desired customers

Using lead generation tactics, it becomes relatively easier to target your desired audience. You can choose to pursue your customers from different demographic locations, sex, age groups, and other factors. This refines your strategy by differentiating a clear target audience. Therefore, you are in control of deciding how and what to do in order to make more sales.

 4.     Less expensive than other modes of advertisements

Lead generation is comparatively cheaper than other modes of advertisements. While most advertisements are broad, lead generation is a marketing strategy that is convenient, cost-effective, and more result-oriented. It’s refined and researched methodology makes it better than conventional advertising.

 5.     Benefits seller and buyer alike

While the seller has the benefit of reaching out to their desired audience and promote their products, the lead generation strategies present the buyers with the best of products and services in the market. Further, they can have detailed information on the products and services they want to buy. For sellers, it makes them look more credible and people are more likely to buy from a company that is easily giving out the information.

6.     Increases your online presence

You can count on lead generation strategies to increase your online presence significantly. When a B2B marketer is deploying lead generation strategies for you, he will make sure that he exploits all available channels, both online and offline. In a bid to reach your target audience, a huge amount of content is promoted across all social media channels and other modes of online communication.

 7.     Increased number of conversions

All the benefits listed above ultimately lead to the one benefit that all businesses want out of their marketing strategies – the increased number of conversions. When lead generation is successful in establishing your brand and its credibility, your prospects are highly likely to convert to customers and the existing customers have better chances of staying with you. More conversions mean more sales and a successful business.

B2B lead generation is a hot topic in the business world. The modern businesses are expanding their efforts and deploying new strategies to make the most of it. No one strategy is the best as the results differ from one organization to the other. It is for the organizations to experiment and find out what works the best for them. However, there are a few tactics that you can use to improve the outcome of the strategies you have been using. Here are a few tips for you to take note of, in order to take your business to a new level in 2019.

1.     Add or update CTAs

Call-to-action (CTAs) are very useful in content optimization. Adding or updating the existing CTA can increase your reach. Ideally, your CTAs should ask the consumers to sign up, share, or follow. Here are some tips to make the most of your CTAs:

·         Pin the CTA to the screen so that it moves as you scroll.

·         The decision-making should be limited and it should ask the prospect to act immediately.

·         Use catchy but short text on the button that describes the action it would lead to like ‘submit’, ‘download the whitepaper’, etc.

·         Lastly, visual clues pointing towards the CTAs can help in directing the viewers’ attention.

 2.     SlideShare can help

SlideShare hosting service has been around for a while now and businesses, as well as individuals, use it to upload presentations that need to be shared online. It has been found that over two-thirds of the traffic on SlideShare comes from targeted searches on search engines. Here are a few tips to score leads from SlideShare.

·         Keep the headline bold and insert relevant visuals.

·         Prefer the content to be search engine optimized.

·         Lesser words, more pictures.

·         No more than one idea on one slide. Use charts and diagrams to elaborate.

 3.     Make the best of exit-intent pop-ups

Instead of an immediate pop-up when a person visits your website, place it very strategically and preferably, at the exit. This keeps the visitors warm and doesn’t make them panic. Also, here are a few things to consider:

·         Let them choose between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’.

·         Prefer the simple CTAs with minimal visuals or text.

·         Responsive designs drive more actions.

·         Measure your results.

 4.     Premium content should be gated

The content like infographics, whitepapers, and eBooks should be gated. This means that people should give contact details in order to get access to this content. A few tips with making the most of your gate content:

·         Deploy intelligent form and do not give too many repeat fill-out requests.

·         Prefer an SEO optimized landing page.

·         Once a visitor gets through after registering and downloading, display a ‘Thank you’ message.

 5.     Improve the quality of your content

Existing content needs to be given a new life by upgrading it to the best version and making it search optimized. Further, bundle the content for different channels. Here’s what you can do:

·         Make use of a good blog post to start a conversation in LinkedIn groups.

·         Make good articles into an eBook that is available on your landing page.

·         Use social media statistics to expand your audience.

 6.     A personalized direct email campaign can go a long way

Nothing hits customers more than a personalized email. Use it to get in touch with your new and existing customers. Also, you may want to reach out to someone who has worked with you in the past. A few tips that will make this effort better:

·         Differentiate customers on the basis of their buying patterns and the time lapsed.

·         Create target lists with messages customized just for them.

·         Provide an incentive if they contact you back.

·         Customer service should deal with them as if your company already knows them well.

B2B lead generation is a hot topic in the business world. The modern businesses are expanding their efforts and deploying new strategies to make the most of it. No one strategy is the best as the results differ from one organization to the other. It is for the organizations to experiment and find out what works the best for them. However, there are a few tactics that you can use to improve the outcome of the strategies you have been using. Here are a few tips for you to take note of, in order to take your business to a new level in 2019.

1.     Add or update CTAs

Call-to-action (CTAs) are very useful in content optimization. Adding or updating the existing CTA can increase your reach. Ideally, your CTAs should ask the consumers to sign up, share, or follow. Here are some tips to make the most of your CTAs:

·         Pin the CTA to the screen so that it moves as you scroll.

·         The decision-making should be limited and it should ask the prospect to act immediately.

·         Use catchy but short text on the button that describes the action it would lead to like ‘submit’, ‘download the whitepaper’, etc.

·         Lastly, visual clues pointing towards the CTAs can help in directing the viewers’ attention.

 2.     SlideShare can help

SlideShare hosting service has been around for a while now and businesses, as well as individuals, use it to upload presentations that need to be shared online. It has been found that over two-thirds of the traffic on SlideShare comes from targeted searches on search engines. Here are a few tips to score leads from SlideShare.

·         Keep the headline bold and insert relevant visuals.

·         Prefer the content to be search engine optimized.

·         Lesser words, more pictures.

·         No more than one idea on one slide. Use charts and diagrams to elaborate.

 3.     Make the best of exit-intent pop-ups

Instead of an immediate pop-up when a person visits your website, place it very strategically and preferably, at the exit. This keeps the visitors warm and doesn’t make them panic. Also, here are a few things to consider:

·         Let them choose between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’.

·         Prefer the simple CTAs with minimal visuals or text.

·         Responsive designs drive more actions.

·         Measure your results.

 4.     Premium content should be gated

The content like infographics, whitepapers, and eBooks should be gated. This means that people should give contact details in order to get access to this content. A few tips with making the most of your gate content:

·         Deploy intelligent form and do not give too many repeat fill-out requests.

·         Prefer an SEO optimized landing page.

·         Once a visitor gets through after registering and downloading, display a ‘Thank you’ message.

 5.     Improve the quality of your content

Existing content needs to be given a new life by upgrading it to the best version and making it search optimized. Further, bundle the content for different channels. Here’s what you can do:

·         Make use of a good blog post to start a conversation in LinkedIn groups.

·         Make good articles into an eBook that is available on your landing page.

·         Use social media statistics to expand your audience.

 6.     A personalized direct email campaign can go a long way

Nothing hits customers more than a personalized email. Use it to get in touch with your new and existing customers. Also, you may want to reach out to someone who has worked with you in the past. A few tips that will make this effort better:

·         Differentiate customers on the basis of their buying patterns and the time lapsed.

·         Create target lists with messages customized just for them.

·         Provide an incentive if they contact you back.

·         Customer service should deal with them as if your company already knows them well.

MarkSpace Media identifies itself as demand generation, lead generation, and IT service-provider Company. With more than 25 clients across various sectors, MarkSpace has managed to retain 95% of the customers and has an upscale of 4000 percent in revenue. What makes it stand out among the other competitors is that fact that the team behind it is customer-centric and manages to pull out the desired outcome in toughest scenarios.

For any company to survive the market competition, it has to focus on maximizing its ROI. ROI stands for return on investment and can be understood as a performance measure that determines how much has a company gained from certain investment. In simpler terms, it is the profit that a company has made on some investment. MarkSpace Media helps the businesses increase their ROI and take their business to next level.

Here’s how we did it.

B2B Lead Generation Services

The team at MarkSpace Media is keen on narrowing the gap between the service provider and the buyer. We make efforts to bring both parties together and go on to generate more leads. Lead Generation is the gist of all marketing and hence, the business. Therefore, we bring in the best lead generation strategies that there are and deploy them to make sure you have enough and good quality leads. A lot of time and resources are invested in finding the right target audience and creating a good sales pipeline. We understand the importance of the lead generation process and leave no stone unturned get the desired outcomes. Our previous clients take pride in our work and we strive to continue doing it.

Account Profiling

Under this segment, the MarkSpace Media team endeavors to help you know your target accounts and the key people behind them. Therefore, we help you see more business opportunities and score more deals. The idea is to expose you to the most authentic, customized, and fresh information as per your requirements. We use multiple verification methods to make sure the information at your hand is complete and verified.

ABM

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is one of the best B2B strategies that result in better sales as it helps to focus the efforts to specific accounts that are most likely to buy. Therefore, personalized campaigns are run under this strategy to cater to the needs of the target accounts. We help you frame the right target account list and use to send personalized content, which most often results in conversions and sales.

Sales-Qualified Leads

We believed that a sales-qualified lead is crucial to a business. We help you qualify the leads and understand whether they are ready for the next level or not. We undertake targeted research and qualify SQLs so that they can be approached with customized content and efforts.

IT Services

We provide an array of competitive IT services in the industry. This includes application and software development, search engine optimization (SEO), web hosting services, and web design and development. We are known for the quality of our services and commitment towards the quality.

Social Media Marketing

MarkSpace Media has an upper hand in social media marketing strategies where we endeavor to make the businesses get increased visibility online. Our team is well-equipped and skilled to make use of the best social media to promote the businesses. This includes tools like blogging, online videos, social bookmarking, photo-sharing, publishing articles, and public relations. We understand the power of social media and are trained to get the maximum benefit out of it.

What the future looks like?

B2B Lead Generation is one of the most important factors for any B2B service providing company. However, generating quality leads is not one of the easiest jobs out there, hence many companies have found that outsourcing B2B Lead Generation made more sense. Many companies claim to be able to provide you with sales-ready B2B leads, but making sure that the leads provided by these companies are of good quality is important too, for you to end up with high return on investment (ROI).

There is one major problem associated with the purchasing of leads, they take out a huge chunk of your marketing budget. It is an investment that you must make in order to get returns. However, trying to justify this expense is usually very difficult. There are a lot of marketers who tend to shy away from buying leads since they do not know how to justify this expense. This is a short-term problem and will go away as soon as the ROI is seen.

To ensure that you are buying good quality leads you first must “Define a Lead Generation ROI”

Before you buy leads from a third party you have to ensure that you have a clear idea of what the ROI is. Calculating this kind of ROI is similar to that of traditional ROI the only difference being that your gain is calculated based on the number of opportunities that have been acquired through the leads. This can be calculated by a simple formula.

Although this formula can be used for almost everything keeping a track of the ROI is difficult unless you divide it into even smaller parts, namely, Creator-Level Metrics, Manager-level Metrics, and Director-Level Metrics. At this point, it may be a little difficult to understand but when you find the right B2B Lead Generation service you can gain very high amounts of ROI in a shorter period of time.

Here are a few simpler steps to ensure that the leads you are buying are of good quality

Make sure that the targeting requirements provided by you to the B2B Leads Generation service provider are clearly defined. Without doing this you may end up with leads that do not fit your requirement and are ultimately useless to you. These guidelines help the B2B leads provider get a direction that can help them choose the channel that they are going to use to generate the leads. If any of the leads do not match this requirement, ensure that there is a return policy in place. This return policy also helps to hold the B2B Leads provider accountable for the leads that they send to you.

There are three basic categories of requirements for a lead.

Firmographic: Details about the companies that have to be targeted.

BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline of the contact. Although this is one of the best ways to measure the requirement it may be difficult to find a lead that fits all the criteria.

Intent: This is based on the position that your target contacts are in their buying process. The further along they are in the buying process the better the chances of them choosing your service.

Insist on Accurate Data

Various leads providers do not always provide you with the most accurate data. This is especially true for companies that claim to give you leads at unbelievably low prices. This may cause you to have numerous awkward conversations due to faulty information, or contact the same lead multiple times due to multiple entries, or get an array of failed delivery notifications due to inaccurate email ids. Make sure that the B2B leads that you get from your service provider are accurate and that your service provider has the resources to back these leads up.

Diversify the Source of Your Leads

Relying on only one method of generating leads could be a huge risk. Lately, more and more companies have started to use multiple ways of generating leads. They use inbound as well as outbound lead generation methods. This improves the quality of leads that you can get.

Pay for Quality

At the end of the day you get only what you pay for, so make sure that you choose to pay a little higher for better-qualified leads rather than get a higher quantity of leads at a lower price but later have to use precious time to qualify these leads.

Keep in Mind the Method of Delivery

You should not have to jump through hoops in order to gain access to your data. Make sure that the method your service provider uses to deliver the leads is easy to access. In an ideal scenario, the leads should be directly sent to your CRM by the B2B Lead Generation service provider.

Ever thought of hiring a demand generation company? It looks like an added expenditure at a first glance and so, most of the businesses actually consider doing demand generation by themselves. However, the fastest-growing businesses have found that outsourcing demand generation is more beneficial and cost-effective. This article will briefly discuss a few important factors that highlight the advantages of hiring a third party for demand generation.

Understanding Demand Generation

The term demand generation can be understood as a name given to all the processes involved in getting a potential customer excited about your company’s services or products. In simple words, it is defined as a strategy that makes your prospects feel the need for your services or products. It has been found that demand generation programs help your business enter new markets and promote your services and products. This, further, generates consumer buzz, generate PR, and retains the existing customers.

However, you must understand that demand generation is much more than just branding. The goal of this strategy is to nurture potential customers for the long term. There are multiple smaller processes involved in this to achieve a larger goal. Don’t forget that it is not just a quick solution to your business woes but a process that will generate long-term benefits.

How a demand generation company can help?

Experts on the job

Outsourcing demand generation can take your business to the next level because demand generation companies are the people who are experts in the job. Instead of your marketing and sales team handling all the processes, the demand generation company team is able to handle them more effectively and efficiently. Their specialized team of experts also acts as a vital support to your internal marketing team.

Result-oriented approach

The skilled professionals at the company are focused on results. Their approach towards work is, therefore, more result-oriented than your marketing and sales teams. They are hired to generate results and that is their primary goal. Therefore, they implement multiples strategies to prove their worth and add value to your business. You must not shy away from hiring a company that will multiply your results.

Specialized in marketing automation

Demand generation companies are specialized in marketing automation tools. They are experts in determining what works best for what type of business. Therefore, they can help you make the most of your existing investment. It is a fulltime job in itself to implement marketing automation to drive maximum profits.

Go beyond cold calling

The team engaged in demand generation in the company you have hired use the tools beyond cold calling to drive results. Data suggests that only 2% of cold calls actual result in appointments. Therefore, it is for the skilled professionals to know what works in which scenario. They use emails, newsletters, blogs, social media, videos, and other tools that are most effective in the world of late.

Smaller sales cycle

With the right tools being used and the best strategies at work, a demand generation company can effectively shorten the sales cycles. This means that there is a significant drop in the time taken by your prospect to move to sales since their first interaction with your brand or services. Smaller sales cycle often results in higher sales volume because the more time customers take, the higher are their chances to not buy from you.

Increase online presence

One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing demand generation is that it increases your online presence considerably. This is because the people at work will leverage the power of social media and online tools to drive results and therefore, you are more visible online.